Anna Lee

ESL100

                                                          Recovery of My Life


                      Have you ever been in the mood to just be listless? In my case, after birth of my daughter, I could not stop thinking about how I spent my days in a state of lethargy. Just caring for my baby and taking care of all the household work in a foreign country without my family or friends caused me to feel depressed. However, I wanted to overcome this circumstance, and to do that, I waited until my daughter could go to pre-school. After my daughter went to pre-school, I decided to enroll to college. At college I found going to I realized that I had missed cherished routines, social interaction, and my future goal and revitalizing my life.


First, going to college means that I have things that I have to do every day. Of course I graduated from college in my country over ten years ago. Honestly, when I was in school or at work, I never recognized that I had cherished the routine of such as school jobs. Now, I feel happy that I have homework to do and I can study with young students. When I stayed at home due to parenting, from wake-up to bedtime, I just could stay at home all day with my precious baby as I was doing repeated household jobs. I have even forgotten to wash my face or to change clothes. As a matter of fact, that was normal. That happened a lot. I remember the winter two years ago when I saw a woman in the elevator who was dressed up and she seemed to be going to work in the morning. She looked very nice. I envied her appearance at that time. I could not forget that morning. However, now that I am going to school, I am no longer envious because I have a routine that I have to change clothes every morning.




  In addition to my new routine, I am in society makes me happy. The sense of belonging is really important because people are very social creatures, and need to feel a sense of belonging. Being in a foreign country apart from my extended family, relatives, and friends, I was busy caring for my baby and husband. That meant I did not even have time to spend any time for myself. Repeating those days over and over I felt lonely and listless. I thought I didn’t belong to any society in this country. Plus, I did not go to church. Church can be a religious community that I can belong to as well as a social community, but I didn’t go to church because I am a Buddhist. It might not be understandable for many young students that going to college and learning is a blessing. When I was going to school at my school age-that was in Korea-I didn’t have opportunity to feel how being in a society like school is a blessing. I can tell that having social interation, sharing knowledge and experiences are just a blessing.




Finally, going to college has had a beneficial effect on my goal. Not having a goal in life can make a life depressed. In that way, when I spent all my days just caring for a baby and doing household work, I could not find any significance in my life. That was just too tough to keep my composure. Ironically, now when I am going to college, although I am pressed for time for a lot of homework, I feel happy. I couldn’t imagine that pressure on homework could be happy for me. But I am. That someone else spend time preparing for my learning make me feel grateful. Besides, educating myself, I can set up my second goal in my life in a foreign country, and that makes me excited!




In brief, going back to college for me means educating myself as well as setting up a new goal in my mid-thirties. This has revitalized my life. During the past three years when I didn’t go to school, I have ever felt as if I was not in the right shoes, I was living in the U.S. not adapting this foreign country. Even though I spent the past three years in a state of lethargy, through the tough time, I realized how precious my daily life. As a result of the tough times, now I am going to school for my better future in a foreign country.