Sept. 13 - Letting Go

 I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect last Saturday in Seoul. I ran my fourth half marathon with one of my students and finally finished in less than two hours. Running with him, I realized he represented all of the students that I’ve had in the last three years – intelligent, generous, fun, interesting, different than me and loaded with lessons to teach me. The weather that day was the most beautiful we had in Seoul this year and we were in my very favorite part of the city – the parks along The Han River. There was greenery with flowers all in bloom on one side of me and the light of the sun was bouncing off the river on the other. It was the most beautiful Seoul has ever looked to me.

At night, I went out dancing with my friends, many of whom I only recently realized don’t speak a whole lot of English. In a place where it’s too loud to talk much anyway, we’ve mostly communicated through dancing and body language for the past three years, yet we’ve become extremely close; it hadn’t fully occurred to me before just how insignificant language barriers can be. That was an interesting reminder for someone who enjoys studying linguistics but anyway…I know it’ll be very difficult for me to leave these friends.

In fact, when I was running my race, I had a momentary thought that I never wanted the race to end – it was so beautiful and I felt so alive that I wished it would last forever. I quickly realized, however, that that wasn’t really what I would want; when the time came to cross the finish line, I knew it would feel just right. I knew I’d be ready for the end of the race in the exact moment that it ended – not a moment sooner nor a moment later. Life is always that way. I realized too that I’d begun to feel the same way about leaving Korea – which has been a perfect moment in time for me – but again I realized the truth. It’s true that it needs to come to an end; I feel great and I will continue to feel that way even when this chapter of my life comes to a close. I’m thankful for the race and for the entirety of my time in Korea. Letting the beautiful moments pass by instead of trying to hold onto them forever seems difficult at first but I know that when I do so, I give those moments the chance to change into something even more beautiful.