The Final Stretch

I have less than four months to go before I'll be back home in America.
I'm not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, I'm RIDICULOUSLY excited to go home. By the time I land on American soil I will have been gone for more than two years. I'm so excited to see my friends and family; I can't even explain how much I'm looking forward to going home. And I'm so, so, SO excited to see my dog! Two years is a very long time to be away from your dog. That's about 14 people years! I doubt he'll even remember me. Gah! I can't wait to see my puppy!
Although I'm very much looking forward to going home, I still feel like I need to really enjoy and digest my last few months here. I feel like I might be rushing through to get everything organized for re-entering the U.S. that I won't be able to look around and enjoy this place. I feel like, these days, I'm moving too fast and rushing toward the finish. I know I'm going to really regret that when I get home. I just want to stop and take a look around and really be here; taste, touch, feel, smell all that I can.
The truth is, it's so easy to get upset about so many things in this country and to get frustrated when things don't go the way I think they should, but I'm going to miss so many things about this country and this culture. I've learned so much here and I just hope I can remember all the wonderful experiences I had here. It's definitely not been all great, the She Devil experience was particularly grand, but I can definitely say without a doubt that I'm so glad I made the choice to do this.
I'm already getting nervous about the question I know I will get from everyone when I get home, "So, how was Korea?" How can I possibly answer that question after having spent two years of my life in a completely foreign country? There's so much to tell and I won't even know where to start. I feel like this experience won't fully sink in for me until years down the road. This experience has been so massive and literally other-worldly that I can't possibly encapsulate it in one conversation or even a string of conversations. I'm honestly having mini-panic attacks just thinking about going home and trying to explain this. What am I going to say?  "Ummm, great. Crazy. Wonderful. Beautiful. Insane." I don't know how to explain it fairly and thoroughly.