When the foreign becomes familiar.

I have an hour to kill before it is time for preboarding. There is a pit in the middle of my stomach and I am trying to distinguish the reason for it. This feeling of anxiousness began at 5am this morning when I woke up and could not go back to bed. It settled down for a bit and I went along the routine to make sure that I did not get to the airport without the proper identification or information. Jecheon, the city that I reside in, has a new direct service bus to Incheon International airport. It is a long journey that takes almost four hours, but being able to avoid the inconvenience of switching buses is worth it. So the four hours plus the wait of almost four hours at the airport itself has made for a long day. The plane ride is another 11.5 hours and then I will be home.

Now back to the main point, the feelings of anxiety has taken over as I am about to leave, albeit for a short time, from the place that I have been calling home for the last 9 months. Truthfully, there has been a few times where I have left Jecheon to go to Seoul and felt a more mild reaction. Maybe it is the fear that everyone has grown in a direction different than my own and I will feel like an alien in a place that I have called home for 17 years.

I know that Korea is not a perfect place and there are many difficulties that have been faced with more to come in the future. I have been living alone and the thought of going back home and reverting back to the person I was scares me.

Could I have fallen in love with a country that has this love/hate relationship with the foreign community? The possibilities are high and there is no doubt that I have grown fond of the lifestyle. Although my workload is continuously increasing, it is gratifying.

Reverse cultureshock is setting in and I am not even ready to move home yet.

I will focus on the positive aspects such as seeing my family and friends, getting to sleep in my old bed, and indulging in all of the minute things that use to bring me joy.

October of 2010 will be difficult if these emotions are surfacing already.