Leaving, Returning, and...?

30 Jan, 2025

In just a few days, from February 5th to February 21st, I will be back in New York City. I knew this trip was coming—I was the one who booked the tickets and had been obsessively looking at my planner, seeing the words “09:55 PM - NYC 비행기” written on it. Still, as my departure dates approach, the twist in my stomach grows more agonizing, an overwhelming concoction of dread and anticipation, a call to adventure and a refusal of the call, fear and courage—amongst many other things words cannot describe I know those aren’t exact antonyms, but these were the only words I could come up with, okay? Give me a break.

A year ago, if you had told me I’d be hesitant to go back to New York after being forced to give up my job, apartment, and friends, I would have laughed and maybe punched you in the face. I had spent so long dreaming about having a green card, about never having to put my life on pause or start over from scratch again. But now, as my old dreams inch closer to reality, I realize I’m not the same person who left last March. And I have no idea how this new version of me will move through the city I once thought was my dream.




When I first came back to Korea, I couldn’t sit still. I moved like a maniac, throwing myself into learning Japanese, studying for a wine certification, brushing up on Adobe Creative Suite, and even getting a tarot card reading certification A DAMN TAROT CARD READING CERTIFICATION! I didn’t even know that was a thing until I found it. I was convinced that if I stopped moving, even for a second, I would drown- like life would pull me down like a siren pulling seaman. It felt like if I let myself be still, I would disappear completely—like I would never get back up again. But no matter how much I my day with things to do, the creeping sense of stagnancy never left. It brought back my panic attacks, and at my lowest point, I even considered going back on medication.




But when my green card finally arrived in late summer, I wasn’t relieved. I wasn’t happy. After five years of waiting, I expected triumph. Instead, I felt exhaustion—years of people asking when it would happen, employers hesitating, and me begging, “Just a few more months, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, JUST GIVE ME A DAMN CHANCE!”




The exhaustion of waiting, the disappointment in my own enthusiasm, quickly morphed into white-hot anger—anger at months of anxiety over nothing. I thought getting my green card would snap my life back into place, but instead, it forced me to confront something deeper: the anxiety that had kept me moving was actually destroying me.

After a few major crash outs I began to see how I had been treating everything in my life like a chore— even this green card felt like something to cross off a to-do list, something to check off and complete without room for error or alternatives. Every task, every milestone, every moment of waiting had just been something to endure, something to push through so I could move on to the next. I had been living in survival mode, where nothing was about the present—only about checking the next box, avoiding disaster, outrunning whatever fear came next.

Even the things I couldn't control, I treated like obligations, as if they were mine to fix. I had spent so long being anxious about everything—whether within my control or not—that I didn't even know what it felt like to just live.

And that’s when the bigger, scarier question hit me: Is this how I want to live the rest of my life? Is this it? Just fear after fear after fear?




Growing up, I believed that hard work was the key to getting what I wanted. That belief carried me through college, where submitting essays and earning good grades felt like proof that life followed a simple formula: work hard, and get results. But life doesn't operate on a syllabus.

I hated hearing people say, "It'll happen when it's meant to happen," as if I was supposed to find comfort in the idea that I had no control and let me be clear—I still do. It is the WORST thing to say when someone needs encouragement. It had always made me feel powerless like I was at the mercy of time rather than an active participant in my own life. But this moment forced me to confront something I had never considered before: What if hard work wasn't enough? What if the life I had been working toward could still slip through my fingers, not because I had failed, but because sometimes life just doesn't go the way you plan? If hard work couldn't guarantee stability, then what was I supposed to hold onto?




One night in late summer, after an outing left me feeling hollow, I realized I was spending my time on things that didn’t even feel like mine (I don’t judge going out—I enjoy it too—but that night, I was there to keep up appearances, not because I wanted to be). This served as a needed wake up call for me to go home and ask myself how I actually wanted my life to look like right now and what I needed to do to get there. The first step I thought of was getting off the damn apps.

It was hard to admit that, no, I wasn’t posting stories just to capture good memories—I was posting to convince someone that I was doing great. That even though I was stuck in Korea, I was still doing “cool” things so no one would think I had failed. But I was drained. Exhausted from chasing external validation, from constantly proving I was still moving forward. So I stopped.

The moment I deleted the app, life instantly felt better. And I felt ridiculous for not doing it sooner—one simple fix I had resisted out of digital FOMO and the illusion that social media was my only connection to people who had no real desire to connect with me one on one anyways. Letting it go was liberating.

I stopped overloading myself with long-term plans and switched to a simple Muji weekly planner—an easy but surprisingly effective change. I reconnected with reading, a hobby I had neglected all year, and rediscovered books that helped me through this transition. Reading about the lives of different people, stepping into their shoes, looking inward to see how their emotions stirred something in me, and finding the best way to explain it all is what I love most about it. This naturally led me back to writing, and writing brought me back to feeling the most like myself.

During this time, I rediscovered the joy of working in silence—creating not for validation, but simply because I love to create. A feeling I hadn’t realized I had forgotten, lost in the rush to create more, write more, not seeing that I wasn’t creating from a place of expression but from self-exploitation. It reminded me of those hours spent as a kid, writing silly stories on printer paper, telling my mom I wanted to quit school and become a full-time writer.

For so long, I had measured success by how visible my progress was, but now, I was learning to find meaning in the routine of constantly creating, whether anyone ¹ saw it or not.








And so we come back to why I feel uneasy about going back to the city.








New York moves fast. It always has. When I first arrived in 2022, I thought I could keep up. And to a certain extent, my hyper-anxious ass thought I was doing great—convinced that this rhythm was a healthy way to stay on track. But the city drained me, and before I even realized it, I had fallen into a rhythm that wasn’t my own—a rhythm of chasing, proving, and exhausting myself to keep up with an invisible standard.


Now, I feel different. Lighter. But is it enough?


I've let go of the need for constant validation. I've learned to find meaning in the quiet, in the process, in the things that don't get applause. Life feels less scary, and I feel more at ease with the unknown. I've gone from being a nihilist to something closer to a possibility-its yeah, that’s totally a word. I no longer see time as something that holds me back or something I have to fight against. I've learned that time isn't what brings you what you want—change is. And change will always come.

I’m afraid because New York represents who I used to be—the person I worked so hard to grow away from. The person who defined themselves by achievements, who tied their self-worth to external validation, who felt like they were drowning under the weight of expectations.

What if being back there pulls me into that same cycle again? What if all the growth I’ve fought for disappears the second I step off the plane? What if I’m not strong enough in this new version of myself? What if all of this—the clarity, the balance, the slow and intentional way I’ve learned to live—only exists in isolation? What if I can only be myself when I’m away from “real life”? If that’s the case, is this version of me even valid? And when I go back, what will fall away? watch me spiral again rahhhhh

Change always brings loss, and I don’t know yet what those losses will be. I know that when you change, your surroundings inevitably shift too, but as someone who is nostalgic and sentimental to a fault, letting go of things that no longer serve me never comes easy. I get attached to everything. Even the things I know I should release, I hold on to simply because they’ve been a part of me for so long.

At the same time, what new things will I have to adjust to? Because I know things won’t be exactly as I left them. Even though this trip is temporary, it feels like a preview of the life I’ll be returning to when I do settle down. And that makes me nervous.

Because I’m not just afraid of failing. I’m afraid of success, too. Afraid of what it would mean to actually step into the things I’ve been working toward, to fully take up space without feeling like I have to justify it. Afraid of what I’ll have to let go of in order to make room for what’s ahead.

But there is no cushion for this jump—no cheat code, no easy way out, no guarantee that I won’t break again. I just have to go for it head-on and trust that whatever happens, I will survive it. . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Or you know… I’ll just have a fun time lol ʅ ( ․ ⤙ ․) ʃ