The moment of walking away stays with you forever. The emotions can be so pure and yet conflicted. Sitting on the back of a public bus driving towards the international airport in South Korea, I remember clear pictures, flashes of realizations. The blue seat of the bus. The blue sky with white clouds. The small Asian style trucks rushing by.

I opened my purse and pulled out all the small change. It was useless to me. Too small to change at the currency counter. I held the coins in my hands, money I had worked and cried for, in tiny pieces, too small to be of any future use.

They trickled through my fingers onto the blue seat.

I stood up. I walked away. I left those tiny coins behind and I left behind a job that had torn me apart inside.

It felt like laughter and it felt like weeping. I walked alone into the terminal, not flying home and not leaving home. Just walking away from something that had treated me wrong.

There was terror. There was liberty. There was real danger and real joy.

I was a just a girl with her suitcase, looking for a better life, willing to leave the dross behind.