An Ending

This one is going to be abrupt.
Loose ends will still fly in the bitter South Korean cold. 
I'm a handful of days away from finishing my year long contract teaching middle school students in the northern rural outskirts of South Korea.

November always seems to dictate the time for change.  Sitting on the cusp of winter and desperately trying to cling on to a fleeting fall, there is a sense of urgency with November.  With the onset of coldness, of darker days and longer nights,  I need a new task, challenge, or adventure to distract me from the sadness of winter.

As with most endings, you start to ponder the beginning.
The differences between the me of last year to the me sitting here on this day trying to figure out what this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomache is caused from, is as apparent as the black Michael Jackson and the white Michael Jackson.

I have noticed the first six months of this blog were posts  filled with new traveling experiences, festivals I celebrated, mountains I've climbed, new places I've seen, people I have met, and food I have eaten.

The last six months of posts focused on me, a growing me, a me losing faith, hope, and happiness in that which makes up living. 
I have reached some really horrific lows since being here, mostly the result of learning things I didnt know about myself (including the easy capacity in which I can hurt people and let myself be hurt by them), the people in this world, and the state of superficiality in Asia. 
But lets not fail to mention the many moments of euphoria that have so powerfully changed the shape and content of my soul.

Just short of a year ago, I stepped into Pearson International with a scared as shit dog and one suitcase, never having left the country where I had, despite my best adolescent efforts, had a pretty sheltered upbringing.  That me then, the untravelled me, the surrounded me, the me who's happiness was so easily vaccumed away with boredom seems lost to a version of me thats now a bit more travelled, a lot more unsheltered, but seemingly, still a lot bored with a lot more unanswered questions.

I am brought back to this quote time and time again: "the journey of discovery is not in seeing different landscapes, but in seeing with different eyes."

Yeah, my eyes are different now.  They keep changing.  All the time and so fast. And its changing the me I've known all of my life.  Its hard for me to keep up.