If I could have imagined my life a month on from that last post I made, I sure would NOT have pictured it as it has unfolded in the last four weeks. At some point we must all take a leap of faith and unfortunately my leap didn't work out but instead fell. Ryno and I broke up in the first week of December. What can I say, at some point in a relationship you either have to jump in with both feet or run away as quickly as possible, and unfortunately, my man felt that he had not seen enough, hooked enough fish or had enough faith that we were meant to be to jump in, and so he cut and ran. I can't say that I am happy about his decision, but i do have to respect it and therefore December has been a month of re-invention or rather re-discovery for me. Re-discovering what it means to be a single, professional young woman living abroad in Seouth Korea. In many ways, I know how to be this person better than how to be 'the girlfriend', so although it hurts to be told that you are 'Not the ONE', I still know how to be myself.
In some ways, the first week of December was the best possible time to end something because I was more than able to throw myself into the chaos of the end of a teaching semester at University. The last weeks of classes, finals prep, watching final presentations, marking over 100 students on a curve and imputting marks... It all added up to be a good distraction, but not quite enough.
Obviously, the end of a relationship leaves you questioning the what and how of it all as well as the who. Who can you hang out with now? What can you do now that your regular habits and routines have been blow to smitherines? What did you do BEFORE all of this happened? What did you used to like to do as a single before words like compromise and regular sex were part of your vocabulary? It's been a month of stopping, thinking hard and pushing myself to get back to my passions without any regard to anyone else. In this respect, breakups are not wholly a bad thing. If only it were so easy to maintain the same amount of autonomy and drive IN a relationship, maybe this whole mess could have been avoided. It would appear that the very reasons I was writing about in my last blog are resonsible for the ending of my relationship. Forget the
WE, keep the
ME strong and clear and focused. So here I AM on the last day of 2012 ready to re-invest in
MYSELF not the girlfriend.
With holiday plans somewhat disrupted, Christmas was a very small affair this year. I did my best to do the things that make me feel great like get out and see music (rock gigs and Christmas productions like Handel's Messiah). I shopped for Christmas decorations and wrapped presents. I went to a printing workshop and made homemade Christmas cards for my family and friends. I invested in being creative in my daily life in as many ways as I could think of.
I even gave Christmas baking a try and spent the day of Christmas eve in my tiny student sized kitchen making chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. It was quite a chore as I had to do everything by and and my toaster over will only bake 4-6 cookies at a time!!! But it was a great success and I was able to give my friends some great Christmas treats and heat my appatment with the smells of baking cookies at the smae time :P
I have spent the last several Christmases with my Irish friends Dara and Jesse and this year was no exception. The only difference was that instead of buying in to a Christmas meal at a foreign bar, we decided to make out own!! And what a feat we DID make!!! On Christmas day, I went over to their apartment bearing gifts of cookies and wine. THen we spent the entire afternoon cooking up the most delicious vegetarian feast ever!!!!! Roasted veg, scalloped cheese potatos, stuffing, mashed sweet potatos, gravy, mixes steamed veg.... and last but not leastl Dara made an amazing red wine and tomato chicken dish which turned out amazingly well!!!!!!!
We feasted, and drank then spent several hours in a blissful food coma drinking Baileys Irish Cream, delicious wine, nibbling on cookies and watching hilarious Brittish Crhistmas TV specials. What a great way to spend Christmas away from the family! Having delightful, sympathetic friends must be one of the greatest joys of life. I have been lucky enough to make several good friends this past year including the lovely South African couple Nicola and Jaco.
A couple days after Christmas, I got on a bus to Anseong (a city an hour south of Seoul) to go and visit Nicola and Jaco. My intention was to stay for one afternoon, but I ended up staying for 2 and a half days instead!!!!!! What a great time we had, talking, bringing good wine into local pizza joints, walking around the beautiful university campus, making snow men, getting supremely drunk on free shots and then eating the best hangover burger in the WORLD!!!
I'll be heading back to Anseong again soon with any luck! THis time we will have to build a snowman family! With good experiences such as these, I can't say that my life has been anything less than good over this holiday season. For sure, it has been more lonely and sad than I anticipated, but I remain strong and optimistic that 2013 will be a good year for me. A year of re-focusing my energy towards the things that I want to do and accomplish in my life. In many ways, i have been handed an opportunity to be as selfish, focused and determined as I can be without any regards to pleasing anyone else. Although a large part of me loved being the 'girlfriend' I accept that in the end I can only ever really be 'myself' and now I leave 2012 with the sattisfaction of knowing that it was an increadibly good year for me and that 2013 is a blank canvas full of possibilities just waiting for me to pick up my brush and go for it.
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