This isn’t where I expected to begin my fourth decade here on Earth. Heck, this isn’t where I expected to be on my last birthday. But, here I am.
Now, it’s actually the 25th here, but I’m hoping to get this out before the 24th ends back home – I was making rather merry last night (to quote Bob Cratchit) and didn’t have time to write. I really don’t have time to write now, because I wanted to take some time to reflect on thirty. It’s a big milestone. Young adulthood is starting to slip into the rearview mirror and middle age is looming before me. I’m now the same age my father was when I was born. Did Dad feel as uncertain as everything as I do? Was he just making it up as he went along, too?
Probably.
So I have some thinking to do, and some writing. But to give that the time it deserves means not publishing something today, and I really do want to get in the habit.
I’m a long way from just about everyone I know. Apart from a handful of acquaintances in Japan, every human being I’ve ever called friend is about 15 timezones away from me. So I was worried about being lonely on my birthday.
But I failed to take the environment into account.
See, human beings, I think, have a way of responding to pressure. If life is easy and mostly stress-free, if we’re comfortable, we’ll stick with our chosen groups, and it becomes hard to meet people and make new friends. From the time I graduated to the time I came here, I made very few new friends – basically just my coworkers at Wydown, and my natural introversion meant it took literal years for me to open up to them, much as I love them. I’m not good at making fast friends.
But put us in a high pressure environment and we’ll cling to anyone who can empathize, like a sailor to a rock in a storm. Think of the people you meet at, say, freshman orientation in college. It’s almost a desperate frenzy to connect with people all week – people are never again so welcoming in the cafeteria every day! Two people I met my first week at Truman – more than ten years ago now, can you believe it? – I still call friends, although I see them far less often than I should like (I miss you, Lauren & Josh. I hope you’re both living your best lives. If you read this, I send my love).
Korea, it turns out, is similar. The four hundred of us at orientation were again in that almost desperate race to make friends, to find people who might be near us, anyone who could give us some company and support as we hurtle into the deep end of a totally alien existence.
If you remember, I’m…not good at that. I remember walking, lonely, around the lake, wondering how I would hold it together for a year. As I made my way back into the dorm, after sunset, I passed a group of people sitting outside at a picnic table. Now, at orientation, we all had to wear nametags, which also shared our province. And as I walked by, I happened to see out of the corner of my eye – Gwangju.
I nearly went in. I was tired, and it was late, and I was in low spirits.
But I did not.
I turned around, and found that the table was full of everyone going to Gwangju, the group having declared a bonding experience before departure. I joined them, and didn’t go to bed for hours.
We rode the bus down together, and we have a group chat, and through the last month the dozen or so EPIK teachers who arrived with me have been my closest support group here in Korea. So, with my birthday rapidly approaching, I thought to see if anyone would want to go to dinner with me, even though it was Tuesday night, to celebrate.
Not even a hesitation. Everyone flooded out – Shelby, Sadia, Saoirse, Shanice, Sarah, Rachel, Tom, Lily, Erica, Maria, Nadine. We met up at a Korean barbecue restaurant a veteran teacher had recommended to us.
I had told them I wanted three things for my birthday: Good food, good drink, and good conversation. All three were to be had in abundance. Our conversations wandered from Harry Potter (“There are only two real houses – Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.”) to Shakespeare (a no-talent hack stealing all his plots, or a genius wordsmith? Why not both?) to Blade Runner and all manner of other subjects. A steady supply of Korean beef and pork flowed across our plates. The lights were warm, and the drinks were good. Allow me to quote Virginia Woolf –
And thus by degrees was lit, half-way down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company—in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one’s kind!
– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own.
It was one of the finest meals I can ever remember (rivaled only by a dinner on a rainy Guatemalan evening at Cafe Sky, with the glow of Antigua around us and in the shadow of the volcano, and by a warm summer’s lunch in the agora of Athens, enjoying ouzo and bruschetta on the same stones that once saw Socrates driving his countrymen insane with questions). I was so grateful to everyone for coming out to join and celebrate thirty with me.
Naturally, we went out for dessert – bingsu (I hope I spelled that right).
I was taught to arrange my fingers in the shape of a heart for a picture with the dessert…but I regrettably couldn’t quite grasp the concept.
Gradually, the night grew old – we did all have to teach in the morning after all. So we began to drift towards our separate busses and subways, headed home to face another day in Gwangju paradise. But before I went, my friends surprised me with one last surprise: A card, signed by all of them. ;_;
And so closed an evening that, in the end, was everything I could possibly have wanted for my thirtieth birthday. I’m not lonely here. Not anymore. I do miss everyone back home, of course. All of you, reading this – I can’t wait to see you again and to have the “subterranean glow” of discourse. But in your absence, though, I will be okay.
Thinking on it reminds me of the old song that Mrs. Files had us sing in 8th grade choir to warm up our vocal cords every morning:
Make new friends
But keep the old –
One is silver
And the other gold!
Gwangju Dreaming 