Recollections and Repressions Part II [Travelogue]

So, I have done it once again folks.  I left my family to their own accord as I venture across any given sea across the globe to do what I have always deemed as what I “have to do”.  This is my job I would say.  This is what I do.  And while I know this is true, it really doesn’t make it any easier.  I had such an amazing time coming back to reconnect with my wife and children that I simply did not want it to end.  Even though I know that I will be back in two months, and then three months after that the separation will be a thing of the past.  But, it still doesn’t make it any easier.

I’m writing from the actually pretty damn comfortable aisle seat on hour 4 of a 9 1/2 hour flight to Yokota, Japan.  Life of Pi has just finished up on the small screens, and I still can’t figure out what was so damn fascinating about that movie (so…the tiger just, left?).  Duke Ellington is doobie doing in my ear through a tired iPhone and my chest is still swelling with the bitter taste of sadness.  I am desperately not looking forward to returning to the calm.  Although it may seem like a bit of a silly predicament, but it is a real one in my eyes:  I don’t want to go back to the Songtan lifestyle.  While I like and respect some of my favorite older gentlemen who have made a life in the area, I just couldn’t do it.  As much as I enjoy soju and consistent bouts of alcoholism, I don’t want to go back.  I want my family back.  Yet, I don’t want them in Korea.  It’s just not the place, in my opinion.

View from the Space Needle

On happy notes, like I previously said, I had a blast getting to reconnect with my family after 7 months of isolation.  There are just certain ways you look at each other in real life, that you simply can not see digitally via Skype and what not.  The touch, the feel, the love.  It was all wonderful.  I last left you fine readers on the floor of a Comfort Inn in the SeaTac region.  Needless to say, I didn’t get a flight, and I spent another two glorious days with the ability to rest between the arms of my beautiful wife at night, take my daughter to the bus stop like a decent parent, sit in the waiting room of my daughter’s dance studio like a good daddy, all of these things before Melissa and I were forced to rise at 0130 to make the drive up to Seattle to try and get on another flight.  So many parts of me were begging to not get a spot.  I didn’t want to go.  I still don’t want to go, as I have probably made abundantly clear.  While I have enjoyed Korea to some extents, I just don’t know how I am going to feel after I got a taste of what I was missing.  And brothers and sisters, it tasted damn good.

Even the hometown that I tend to truly loathe was beaming with delightfulness as a ran around Lake Sacajawea with sweat on my brow, or simple soaked in the midnight air with my darling wife and/or sadistically drunk father in law.  It was all fine and great.  Portland proved amazing, once again, and I finally got the family up to the top of the Space Needle, which turned out to be almost exactly as unimpressive as I figure it would be, and cost three times as much as it was even close to being worth, but we did it!  Yes, it was just shy of two weeks, and every day was greater than the next.  This was without a doubt of the best, and ironically saddest, homecomings I have ever had.  It was all hearts and flowers because I waited so long to see the ones I hold dearest to me, but saddened because a homecoming usually meant that I am going to stick around for a while afterwards.  But, alas, here I am on this stupid fucking plane, 4 1/2 hours into the flight, and feeling enraged that this is the third flight I have taken in 7 months, and the new Ice Age movie is STILL FUCKING PLAYING!

(Another) View from the Space Needle

I have done the bouts of separation several times before, as many of you already know.  Three deployments to the middle east, two months in the deep south, and countless jaunts across the U.S.  I am always leaving and abandoning my family.  It’s just part of what I do.  In fact, just when I think that I am home for good, something comes up.  Like a year long trip to Korea for instance.  That one sure came out left field.  But, as I tell myself when I am feeling positive, we are over half way through, and we still have a little mini vacation in between that amount of time where Melissa will come and see the lonely ventures I partake in in the land of the morning calm, and I will accompany her back to the states to prepare for our family’s journey to Spain.

Spain!  Spain, Spain, Spain!  It has been the magic word over the last year.  It could mean anything at this point.  We don’t talk about a heaven much in our family, but we certainly talk about a Spain!  It would be an understatement to say that we are all a bit excited.  In fact, the knowledge that I will be headed to Spain after this tour has probably stunted any sort of yearning to explore the “vast” land that is South Korea.  I am so desperate for this time to be over that I seem to refuse to stop and actually enjoy it.  And I honestly have no plans to.  I’ve built my own experiences in this land, and while they may not fit the mold of every tourist or stranger in a strange land, it is what I have accepted as fate, and that it shall be.  Of course, I may still try and get out and about, but I am pretty much in go mode for the European lands.  My beautiful wife wants to vacation in this Paris place with the breads and such, and I will be damned if she doesn’t get what she wants.  Soon we will be spending days off on the beach, lounging away the hours our children are in school, simply relaxing as they frantically build sand castles under the dawning sun. Yes, it seems utterly impossible for Spain not to be absolutely perfect.  And who knows, maybe it’s not.  But, right now it is as beautiful as it gets.  My wife is living in a small bedroom in her parents house with five kids running around.  I am living desolate in a dorm room that simply reeks of loneliness.  She lives at the gym, I live at the bar.  We are both leaning things about ourselves in separate worlds that we probably didn’t actually realize we were looking to find out.  But, we are ready now.  We are ready to get this god damned show on the road, get across that ocean, and begin our lives in constant translation into Espana.

My pretty little Subaru along Highway 30, Oregon Coast

So while this may not be your conventional travelogue where series of events actually make sense, this is all I have for you (if looking for more experiences and rather somewhere closer to your location – you can find places and learn more here).  Korea was basically a bust.  Unless you have dug the stories I have already told then, I guess it is okay.  I can dig up some more interesting fun facts for future’s sake, but don’t expect too much.  As I said, let’s get to Spain!  That is where I might give a shit enough to write something about the things I see.  Until then, I will try and please you all the best I can.  But, I won’t guaranteed a god damned thing.  Enjoy!