by Seneca Moraleda-Puguan
Five, four, three, two, one…Happy New Year!
Oh, what a wonderful declaration! Aside from “Merry Christmas,” shouting “Happy New Year!” is one thing I always anticipate.
But the start of 2024 was different for our family.
While everybody was celebrating over food and fellowship, enjoying the first day of the year, we were busy discarding things, packing balikbayan boxes, selling and giving away household items.
While everybody was outside with family and friends, we were surrounded by big boxes and luggage in a topsy-turvy home.
We were supposed to leave the house on the last day of 2023 but since it’s a holiday, we were given one more day to completely clear the house in time for the inspection of the apartment on January 2, 2024.
As much as we wanted to celebrate, we couldn’t fully enjoy it as there were so many things to accomplish that we had to put the New Year festivities aside.
We have given up a beautiful home that had been a place of refuge and shelter for the past three years to live temporarily with a friend in Seoul while we wait for our flight to our next destination, our next home.
The past few weeks have been very challenging and overwhelming. It was a roller coaster of emotions.
Excited for the new season but at the same time sad that we will leave so many beautiful things and people behind.
As we try to put the things that we have accumulated for the past 10 years as a family into a few boxes, I couldn’t help but be heartbroken.
There were moments when I wanted to cry.
I wanted to bring along so many things that have become so important to me: my children’s newborn clothes, their precious artwork and scribbles, some of my favorite bags and shoes, and so much more.
But, I couldn’t.
There are beautiful and important things I just had to let go, of to make things lighter and to give room for new ones.
We had to filter everything that we have, take with us the things that will be useful in the next season and leave behind things that we used to love but will just take space in our new place.
Yes, it was definitely heartbreaking to not be able to bring so many things that have given me wonderful memories but we knew it was necessary.
In the end, it was fulfilling.
I realized that facing the New Year is very much the same.
As much as we want to take along with us all that we have gained in 2023, there are things we must let go of as we face 2024. Especially our emotional baggage, the heaviest burdens we carry, and the things of the past that weigh us down.
Let us leave them behind and look forward to new beginnings, new experiences, new relationships, and new memories to build.
It’s time to start afresh.
South Korea has been my home for almost a decade.
It is a place where I experienced many beautiful things in my life. It is where I said yes to my husband, where we began our family, conceived, gave birth, and raised our two amazing children.
It is in this nation where I have experienced many firsts and have built countless covenant relationships. I have felt, witnessed, and experienced God’s generosity, kindness and grace in this wonderful place.
I will surely miss it and its remarkable people.
But all good things come to an end to give room for something better.
A new adventure awaits our family.
Indeed, the New Year ushers in a new beginning for our family. We do not know what lies ahead, one thing we do know is that great things await us.
God has opened a door for us, and we are excited to enter it. He is calling us to enter a land of promise and we are more than eager to conquer it.
We look back on the many years of our stay in the land of kimchi and samgyeopsal, K-Pop and Korean drama with grateful hearts.
Today, we look forward to stepping into the land of mountains and lakes, cheese fondue and Rolex.
2024, bring it on! New home, here we come!
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