photo by a lui.
AMID THE BLOWN BICYCLE innertubes, piles of bedsheets and stacks of books was a precarious plan for my life. The apartment was a mess; my head was tangled up in excitement and uncertainty.
As I cleared out the accumulated dust from the last two years, I wondered whether I would be able to pare down to bare bones. Moving in with my fiancee was just the practice run; I would stuff everything into her studio apartment, then gradually sift my possessions until they fit into a backpack. This was the easy part.
Ahead of me was locking down a job, securing work visas and finding an apartment for my move to Seoul. The back and forth emails with editors had yielded nothing certain — there might be a position open in a few months, they wrote. I was beginning to fully realize what I’d already known. This wouldn’t be like the first time, with the safety net of university-sponsored study abroad programs and all the friendships they afforded. This time it would be just me and my fiancee, carving out a life in the neon mess of a churning city.
