I write from tomorrow

And I'm not being poetic. I live in Seoul, South Korea now and am therefore 14 hours ahead of you. I hate to sound smug, but I’m from the future.

I've been here for almost a week. It's interesting to feel suddenly cut off from the world I've always known. The night before I left the country, I told a dear friend I felt like I was about to disappear.

During my layover in the Minneapolis airport, I called a handful of my nearest and dearest (otherwise known as my speed dial). I experienced intense comfort from the knowledge that their voices were a mere five seconds away. And then I felt a little light headed from the simultaneous realization that these were the last few hours this would be true for a long time.

My hope in moving across the world was to leave behind what I had known. And in doing so, to discover (as my friend Caleb put so well) what it is within me that doesn't get lost in translation. It is both terrifying and thrilling to be getting what I wanted.

Today I had lunch at a little diner in my neighborhood. The waiter brought my food and I started eating it. He came over a few minutes later smiling and bowing and offering to help. He was trying to tell me to add sauce from a separate dish and stir everything together. I wasn’t getting it. So he took my chopsticks and spoon and did it for me. I looked over at an a older woman peering at me from the kitchen, smiling. A server at the cash register giggled in my general direction.

I smiled at them, feeling like a child and not really minding. I figure in many ways I’m beginning something new. I’ve said goodbye to what’s familiar and am looking the unknown full in the face. That’s enough to make the description “child-like” feel pretty damn fitting.

And anyway, I’m fairly certain they were laughing with me, not at me.