Fitness The Mary Stockbridge Way: Finding My Seoul Mate: Journal 3
My husband Max and I have been pretty 
much inseparable since meeting in 2001. We were both selected by the Korean consulates of our home states to participate on the same Homeland tour of Korea, the country we were both adopted from.
I had already been to Korea once, but agreed to attend so that I could spend time with my twin sister, Caty, and to get to know my birth family better. Caty and I had met them back on a similar tour in 1999. It was Max's first trip to Korea since being adopted.
He was one of the first attendees to arrive and was miserable almost immediately. Despite being ultra-modern, Seoul is hot and humid and the hostel that the tour started at did not have air conditioning. To make matters worse, he couldn’t use chopsticks and was starving to death. When the other early attendees went out to celebrate the first night of the tour, Max stayed behind to contemplate catching a flight back home.
Caty and I were the last to arrive that night. It had been a long and taxing flight and we were exhausted. All we wanted to do was get some rest before the tour started the following morning. When we got to the hostel, Max heard Caty and me talking and wandered out into the hallw
ay. He and I wound up chatting for quite a while, until Jeannie, the trip organizer told Max to go put a shirt on. That was when I made my escape to get some rest.
We did not spend much time together for the next week of the trip, which was scheduled to last 11 days. Instead, we both spent time getting to know the other tour members. Max and I occasionally shared a meal, except he spent more time finding and picking stray hairs out of the food than he did eating it. It was not until the tour moved to the mountains far away from the modern conveniences of Seoul that we had a chance to really talk again.
After a night of hanging out as a group and learning choreographed Korean dances and songs, Max and I ended up talking for a couple hours. When we were all talked out, we both headed to our dorms. I got to my dorm, but as soon as I walked in the threshold, about a million bugs went scurrying off the sleeping campers. Less than excited about the prospect of being insect food, I decided to go find Max. Since he had seen the bugs, too, we decided to hang out and continue our conversation. Max and I made a deal to keep chatting to keep each other up all night. While I almost made it to sunrise, he actually made it!
After returning to Seoul, we were pleasantly surprised to be put up in four-star accommodations. That hotel was where the closing banquet was to take place. When the banquet was over and the tour had officially ended, all of the tour members went out for one last night together. It was a great way to close out the end of the trip. Max was scheduled to fly back to Houston the following day. I was sad to see him go, but we vowed to meet in New Orleans sometime and have a reunion. To my surprise, I didn't have to wait that long.
The next morning, there was a knock on my door. When I went to open the door, Max was standing there. He had decided to skip his flight saying he would try to catch another one the next day. When he called the airline to let them know he had "accidentally" missed his flight and to make a new reservation, he was shocked to find out that the next flight to Houston was not for two weeks. Under ordinary circumstances that wouldn't b
e an issue, except Max was supposed to start school the next week.
He was slightly concerned, but decided that it should not ruin the trip; we all got dressed up and went out again. Fortunately for him, one of the other ladies on the trip lived in Atlanta and her flight the next day had a layover in Dallas. After some thought, Max decided that he would head to the airport the next morning to see if he could get on that flight and have his luggage removed in Dallas. At the ticketing counter, there were some language barriers but Max managed to get his luggage and himself to Dallas. From there, he hopped on a one way to Houston.
After Max left, things were not the same. The remaining attendees went out that night; people tried to recreate his energy, but were not successful. Max had many fun sayings, like "party foul" and only he really knew the rules. People would say it, but it always seemed like the wrong time. All of the remaining tour members really started to miss him, especially me.
The next morning, I went to find a computer lab. Korea is well known for computers that you can rent by the hour. Much to my surprise, Max had already emailed twice. He claims to this day that he thought the first email might not have gone through because it was on his school's intranet. I think he just really wanted to get in touch. He had already started making plans to come visit me once I got back to Minnesota.
I was going to be in Korea for an extra week spend
ing time with Caty and my birth family. When I got back home in August, the first person I called was Max. He made plans to travel up from Texas to celebrate my birthday, but not long after, September 11, 2001 happened. With the chaos of 9/11 and delayed flights and uncertainty at the time, we realized that being apart and trying to navigate a long distance relationship was not something either of us wanted.
Instead of letting the miles separate us, we worked hard to find a way to be together, each of us sacrificing conveniences and embracing the unknowns to make our relationship work. We moved to Florida within three months of knowing each other and within seven months of dating were engaged. We just celebrated our ten year anniversary and are still grateful for that fateful night in Seoul where we found our soul mates.
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