One year is really not long enough to know a place.

Neither is two years, for that matter, but I find myself confronting the version of myself from a year ago, and comparing how I perceived my world around me. A year ago I still found it hard to believe, on occasion, that Daegu wasn't just some very Asian part of America that I'd never before visited and whose road laws were less stringent. Now, in my mind's globe, I firmly plant myself on the Korean peninsula and think 'Gee, America is really far away from Korea' instead of the other way around.

I feel like, after all this time, my brain can finally come to terms with where it is and what it is doing there: 

• I live in a place that doesn't speak my language, where I can't expect to engage in a full conversation with anybody off the street or read and understand every sign I pass on the bus (read, yes. Understand, no). 

• I know my role in the neighborhood. I'm the celebrity, one of a few. I go to work 8:30-4:30, and outside of those hours, I'm a walking, talking tourist attraction.

• After a year and a half, I know who I am and what is expected of me. 
  

And we are on our way out.

We have just 4 months left in Korea, and whether by the limited weekends left or the plans being made for our return home, I've suddenly realized that I am running out of time. What seemed like ages just last September, when I heavily scrutinized our decision to stay another year, has disappeared in a blink. The time since we returned from New Zealand has been especially fast. That's two months gone in a hurry. Suddenly there's places we still need to visit, food we still need to eat, friends we need to see as much as possible before oceans divide us instead of bus lines. This is alien territory. When we left the States, we knew we were coming back. It was only a matter of time before we ate Chipotle again, went to Cedar Point, or met a friend for coffee. There is no clear future for the life we leave in Korea. It will likely end permanently after we board our flight out of Incheon, and I don't know what to do with that feeling.

If you'd asked me back in September my feelings on returning home, I would've likely said something like 90% excited and 10% sad. Today, I'm feeling a lot sadder than I ever thought I would about the prospect of leaving. Now that I know how to exist where I am, I'm less willing to start over again.  I just really hope it takes less than two years for my brain to come to terms with its' reality once we make it back to Columbus.