sorry folks for the looooooong absence.
i lost a lot of momentum in february. i got back some bad lab results and had to see not my regular doctor. she turned out to be fatphobic and just a really poor match for me. my regular (awesome and way queer) doc is not working in private practice currently, so i've been having to see her in the teaching clinic which is basically some level of purgatory where i get slow, barely competent and very impersonal care. it's being supervised by my regular doc, but i only see her for 5-10 minutes per appointment, and she has not been following up with me like she used to. needless to say it's been a super distressing few months and my health and care has brought up a lot of issues for me that i'm trying to trudge through while also keeping all the moving parts of my life in order.
this saturn shit is reaaaaaaaal serious, y'all.
so while trying to get medical stuff under control while also preparing myself for a 7-month stay in korea with a really tight budget and somewhat unpredictable everything...
and working a ton, hustling a ton, trying to budget and save...
it's been kinda stressful. and like i said, i just lost momentum.
a recent ballot measure failed that would provide extra funding to our direly underfunded transit system here in Seattle, and it's failure means that bus service is going to be cut by 15%. it's a phase in over several months, but it means that my boo will not be able to get home from work after 11pm, and it also will severely limit the neighborhoods in which i will be able to work. so we've had to move a car purchase to the top of our priority list, and for a minute i thought i was going to have to cancel my whole trip.
but we decided to trust the universe and take the leap. i've booked my flights, secured housing, submitted scholarship applications...
and here we are. i depart in less than 90 days. i'm ending my regular job at the end of july, and i'm starting to tell other families that i'm leaving at the end of august but hope to work for at least the first couple of months. so far, every reaction has been pretty much "i'm so upset that you're leaving but i'm also so happy for you". so that feels good. i'm going to really miss all my kiddos, though. and i hope that at least a few of my families will still have a spot for me when i get back in the country.
i'm still feeling a lot of anxiety. i've been recently cut down with a bad sinus infection, and have had lots of stomach and hormone issues, and i'm feeling super helpless and don't know how i will take care of myself without my boo (or anyone to care for me). and i'm just going to miss them, and our kitties, and our comfortable little nested life.
i live/love to obsess and plan. i have an obsessional personality in general, and planning helps me to deal with my anxiety. it can also create anxiety. but, well, nothing's perfect.
i decided to start a new project to propel me through the next three months. i'm compiling information from travel guides, the internet and my records from my first trip to home to create a binder of destinations. i've got information about scenic spots, museums, historical sights, hikes, shopping, arts, k-pop, and food, food, food. it's all written up with room for notes, stuck into sheet protectors and organized by category.
this journey is really about going beyond my comfort zone. not just in putting myself out there to learn language and speak it, but to go beyond the narrow, sheltered world i created on my first trip. i'm going to eat things! all the things! even weird things! and take buses! and hike mountains! and get outside of seoul!
this project has definitely rekindled my excitement. it reminds me of all the documentation i'm going to do - taking pictures, notes, collecting pamphlets and napkins and postcards and it feels really good to have a vessel for curating this collection.
anyway, real life boring post, check!
here's to new horizons, and stretching, every day.
