‘Each migration feels like a rebirth. Who am I at the center who experiences it all?’

I moved 32 times by the time I turned 40. My parents migrated from South Korea to Saudi Arabia in the 80s. By age 18, I already became a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures - Korean, Saudi, Austria (international boarding school), and Los Angeles. I remember my junior year in college at UC-Berkeley, feeling hyper-confused that my classmates were so excited to “study abroad”. I felt my brain crash confused with the word abroad. I am abroad here, or is this home? Where is home? Who am I?

I seeked help. But the journey of seeking help left me feeling even more confused and alone. College counselor gave me glossy eyes when I asked about how to get a job as an international student, and shamed me for not knowing what is an “internship”. Multicultural specialist therapist gave me a long spiel how she relates with me as a European American, but I felt she was so far from what I experienced in Saudi Arabia, a life of censorship and secrets; or how about being raised in a Confucianist, colonized and war traumatized Korean home. I didn’t know back then, but I do now, how deeply traumatized our Korean parents generation is. Nobody talks about it!

We are all so busy, climbing the corporate ladder, checking off the defined success boxes… I wonder, to arrive at what? My desire, no, my need to ask these deeper questions began early in my life because I felt so broken and misunderstood. I kept looking for someone to see me, the whole of who I am. It took repeated pattern of painful failures that got me to look at the parts of me that is fragmented. Then one day I began to wonder who am I that sees that I am fragmented? Gah!! There is a seer in me, this feels like the whole me! Then it keeps going. Who am I that sees that I am whole?

I left my dream corporate work from banking, then from aid, because of one commitment — commitment to myself to get to know whole of who I am, what I love, what gives me joy, what fulfills me, what is home to me, like a loving mother cares for her inner child. Ouuf, this path shows you very clearly what to unlearn- sometimes very painfully, what to let go. And it shows you who you are. It takes you to the kind of joy that you don’t care if nobody knows, it’s so good. And it’s filled with surprises of who you meet on the path, fellow spiritual warriors. You also learn to let go of those who do not see you. It’s okay! So is life!

Unintentionally I have been city dating since 15 when I first took a solo trip to Vienna to spend a summer by trying on a city. Intentionally I started city dating in 2016 when I promised myself to find me a home. Now I am here to show you everything that helped me become my home.