I May Be Honorary Asian but I'm Also Open Minded

I was once told that you're only as happy as you allow yourself to be but now I know that's not necessarily true.  Sometimes your happiness is very much dependent and dictated by those you surround yourself with, like family. 

When I told my dad that I was separated he was heartbroken.  He suggested marriage counseling and told me to just ignore the words and opinions of Snickers' family and others who had so continually chipped away at our relationship and challenged the strength of it.  

My skin thicked, Snickers caved in and then I just gave up and left Korea. That's what happened.  I couldn't take it any more.  Our relationship had withstood the pressure for so long but the handle on the vice it was in kept on turning and turning.  It was only time before it'd cause our relationship, the bubble we had put ourselves in, to burst and it bursted numerous times.  I had mastered camoflauging the bursts and friends and some of his family who were aware of the trouble waters we were in played dumb and acted like it was none of their business when it totally was their business.  They were partly responsible for our destruction. 

I don't live in Korea anymore but the aftermath of the crash of us still poses a struggle every day for me.  The emotional scars are still there but I'm no longer resentful or bitter towards those who should have and could have helped me or those who knew but played dumb.  I leave them to karma.  I can forgive them but I can't forget so I don't think that makes them entirely forgiven by me. 

I'm moving on past Korea but Korea will forever be a part of me -- the good, the bad, and the flat out disgustingly ugly.  

Today I had a deja vu moment -- a moment when I felt back in Korea dealing with the same monocultural issues and stress Korea constantly had served up for me.  This deja vu moment happened behind the boat house, in a conversation that had started off innocent and sweet, and it instantly left me sitting there speechless.  I won't go into the details of the conversation but will say that I thought I had finally escaped narrow mindedness and old school thinking.  To have traveled miles upon miles away from Korea and yet to be sitting here in Canada, the total opposite corner of the world, listening to someone struggling dealing with the same BS Korea had fed me way too often, wow.   Perhaps it's not a Korean thing after all, perhaps it's an Asian thing.  God knows it's not a Canadian thing or even a Polish thing.