Two Months

Time.

It is merely a measurement. It is a unit by which we dictate how long something takes to accomplish, when we will meet someone, or whether or not we are late to an appointment. Time can be seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. Time can also be wasted, stolen, given, or lost. Time is how we organize our lives, from what time we wake up in the morning to how long it takes us to get to work, from when we eat our meals to how long we will sit in class.

Time can also fly. The older I get, the more I realize that, for me, time began as indecipherable and unimportant numbers on a clock but somehow evolved into the Concorde, transporting me through life at supersonic speeds.

Two months. In the scheme of life, it's not really much at all. But much can happen in two months. At the beginning of these two months, I stepped from my aunt and uncle's car in Minneapolis and embraced familiarity for the last time. At the beginning of these two months, I was sitting in a Singapore Airlines window seat, watching the endless span of clouds and ocean float gently below me, oblivious to the change that was happening in my life. At the beginning of these two months, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into as I walked out of the terminal and could not understand one word the woman greeting arriving passengers was saying. At the beginning of these two months, I was sitting on the floor in my tiny new room - no sheets for my bed, two sets of bars on my window, and unfamiliarity seeping into my body by all five senses as each second ticked away. I was crying out to God asking why I had come to this place, informing Him that surely I'd misheard Him. I could easily pack up all my belongings and go home if that's what He wanted me to do.

The middle of these two months was full of trials, loneliness, sadness, and fear. But, it was even more full of happiness, laughter, smiles, life-changing experiences, strengthening (and testing) of faith and character, and a step closer to finding who the person that is me really is. Sound cliche? If so, too bad. I dislike cliche-sounding things, but the above words are the truth, so why write anything else? These two months were full of traveling, eating, trying new things, making new friends, and learning to be prepared to do anything, at any and all times (I may not be able to do the splits to the ground, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to be flexible).

The end of these first two months in South Korea finds me sitting at my kitchen table on a Saturday night, eating some Kashi I bought at Costco and typing out this post. I never saw myself at this point as the wheels of my jet lifted off that last bit of U.S. tarmac. Now that I'm here, I can't imagine life without these two months. Teaching English in Korea hasn't been all that I've expected it to be, but it's also been more than I expected it to be. Sure I've had problems. Sure I've felt like giving up, skipping town (or country), heading back, flying away. Sure I've been surrounded, and at times, overwhelmed by unfamiliarity. But who hasn't? Who in their life has never faced a new situation, something foreign and unfamiliar to them, something that no experience in their life up to that point could have prepared them for? If not for challenges, how would we grow? How would we become the people we are supposed to be? Stagnation is for those fearful of the possibility of failure. I know - I used to be there. At one point in my life, I embraced stagnation, found peace and stability in it. It was the known that kept my life calm. The known kept me on top, away from that sneering creature of failure. But I've begun to realize that change should become my more constant companion, even though it is accompanied by many unknowns. If we fear the unknown, we will never know if it truly is to fear because it remains unknown. Don't get me wrong, I still get nervous when I'm faced with unknown situations. Instead of always running from them now though, I've begun to face them. I have found that life becomes more interesting, as do I. I challenge (there's that word again. lol) you to face an unknown today. Start out small and as the unknowns grow, so will you. Life is what you make of it, so dare yourself to make it an adventure.