by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Because of some quirks in my personal life, I find myself late Christmas Eve all alone. I haven’t been this alone since I was living in South Korea. If you want to feel alone, walk around the streets of a massive Asia city unable to speak the language day after day.
Anyway, I only write this post because, yet again, someone from South Korea is interested in me and I can see them looking at my Korea-specific posts. I really, at this point, want to be forgotten in South Korea — by both expats and Koreans alike. All that was a long time ago, guys. A very long time ago.
Yes, I was bonkers and drunk all the time, but I’ve changed a great deal since all of that. It’s like I’ve had a brain transplant. I was full of manic pride back then and it didn’t help that soju hits my body like some sort of warped crank. I get really loud and hyper if I drink a lot of soju. Which, back in the day, I did.
But the idea that — anyone — would give a shit about me in South Korea evokes a great deal of mixed emotions. I know I wronged a few people in South Korea who have a reason to want me to come back to South Korea so they can, I don’t know, yell at me. And, thankfully, there are a few people I made really happy while I was there and they would just like to hang out.
At the moment — I’m not coming back to South Korea. I may want to, but if I do, it’s going to be for a very specific reason: I’ll suddenly have enough money to do it. There are a few ways that this might happen rather abruptly, but the one I’m hoping for is I sell my first novel and it’s a big enough success that that unto itself, could fund a trip back to Asia for a little while.
And, yet, at the moment that’s very much a daydream.
It could be a decade — or more! — before I ever set foot in Seoul again. But while there’s life there’s hope.
