Running Away?

Running Away?

Grace let out a sigh as she prepared. One may be tempted to ask what she was preparing for. The answer to that was a little more complicated than one could imagine. To understand what Grace was going through at the moment, you have to rewind a bit back to her childhood. She was dragged from where she could somewhat call her home to an entirely foreign land, which was strange, since she knew that by her looks, she wasn’t in a foreign country, she was in where people would usually call ‘home.’ But for the past 10 or so years, she now knew that she was stuck in the middle, but a little leaning towards America, the country she was now embarking on with a different goal. 

There’s a Korean saying that the mountains and rivers change after ten years, meaning that ten years isn’t that short amount of time. Grace knew that saying was true and yet false. In the ten years she had been in this country Korea, it felt like a sort of wilderness to her, and she felt dragged into the desert, leaving her only to rely on Heaven to feed her and give her water to survive the rigid environment.

She sighed as she was putting some books into a box, her younger brother and mother helping out, and… 

“Here sweetie, let me get that for you,” Her husband of now two months offered to put some books inside the box, and she smiled. 

“Thanks, dear.” 

She meant that in more ways than one, and her husband understood completely. 

“Don’t mention about it. I’m just happy I’m able to go on this exciting adventure with you, and it helps that my job was relocated to LA,” Grace’s husband grinned. 

Grace gave him a soft smile in return, thanking that he was with her every step of the way. They resumed packing up the boxes, along with Grace’s and her husband, John’s stuff. John was his English name, and he had another name in Korean, for he, also like Grace, had an identity crisis until they both overcame it as they became friendly with each other to the point where they dated and got married like so. It happened in a flash, and for Grace, the mountains and the rivers changed not only once, but on the way to change again until she decided to go back to America to study a bit more. She wanted to study Economics at a prominent university located in LA, and after much soul-searching and preparation, with the grace that was bestowed onto her, she was able to enter their graduate studies program. In short, she was running away from this desert called Korea and going towards America. Her professor had said the following when she asked for advice, 

“Yes, of course you can run away. But run away after you’ve decided the destination of where you’re going to run away to.” 

Grace told her husband with a sigh, “You know, John, I think I told you this before, but it felt like Koreans here treated me as one of two things: A pseudo-Korean or a wannabe American. But as long as I have you, and my family, I don’t think it’s going to be dreadful, or like some angst story on the internet.” 

John winked, “I know what you feel. But I do have a suggestion: Why don’t you say that this is going forward rather than running away? Running away seems a little angst, a little dark.” 

“The thing that I’ve learned in these past fifteen years is that running away isn’t cowardly, or dark. Rather, sometimes it is necessary to survive, or its strategic. Just facing something head on isn’t enough sometimes to overcome the situation, sometimes, going forward is the only way to see that different route out,” Grace shrugged, and John snickered, kissing her cheek. 

“O wise one, I cannot come near your wisdom. Please help me,” He bowed and she winked while hugging her husband. 

“Thank you, John. I couldn’t have done it without your help. If it wasn’t for you encouraging me to run away, or Professor Goo, or mom and my younger brother… I wouldn’t have come this far.” 

John looked at the sincere expression of his wife. He put on a compassionate smile and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, “Don’t mention it. We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

When Grace looked at his boyish grin, she laughed, “Wasn’t that the line you used back when you saved me from that lowlife?” 

“Got me. But back then, it was kind of a self-comfort thing: Comforting myself that I would be able to be with you forever in the friend zone, but now? I love saying that because it means I’ll actually be able to stay with you forever as partners, husband and wife…” He trailed off. 

Grace, knowing about how easily her husband could get flustered, grinned. She rubbed his cheek with hers, “Me too… I was scared that you would go off and marry some other girl, because you’re handsome and have a great personality.” 

John blushed, “No other girl would be as pretty as you, my dear. By the way, I’ve seen a couple of guys before we went out, looking at you, and I can’t think of any other girl than you to run away with. Especially to a warm place.” 

Grace snuggled up to him once more and wrapped her arm around his waist, “Well then, that makes two of us, doesn’t it? We can’t live without each other, and we have been connected as husband and wife by a plan from the beginning. I must say, I look forward.” 

“That makes two of us. Us humans have no power, but I do know that the One who does have power will lead us to the very end. That’s what you’ve learned from the late Reverend.” 

“Yup, let us go on this adventure together, running away from here, as we have been allowed to.” 

The two smiled as they wrapped up packing things up, to run away but to a brighter future… They hoped.