The End of This Chapter

I honestly don’t know how to begin to describe the time that I have spent here in Korea. I knew the day would come when I had to say goodbye. But now, that day is staring me right in the face, and I feel a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about everything that I am leaving behind. I have made two hundred new friends from around the globe, and have formed strong bonds with so many amazing people, but nothing could have prepared me for the pain that I have felt when forced to lose them all in one day. It is a truly unique kind of heartbreak.

To all the students of Sogang Fall Semester 2014, I have loved every single one of you in different ways, and I will never forget the times we shared together. Sogang University will always be such a beautiful place to me, because it holds only positive memories: all of your smiling faces, the strong bonds we formed out of nothing, those nights we spent dreaming together and making large, ridiculous plans for the future, the nights that we partied, the nights that we just stayed in, our tears when we laughed, our tears when we said goodbye, and those times when we smiled at people we’d never met because even though they were complete strangers, we knew that they were family.

You have all helped me to grow as an individual. I am not afraid to be who I am, I am not afraid to acknowledge my faults, I am not afraid of what people might think, and I am not afraid to feel! I want you all to know that I have loved spending time with you, and that this is a truly tragic day for me. But I also know that it was perfect just the way it was, because my time spent with you is now a perfectly wrapped gift of memories, which from this day forward, I will be able to unwrap at any moment in my life. The time was precious, and even though it is over, it is far from dead.

So let us be positive! We have formed lifelong friendships, and we have all grown as individuals. True, we will never again know the same life that we have lived in Seoul, but think of all the people who will never experience what we have experienced here. God blessed us all by giving us this extremely rare opportunity, and a whole new book of stories to tell!

I know that I will never see some of you again, but I can promise you that I will never forget your faces. Because even though time flew by, and even though I shared no more than a nod of the head with some of you, Sogang to me was always a place of complete happiness; a place free of judgment, a place free of hatred, and a place where two hundred complete strangers could come together in love and join their lives as one.

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

-      -- Dr. Seuss

Signed in Seoul and love always,

Kristin

Kristin is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Korea Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade