Soul searching away from Seoul

Naejongsan, weekend of March 31st/April 1st.

I must be in bed in 1o minutes, at midnight. My new morning classes start tomorrow, and I don't want to scare my new students with my dark circles.
This means, the entry is going to be extremely short, but it has to be done now when the memory is still fresh.
It was Clare's idea to go away with the purpose to reexamine our lives, look at what we have accomplished so far, how satisfied we are with it, what we want to change, and how to do it.
Aigooo. To be perfectly honest, I just wanted to go away with my friend anc catch up. Not that i was planning to sabotage the purpose of the trip, just didn't see it as a priority.

As I had suspected, examining me proved to be very difficult. However, something was finally undeniably and painfully clear to me: I don't know myself, I never truly examined myself nor my life. I learned that I never, ever, in all my many decades sat down to think about myself, what I have, what I lack, what I want and what I don't want. I couldn't answer a simple question like what made me happy when I was in the age between 7 and 14. I simply forgot. Or, maybe nothing made me happy. I can certainly give a long list of things that made my unhappy at that time.

It dawned on me that whatever has happened in my life so far just sort of happened. Obviously, I had to think hard about some decisions, but honestly, I would always take into consideration my or my family's circumstances, the situation I was in, rather than think about what I really wanted to do.

Why I didn't dig deeper is a question worthy examining in itself. Was I too busy trying to be someone else, trying to please those ar0und me who I thought were very unhappy with the way I was turning up to be. Was it the abundance of every-day problems and grievances, simply being busy with survival and not allowing myself the luxury of the question: "what do I really want." Was it the lack of the know-how, my skepticism about the possibility of changing oneself, my aversion to the idea of 'life coaches' and the likes of Dr. Phil. Was it fear of posssibly discovering something truly shattering about myself?

A few years ago, after an emotional trauma that left me in a mess, I tried counseling. The shrink lady made me so mad with her talking down and pointing out the obvious, that I cut the sessions short. I found solace in a fantasy world, in other people's lives lived in books and movies, in wine, in escaping to Korea. Alas, no escape from self, as you know.

I feel like I'm about to enter the room belonging to twin-sister, lost at some point in my life, difficult to pinpoint. I feel getting to know her -and love her- is the way to go.
But it's scary. Very.

What remains to be seen is whether I'll dare enter this room, or turn around.