Resolve anger

“Aren’t you too busy? No matter how busy life gets, we’re doing all this just to be happy. Taking a few weeks off won’t ruin the world. If you keep working all the time, when will you actually see this big, beautiful world?”

I was starting to feel it. I didn’t want to cook anymore. I didn’t even want to sit across from my husband at the dinner table. Something inside me had reached its limit. The tangle of frustration that had been quietly piling up in my heart was starting to come undone—anger bubbling up.

“Fine. I’ll go alone.”

“After what happened in Istanbul? You got so sick, remember? Just wait a little longer—when this project is over, we’ll go together.”

“You always say that. ‘Next time.’ But ‘next time’ never really comes for us.”

“If you must go, book a package tour. Go alone, but be safe.”Before he even finished, I was already calling the travel agency.

“People are all good, once you get to know them.”
That was the first thing our tour guide said when we started the trip in Prague. He had a kind face.

“Yes, that’s true,” I thought, nodding. “People are good, deep down.”

But suddenly, I felt dizzy. My body started to shiver. Something wasn’t right. Maybe it had been too much—to get off a long overnight flight and start a winter tour right away.

With feverish, tired eyes, I looked out the bus window at Eastern Europe. It didn’t feel that different from Western Europe. Churches here, churches there—nothing really stood out.

“But I paid a lot for this tour,” I told myself. “I need to focus and remember everything.”

I tried to sit up and look around, but the bus ceiling and floor started to spin together. I couldn’t tell which way was up.

“Will I even make it back home to New York alive?”

I quietly moved to the empty back seat and laid down.

“Maybe I should have listened to my husband. What a mess…”

In Budapest, we stayed at the hotel where actor Lee Byung-hun stayed during the filming of the K-drama IRIS. The next morning, I was waiting in the lobby when I saw Song Hye-kyo coming out of the elevator! Wait—no, it just looked like her. It was actually our tour guide. Petite, with fair skin and a bright smile—she really did look like the actress. Maybe it was because we had talked so much about the drama the night before. Or maybe it was just my fever playing tricks on me. Either way, when I told her, “I thought you were Song Hye-kyo,” she was delighted. She gave me some cold medicine from Korea, and that strong Korean medicine really worked. I finally started to feel human again.

Other people write fun travel blogs listing all the historical places they visited.
But me? I always seem to come back with a sad memory. When I think back on my trips, they feel like places I just brushed past in a dream—foggy cities I barely got to know.

When I arrived at the airport, my husband came to pick me up. He took my travel bag and said,
“Got it all out of your system? I guess things will be quiet around here for a few months. I made soybean paste stew. Come eat.”

Whenever the tangle of stress and frustration builds up in my chest, I feel like I have to go somewhere. I distract myself by looking up destinations, asking, “Where should I go next?”
Booking the trip makes things even more stressful—but slowly, as I plan and wander, the knots begin to loosen.

Maybe that’s how I’ve managed to keep this long marriage going. We go through the cycle again and again: I leave, I return, and my husband waits with warm stew on the stove. And somehow, it works.