Facing those I left behind

Saying good-bye is sometimes difficult, especially when saying good-bye to the few people who were not part of the problem.

I was out shopping today when I decided to have lunch. Two of the students I had taught at the job I had just quit immediately recognised me and started talking to me. So, we started talking for a little while ... but then one of them asked when I was going to be coming back.

I didn't know how to break it to them. I had said before that only 5 or 6 of the students had any respect for me at all, and here I was with two of them. The truth is, I had made the decision already, and there is no turning back. Aside from them and very few of my other students, all of my students disliked me. All of my co-workers hated me with a passion and thought I was the biggest screw-up going. My boss saw me as troublesome and everything I did as bad. From even before day one, pretty major details (such as the fact that I needed to know Korean to do well in the job) had conveniently not been told to me until it was too late, leaving me in a situation where there were some classes in which I had to come up with an entire lesson and present it in a language they could not understand without any help whatsoever from anyone who knew Korean. Aside from these two and the few other kids I already mentioned, the job had done some pretty major damage to me, to the point where, as many of you might have known, I had seriously wished I had never existed at all and that someone would just kill me already. It's possible I may be banished for life from Korea if my former boss has his way. How do I explain that, though, to a pair of Korean grade-schoolers without them thinking that they were part of the problem when they were two of the very few people involved who weren't?

So, all I had to say is that I had given up. I had run away. I'm off to a far-away country (even though Japan isn't THAT far away) in a few days, and I may never be able to return. I'm not sure if they completely understood the permanence of the situation; unfortunately, they may still be waiting for a long time to come (they still called me their teacher throughout the whole thing). At the end, we exchanged e-mail addresses and said our good-byes.

I didn't say this to them, but my wish is for them to never become like me. I hope that they find the courage to confront their problems rather than running away from them. I hope that they actually find success in life. Above all, I hope they don't end up becoming the messed-up and overall bad person that I am. I hope they never turn their backs on those who care about them. That goes for all of those who I have abandoned. I hope none of them grow up to be the rotten, spineless wimp I've become.

I also hope they don't wait for me. Not only am I probably never going to return, but also, I'm really not worth waiting for, not even for a day.