"This is how I want to remember Jeju."

"This is how I want to remember Jeju," my good friend Melissa said out at a tiny island overlooking the coast. We had just paddle boarded for 35 minutes or so to get out to a tiny island off the coast of Jeju, one that I have been looking at for the whole year here. Some of you have also probably seen it in Instagrams and Facebook photos I have posted:



It's that little guy off in the distance, and I've been dreaming of going out to it since I first sat at Lazybox Cafe and saw it all solitary and pretty out there. We decided to paddle board out there, and it was better than I could have imagined.

As I sat on one of those hills on the island, Melissa said, "This is how I want to remember Jeju," and I couldn't agree more.

In a lot of ways, it's been a challenging year. The job itself has been challenging, and sometimes the boys make me want to rip my hair out. I've had to learn to separate the job from the rest of my life, which is often hard to do when the only thing separating your bed from the nearest student is a paper thin wall. I wrote a post earlier in the year about how learning to ride the motorcycle really mirrored my mood and taught me to live in the present; well, crashing it had the same effect. It really brought my mood down and made me long for home. I have had a fear of missing out on the experiences of my college friends to a certain extent all year, and I have days where that's really difficult. I think on a daily basis, I do a good job of shutting all of the negative feelings away, which in itself can be a bit taxing. I've come to accept that life will present you challenges no matter where you are, but when you leave the familiar behind, you have to find a way to lean back on the old and familiar without letting it consume you. You have to lean back on the old and find new people to lean on in your present. I've definitely done that here.

But alas, yesterday was what Jeju is to me. Lifelong friendships, incredible natural beauty that I will most likely not encounter again on a daily basis, finally being out of that miserable cast, feeling all young and free out in the ocean (#blessed), and just knowing that this year was exactly what I wanted and needed for the next step of my life. I feel more prepared for the job in Rome than I would have if I had gone last year. I feel ready for the next step. I feel sad to leave here. I feel fully content, and the butterflies I feel for the future are really pretty butterflies instead of nagging ones.

I don't know that it's in my DNA to stay in one place for a really long time. I think someday it will be. I think when my sister gets married and I have some nieces/nephews running around, I may want to be closer to home. But then again, I could always be the cool uncle who brings back presents from all over the world. Lots of time to consider these things, I suppose. As for now, I've got two and a half weeks left on my little island, and I want to spend them remembering and continuing to realize why I love it here. Thanks for reading.