As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Thursday, August 04, 2016

Pondering the Year... Thursday, August 4

In two days I'm turning 36.

In one day I will have been in Canada for a full year.

I'm excited about turning 36 --- 36 on the 6th in the 6ix -- but I'm nervous about celebrating my one year here.  "Celebrating", interesting word.  Interesting in the fact that I don't know if that's the word I would particularly pick.  

What have I done in Canada in a full year to vouch for leaving my life in Korea?! Exactly. Some days I wonder too.  I'm filled with anxiety when I think of it but in a discussion with J-Doll today he said something very interesting that made me re-evaluate how I think of things.  He said it the other day too, in a text message.  He told me to stop comparing Korea to Canada because of the simple fact that the two aren't the same and so I can't expect the same.  

Earlier on, before my chat with J-Doll, I met with one of my friends from Korea, a friend that I had actually trained at Hulk's.  He's on vacation, traveling around for two months before he heads back to Korea. It was wild to meet up with here in Toronto.  It was his first time being to Toronto.  He's American but in a way we're both kind of internationally homeless, I feel moreso me though, because we've lived overseas for so long, we don't really connect entirely with one particular country and we have Koreanized so much.  I've Koreanized in ways that I'm still discovering, a year after even leaving Korea.  I don't feel Canadian but I don't feel Korean either.  I feel somewhere in the middle -- internationally homeless.  

It was nice to see him, definitely nice, because he is a friend and I knew he could somewhat relate to me feeling like a tourist in the country I'm originally from.  Seeing him made me feel not as alone here even if it were just for the short time he was visiting me and sipping on his coffee.  

No comments: