Korean/한국어: 제 인생 이야기, 26살 때
foreword
These days I’ve finally made the time (and mustered the courage) to look back through my old diaries spanning over 20 years. Lo and behold, my unedited and unredacted autobiography, circa 2014 at 26 years old. I had been living in the South Korean countryside for one year, teaching English at a public elementary school and drowning in existential angst. I wrote this to remind myself of why I shouldn’t disappear.
I’ve added footnotes and photographs, but the following is a completely unedited transcript of the story of my life I told myself at age 26.
I was born on July 31, 1988. It was the summer of the Seoul Olympics. I was born bright red. So red my mother called me “akachan”— which means “red baby” in Japanese.1
I grew up in a suburb of Seoul called Nowon. We lived in a gleaming apartment with marble tables and white floors and nice furniture.
When I was still in my mother’s womb, my grandfather2 passed away from lung cancer. He left us some money, and with that money my family went traveling. We traveled all across Europe. Paris, Rome, Scotland, England. I still remember Paris. It was so magical there.
We moved to the UK when I was 6 years old. I had just started elementary school. I had to learn a new language very quickly. It was then that my mother started taking us to the library. Every day after school I would read. I would devour books.
Books became a way for me to escape into another world. It helped me become curious about the world, to see deeper.3 I used to be so curious about people— their inner lives. What made them tick. It genuinely fascinated me.
It’s what drew me to journalism later on. I dreamt that journalism would fulfill my dream of traveling, meeting new people, and making deep connections.4
In grade 9 my father left Korea5 for good. I tried to cry but was very emotionally blocked at this point. I simply forced myself to let out some tears, because I knew that I had to release something.
My mother was emotionally and physically abusive. Maybe what I mean by emotionally is verbally. She had so much hurt that she hurt me and my sister. As I grow older I understand her more, and feel less indignation. I realize that the world is an ocean of suffering, and it’s with gratitude with which I must live every day of my finite life.6
In university my eating disorder grew worse. I lost control. I gained weight and a heaviness in my soul that would not ease, even after sporadic bursts in which I managed to exercise or starve myself back to my pre-binge disorder weight.
Recently I read a book about how we hold trauma in our bodies. How we store memories through habit thought energies, through tension in certain parts of the body. I believe this to be true. I feel this to be true.
I am 26 years old now. I am past a quarter century old but still figuring out how life works. I am seeing in a more balanced light all the events of the past.
I’ve attempted to run away from my past, from the places that scare me. I’ve forced myself to exhaustion through physical exercise, hoping against hope that it would cure me of the ugliness I felt. I realize (or am starting to, and trying to act upon this) that I am not ugly and worthless.
I like helping people. I like to make people laugh. I like to write. I am good at communicating with words, particularly the written word. I can cook well, when motivated by love and company.
I am opportunistic.
I am smart.
I am intuitive about people’s emotions.
I am driven.
I am persistent.
I am capable.
I am beautiful.
I am so much more than I give myself credit for.
I am grateful for this day.
I am going to help others find their reason for being.
Their purpose on this planet.
postscript
- 赤ちゃん ↩︎
- Maternal grandfather; iykyk. ↩︎
- And then the books saved my life. ↩︎
- Truthful and highly skilled journalists seeking to serve the public interest still exist. Their impact is up to the rest of us— as in, whether we actively listen to what they have to report from the field. I have my own super sad true love story with journalism, that supposedly rewarding alternative to writing fiction which I can only sum up in the following phrase:
Ich wartete auf den Zusammenbruch, damit ich endlich frei sein konnte. I was waiting for it all to collapse so that I could finally be free. ↩︎ - “Korea” was supposed to be “Canada.” In my diary entries I frequently make this error, and still use the two countries interchangeably in conversation. ↩︎
- It’s still not easy. ↩︎
- I have been a non-dogmatic follower of of Zen Buddhism since 2013, when I first moved to South Korea. ↩︎