I will let the Gerbily mess with this page 😀

(A 2am Poem)

The perfectionist inside behaves like a demon, waiting for the right moment to strike.

It sits in the dark, lurking, observing, and learning which movements are best repurposed as criticisms, which goals are not lofty enough for satisfaction.

With the demon unchecked, it grows larger and changes shape into all of the ways that effort is not enough. 

Effort is never enough.

When will this work ever be enough?

Questioning, loathing, and hatred are all the demon will create.

Perfection is far from the eye.

The aftermath that rages on with goals that will never grow smaller grows larger…

…

I refuse.

I name this demon. I silence him. He is not me, and I am not he.

This is not who I am or ever have to be.

I will accept me for me and my effort as okay.

Acknowledge that all one can ever give is their best, which looks different each day.

I learn to give myself grace as I would give to others.

I choose to live life in a more prosperous way.

11/12/2024 – Oh wow, last time I was so artsy. Alright everyone/ no one, BUCKLE UP because I’ve got a long treat for you. First off, my laptop died last month, and I forgot I needed AN ADAPTER for my laptop, phone, and Switch. My intended plan to update this blog at least once a week got a good bit derailed. That being said, we press on. I will now give all of the updates I wanted to give before in great detail and hopefully in a logical enough order of thoughts. 

1. I am one month into living in Korea now! The time has flown by so quickly. It feels like I’ve hardly been here at all. I’ve finally set up (almost) all of my essentials like banking, Korean ID, Korean phone plan, etc. This means that I can (almost) function as most Koreans do normally in society!… as soon as my first paycheck hits my Korean bank account. Unfortunately, the banking here seems complicated, and though I’ve opened an account, I didn’t put money in it yet and I can’t access the banking app without some certificate, and I forgot my password, and I still don’t have my debit card. Basically, the whole thing is fucked until I go in on Thursday and tell them S.O.S., I have questions and need more assistance. However, I’m on the cusp of this issue being settled and being able to complete all things “normally”.  My next step will be signing up for more daily life things like dance and language classes. I’ve already found a few that I intend to sign up for and/ or try. Now is just a matter of money, time, and commitment to them. I’m still finalizing and handling the early stuff like feeling more comfortable with grocery shopping, daily job/ sleep schedule, and what-have-you before I solidify those though. I can tell within another month though that these too will be started.
2. Personally, I quite like my job. The teaching is straightforward, the kids and great, the location is great, and I am feeling less anxious and more confident. There has been some drama with a teacher that hates it here and wants to leave and tried to drag me under the bus with her last week, but it has only minimally impacted me. I’m a good teacher and a bad bitch, so I have learned to simply live and let live. Shitty and unpleasant people exist in all spaces, but the coworker on my floor is wonderful (we even went grocery shopping together today), so I’m not bothered. The children are still brilliant, wonderful, and the light of my life. Even kids on other floors that I briefly covered their class for another teacher will say hi to me now or hug me. I might teach some of them next school year (in February) so I’m looking forward to this. Speaking of next school year and coworkers though, I am the only foreign teacher that will be staying. While I’m sad that two of the teachers are leaving, I do like that it will be a bunch of new faces, so there will be less room for drama. I can also help control the narrative of the school so that people don’t have a bad perception walking into it. I think perception is key to these places. If you perceive it as flawed, you will look for bad things. If you perceive it as pleasant, you will look for pleasant things. Well, I’m an optimistic ray of fucking sunshine, so these fucks are gonna be optimistic DAMN IT. No drama. No bad vibes. Fun students. Fun staff. Fun times. Kachow.
3. I saw TXT in concert for the first time, and I swear every experience here every weekend is just a blast. Every day, every night, it’s exactly what I was longing for. As luck would have it, I not only secured one of the last tickets to this show, but the girl next to me was there alone and visiting from Japan, so we spoke in Japanese and had a great time together. We also got a fan interaction with one of the members and giggled together. The following day, I went to a music festival, saw ATEEZ with a girl from Scotland, and once again got another fan interaction from my favorite member. They also played songs they don’t usually play, which made my heart melt. Soon, they’ll be releasing a new album, so I’m super excited for my first album release experience in Korea. So many little and big things to be grateful for each and every weekend here, including these people and moments. This past weekend, I stayed out until 4am singing karaoke with a friend, went to a cat cafe, won a cute Kirby at a claw machine after two tries, and then met up with a guy for a date at a cafe the next day (We have a second date this weekend where I’m really testing him by seeing how he responds to a little more unveiling of my k-pop love and buying of an album… I’ll unbox the album at home though because he’s not ready for all that.).
4. I’m so happy I’m feeling so settled in now. My grocery shopping trip today was my second trip to this particular store, but I felt only a small fraction of the anxiety I felt the first time I walked into that store. Because of that, I was able to buy so many more food and home essentials (hence why my laptop is now powered up and I am writing this). I even got essential sauces, frozen foods, etc so that I can stop eating out so much. I’m trying to plan safely so that I’m ready when my family comes to visit during the holidays. I can’t believe they’ll be here in just over a month too. Other closer upcoming events include a mini field trip on Thursday with my students, a mini birthday celebration for a student tomorrow, and maybe just a day to relax this Sunday. I haven’t really had a day yet where I stayed at home over the weekend. I like being busy, exploring, and even doing small new things like a new cafe in a place that I know. I’ll probably at least do that, but straying too far from my home gets expensive, so I’ll probably hold off on going too wild on Sunday. I might just find a quiet cafe and read some novels and study Korean.

I cannot adequately describe how elated I am that things are working in my favor. Today, I got a bit emotional. I heard a clip of a new song from an artist I respect and the whole song is about how it is important to just keep going no matter what others say or think and how that itself is perfectly enough. Just after that, I saw a video of someone else speaking candidly on mental health. These really touched me because of the journey I’ve been on so far. Where I am now feels like one of the best places I’ve been at in my life to date.

The last 5 years have been such a journey for me. There was a point in time where I didn’t want to be alive anymore. I cried knowing that in that space, I would tell no one. Mental health is something I have worked for many years to manage in different ways. I crawled my way out of that hole only for COVID to change my core ideology of both myself and the world. My college experience was wildly changed as well as my job, my teaching, the one thing that kept me alive when I found no joy within myself. After this, I made a life for myself in Virigina surrounded by family, friends, and loved ones. I made it a point to try all of the new things I’d been dying to do and visit places and events in the U.S. that I’d wanted to see when the opportunities presented themselves in 2022. That was a year of laughter, love, and learning. To date, 2022 was the best year of my life. Then, I finally made my way to Japan. I experienced a new way of life, found new parts of myself that I didn’t know existed, and had to reconcile the past versions of me with the present. My ideas of myself, the world, and my goals once more shifted. I was elated that I accomplished so many goals before even reaching 25 but also disappointed that the biggest goal I had set out to fulfill since about 20 years old had some challenges that I could not have ever imagined. Japan showed me I am so much stronger than I ever thought I was and has left me with so many happy and unforgettable memories that I still talk about to this day (often). However, it also taught me that it’s okay to know when to pull the plug on an adventure that has ran its course; this is not a failure.

From the end of my time in Japan to my return to the U.S., I then experienced some of the scariest health symptoms I’ve encountered in my life so far. After health tests in multiple countries, I was diagnosed with a lifelong autoimmune disease that was and is life changing. I thought I could no longer move out of country again if I wanted to. I thought I couldn’t even travel for longer than a month at most. My doctor told me foods I loved couldn’t be enjoyed, and I was scared to eat more than bread and soup for months. I didn’t want to see friends and family who I loved and cared about as this humiliating disease was actively consuming not just my body, but my mind. This experience devastated me, as I felt part of the core of my passion and spiritual core was being denied. In addition to coping with the end of a long journey and settling into familiar but different surroundings, I had to try to cope with a disease and very different life due to my health. Prednisone Moon Face, body rash, tooth sensitivity, aching joints, and the bi-weekly shots of a medication that only helps 8% of people, the streams of tears on the phone with insurance over these ludicrous treatments and procedures, the fear that one stressful day was going to send my body back into attacking itself– none of these were anticipated experiences of 2024, but they were reality. To top it all, despite being back with loved ones, I felt this disconnect from myself and others. I felt isolation and culture shock in Japan, but this return was another form of isolation and culture shock. Even some people that I thought were friends from teenage years turned out to not be active figures in my life anymore. In short, social, mental, and physical aspects of my life were all completely changed again, but worse this time. If Japan hadn’t taught me resilience, the first half a year returning to the U.S. certainly did. Things improved a good bit when the flare up calmed down, but I had still continued to feel a disconnect from my surroundings, my job, and my general life. My soul was not yet satisfied. This motivated me to further try to take control of my life, both present and future, in all aspects including social, mental, and physical; I succeeded in this.

For the record, I’m incredibly grateful for what I’ve learned from this year. I learned that my condition isn’t as bad as I thought it was, so I am still quite able-bodied. I now know better how to manage the disease as well, so there’s no point in getting scared over possibilities related to my condition that are not and may never be active realities. I’m still able to work, live, and travel; for me, this fact alone is a gift that I must take advantage of while I currently can. When you experience months where you think you might not be able to normally resume such basic aspects of life, it really puts into perspective how much there is to be grateful for here and now. It also makes me value and tend to my body and its needs more regularly. My body works for me, so I must cherish and work for my body. She refuses to give up, so I can’t give up either. There will likely come another time in the future where my body suffers and needs more support. When that day comes, I must choose to continue to love my body and care for it as I would try to care for someone else’s sickness. Sickness cannot be helped, but reaction to the sickness can. ((Also, slightly off base, but for the record, I clung to ATEEZ during this most difficult time in my life, so when anyone laughs at my obsession with them or makes false judgements, I remain unbothered because they were the outlet that I had when I felt I had literally nothing else. They made me smile and laugh when nothing else could. They gave me a light to reach for while I was rekindling my own.))

I have no regrets about a single action, thought, experience, or choice from my past. They have all lead me here to who I am and where I am now. I feel as though I’m living in a utopia simply because I am physically and mentally able to work, live, and travel exactly where and how I want. I no longer feel disconnected from myself or others. Life will surely continue to change as all things do, but this moment here and now is still beautiful, nevertheless. This has been a multi-year journey culminating into a magnificent masterpiece. I am Limitless. I am Enough. Most importantly, I am Okay. <3