Flight

I have arrived!!  This is a post from my flight.  

Flight Menu

Flight Menu

It’s been nine hours already and four more to go.  Usually I sleep on the flights but this time I couldn’t.  It is always strange to me the time difference when flying internationally. I never quite know when to eat and what is dinner or breakfast.  So far we’ve flown 5034 miles and 1958 miles to go. 

It is 14 hours ahead in Korea.  I will have lost half a day when I arrive.  Nine hours of sitting and one has a lot of time to think.  For whatever reason, I have completely blanked out mentally on any expectations of what is to come.  It is strange to me to think that I am going back to my country when I have always thought of the US as my home and my identity.  If you were to ask me today what I am, I would tell you without hesitation that I am American and Asian only by blood.  

It will be interesting to me to see if I feel any association with this country.  If I will understand a culture that has become as foreign to me as any other.  Or if I will feel a longing to fill a void that I didn’t know I had.  So much of my three parents have become ingrained in me.  My mother’s fierce independence, liberal and spiritual beliefs.  My father’s inspiration and creative vision. And my stepmother’s spontaneity and warmth when she wants to be.  All three of these are a far cry from my existence in an orphanage and perhaps any life I may have had after.  

I was told by a number of Koreans that orphans are considered ghosts.  Being a strong Confucian society, if you can’t trace back your familial lines then you are not fit to be married.  Perhaps that has changed now.  My mother and I talk about this many times, that those first four years of my life must have been so traumatic that my bearing has become lost.  But at what point do you face it and just move on?  

Often times I wonder how much time we waste running around trying to find out who we are or avoiding who we are.  When in reality we are always coming full circle back to what we have always known within us.  And that is when we take that first step to growing up.  

Three more hours to go. 

Already I miss my bed.  That is always the first thing I look back on longingly, my bed.  

Ok. I’m going to see if I can get a couple of hours of sleep now.  It’s going to be a long day before I get to rest again.  

Flight map. Total time to destination was 13 hours.