Hey friends and family.
Long time no messages, eh? haha. Guess what? [reading the subject line of this message probably gave you a hint already, but still ... make a good guess ... I'm waiting ...] Yep! I'm back in Korea. Woo hoo~~ Woo hoo~~ haha
Some of you may already know that and have already gotten a message like this through some other means, but I thought that for old time's sake, I'd send one more message this way as well and frankly didn't feel like going through the list and removing emails. If you're hurt by that ... then sorry? haha. Besides, who wouldn't want to get one more of my fun, funny messages in their inbox penned (metaphorically) by yours truly (typed while batting eyelashes cutely)? [actually I can think of a few people, but they're definitely not on this list ... I think. ;-)]
Anyway, this time around I'm not going to blast you with messages like before. I'm just gonna give you a passive thing you can do it you'd like: you can follow this link [
https://photos.app.goo.gl/D3WBqfiEVK6eD1w37] and watch videos of what's going on with me. There's one right now, and my goal is to make one a week ... for this next year ... and we'll see how it goes. haha. I've been known to do year-long challenges before, and this is my new one. The first video was spliced together pretty quickly, but I'll try to make them better and better each time. Maybe. I can only promise one thing: lots of me talking. hahah. Oh, and things from Korea. Probably. So if you think that's for you, do it. If not, that's cool too. I think there's even a way to officially join the album that I've given you the link for (because it's through Google Photos and pretty much everyone has a Google account by now, right?), but I can't give you exact directions for doing that right now. I can figure it out later if you need that.
For anyone in here with whom I've not had direct contact in a long time and still wants to have direct contact with me (ie- email, phone call, video chat, etc), send me a reply! I'm not very good at culling friends, and I'd rather just keep all of you in my life forever, so that's my favor I'm asking of you.
Ah! Another favor just sprang to mind! My new place is still very bare. I'll put my address at the bottom, and if any of you happen to want to send me a letter (preferably with something colorful inside that can be hung on walls with tape -- aka- pictures and/or coloring pages), I would love to hear from you (even without the colorful thing to put on my wall, although I will be slightly disappointed ^^), and you may even get something in return. You'll just have to try it out to see if that's true or not. But my guess is that it's true. haha ;-)
AND! In case I didn't get around to seeing anyone who really wanted to see me again before I left the country, I'm sorry. :-( This Covid world in which we live has changed a lot for all of us, and in my case, it tied me down a lot more than I had expected/hoped. I wanted to see more people in person before going, but I do firmly believe in the quarantining that was happening at that time. I hope that you all are also being safe and staying healthy. For anyone not in one of those states, I deeply hope for your swift return to both health and safety.
Alright. Time to get back to other life things here. As always, if you wanna video chat or call, I'm up for it. Right now I'm 13 hours ahead of Midwest time (aka- Eastern Daylight Savings Time), so working out a good time for both of us can be a bit tricky, but it's not impossible. Also, for anyone who had my back-in-America number saved in their phone (other any other old numbers for that matter), 260.302.2299 has now been resigned to a Google Voice number for my other email address, but I still have access to it. For texts or calls, though, 260.627.9186 is still a better number (being my Voice number for this email address) [and any other numbers for me can be deleted and forgotten]. Sorry if that's confusing ... that's just the way I like to live ... be as complicated as possible about things that don't really matter in the long run yet will still clog up address books and cause people to fall into inner turmoil as they try to figure out which number to use to reach me at any given moment. mwuhahaha!!! ;-)
Ok. Looks like this is a classic Ben email -- probably longer than it needed to be, but I'm gonna leave it that way. And add more. Again ... mwuhahahahahhaha.
Thank you all for the love and support you've shown me over the years. Right now I was just reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs ["For Good" from "Wicked"]:
I've heard it said,
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them.
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you.
[I just had to make that green ... hahahah] I was given this soundtrack by a friend ages and ages ago, and I think it really is true. Thanks for all of you being part of my life and helping to shape me into the person I am today. I owe you a debt that'll never be paid in full, but I will always strive to continue paying it forward. :-)
Ok. Time for me to really go do other stuff. Real ending of email ... now.
Lots of love,
Ben
Republic of Korea,
Chungcheongnam-do, Cheonan-si, Seobuk-gu
Buldang 4-ro 39-49, (Buldang-dong 866), 303-ho
Benjamin Graves
31164
ps- I've attached the song for you ... just in case you don't know it ... yet. ;-)
