This is the Kos newsletter: warm email notes from your friend in Seoul. Finding the simple joy in parenthood, bodies, spirituality, creativity, beauty, and living abroad. Sound like your jam? Subscribe below for weekly notes.
Our last week in Seoul coincided with my 36th birthday and the end of my husband’s job. We celebrated with Swedish massages, thick pastrami sandwiches, smooth chocolate gelato, and a rousing Pokemon Unite battle before bed.
The week’s also been punctuated by visits to government agencies to exchange our drivers’ licenses, collect our pension, sell our car, settle our bank account, phone, cable, and utilities, negotiate with our landlord, gather medical records and school reports, and the million other tiny things we need to remember so we don’t get emails in a week asking for our son’s school-borrowed flute or late fees for library books.
The corner of our room is a pile of packed luggage. We’re flying with only three checked bags, a foldable bike, our family, and our dog. Oh, and lots of snacks and wet wipes. And devices. We do not regulate screens on international flights so our kids are **pumped** to “watch 8 hours of Archibald’s Next Big Thing again!” and I’m pumped to finally have our littlest old enough to watch a screen on flights.
As for how I feel about moving…? I don’t know. It’s bittersweet, surreal, and stressful. Living in South Korea has been one of the greatest experiences of my life—the timing of our move in late 2020, the solitude it provided, the school and childcare we had, my morning walks. Those things came together to create one of the quietest, healing times for me. Because of our childcare, I wrote a book. Because of our childcare, I applied for and found a job. Because of our childcare, I walked an average of 4 miles a day and feel stronger than I have in 5 years. I read (for fun) over 100 books in 1 1/2 years. For me, living abroad was a grand gift of self-care. I’m leaving feeling filled up from the solitude, movement, and creative space.
Was it always easy? Absolutely not. Did I cry from frustration? Absolutely I did. Did I also cry from loneliness? Of course. The two months I hated it here were August 2021 (100 degrees 100% humidity and no summer camps) and January 2022 (freezing, windy, no in-person school; winter blues). We joke that one day out of every 30 is a nightmare when you’re living abroad. That feels very true. We had our magical adventure days; we had our depressing everything goes wrong days. But we’re definitely leaving on a high note, still loving Seoul and wishing we could stay longer.
So, to Seoul: Thank you for hosting us. We loved you. You were so good to us. We’ll be back for more mandu and kimchi and pickled radish and ajumma scorn soon.
Koseli
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So excited for you and your family! ❤️ Safe travels. Can’t wait to hear about your next adventures. Peace and love.