[LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 4] Going full white lady in the woods

Alone by the ocean along Jeju Island's Olle Trail / Courtesy of Rachel Stine

By Rachel Stine

All right, we started this series with a secret. Do you want to know another??

Initially, I wasn't going to write all this. The premise seemed too…"Eat, Pray, Love on Jeju Island." And unlike Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, I wouldn't receive a $200,000 book advance to finance my spiritual awakening.

Instead, I'd get what all Korea Times contributors used to get ― free dinner once a month. Which is fine, really. I like lobster rolls.

…except I was on Jeju Island and couldn't even get a lobster roll.

So in the time-honored tradition of journalist ladies trauma-dumping into the internet for free, let's talk.

On July 5th, 2021, the longest romantic relationship of my life ended. Given that I've been vulnerable here on screen, one might expect that I'm about to unload a whole kitchen cabinet of post-breakup spice.

I've already disclosed my OCD. As any Korea-based expat knows, disclosing a serious mental health condition like that can put both jobs and visas in danger. I've also written that I'm bisexual, which means Korean employers can now legally fire me.

What's breakup drama compared to that?

"Yes," the comments section trolls type from a dark PC room. "Tell us about your romantic failings."

Well that, dear reader, is where I must put up a boundary. I'm not going to disclose the precise details of what happened on July 5th, 2021, and the ethnonationalists in the comments will just have to speculate about my personal life elsewhere.

"But Rachel," the well-intentioned among you protest, "How can you NOT explain? I slogged through this self-indulgent swamp of writing for drama! I don't want to hear about how you still respect his boundaries. I want to hear about how you threw a milkshake at him in a McDonald's parking lot!"

Well…sure. Oversharing is normalized in the culture of Web 2.0. It certainly sells.

But our breakup happened over the phone. There was no screaming, and there certainly weren't any McDonald's parking lot showdowns. Even if there had been, I wouldn't write about them publicly.

When I share my life with someone romantically, I consider there to be a sort of sacred contract between us. What is said in our Kakao rooms stays private. Who initiated the breakup stays private. Even if things didn't work out, I think it's essential to respect old flames, even if they only kept us warm for a year or two.

"Fine," you say. "Sounds like it wasn't that bad."

And that's where you'd be wrong.

After that breakup phone call, I virtually stopped eating. I lost five kilograms in a week.

This wasn't the sort of parting where you stare at waves crashing against rocks and think: "Wow…I look like the protagonist in a movie right now."

This was waking up at exactly 4:30 a.m. every morning and staring at the wall for hours. It was ugly crying in my apartment with the blinds drawn and the lights off while my Chinese Crested dog watched.

It was calling my old roommate (who now lives in Kyoto) 15 minutes before a class, red-faced and mewling: "Man, I just really need a pep talk right now…"

Canine observer along Jeju Island's Olle Trail / Courtesy of Rachel Stine

Without my ex's biweekly visits, I was convinced the isolation would break me. I told him that I would move back to Seoul in December 2021 because I didn't think I could do this without him. When our relationship ended, it was the psychic equivalent of a broken leg.

Strangely, I kept thinking of the fainting animation for Nidorina in the original Pokemon Stadium games as a tiny visual metaphor for the entire situation. ("I cannot handle this … I'm being recalled back to Haebangchon so lesbians can take me to a Pokemon Center!")

And that's what ended up happening, too. The couple who had been my emergency contacts in Seoul let me crash on their couch for five days. I reconnected with my old neighbors. We drank wine and watched "Squid Game."

Even after returning to Jeju, I numbed out with video games. My Pokemon Sword save file rocketed from 400 hours of playtime to 617 hours.

Here, one might expect me to dismiss video games as an unhealthy coping mechanism, but they actually weren't. The Isle of Armor DLC in the Pokemon world reminded me of the one time I went to Hyeopjae Beach with a friend.

Looking across that virtual sunset, I thought: "I've lived on this island for seven months…but I've barely done any tourist stuff. I liked that Olle Trail thing…maybe I can try that."

So 20 days after the breakup, I woke up early, got on the 151 bus and headed for Olle Route 2.

Between Trails 2 and 21, I would discover that jeong had not died in Yaksu Station. More importantly, the Olle Trails were about to sand down the rough edges of my mind, blowing away OCD compulsions like dust.

LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 1 How hiking Jeju's 437km of trails changed my life
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 2 Fighting agrarian anxiety attacks on Jeju's paths
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 3 Carrying a grandma through Yaksu Station
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 4 Going full white lady in the woods
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 5 Getting ice cream and umbrellas from strangers
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 6 Discovering deer carcasses at the tea museum
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 7 Healing perfectionism on Pyoseon Beach
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 8 Confronting OCD in Woljeong-ri
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 9 Reading a poem about death in the woods
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 10 Confronting the subconscious saboteur
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 11 Worrying about comments section chaos
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 12 Saying goodbye in Gueok-ri
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 13 Walking back, fast or slow

Rachel Stine has volunteered in the North Korean human rights sphere for over a decade. Her writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Korea Times and other major news outlets. You can view nature photography from her journeys around the world at flickr.com/photos/rachelstinewrites.