Revisiting Old Wounds
In the Seoul morning, when I look out the balcony, I see the clouds getting caught in the dense mountainside. If you blink, it almost looks like smoke escaping the treetops. Like the whole city’s on fire. About two years ago, I fell asleep in my parents’ living room in Korea, on the hard floor with a pink quilt over my face. I had been visiting my distanced parents over the winter. When I awoke, the quilt looked so much like the one in my apartment. For agonizing minutes, I thought I was alone on my spring-less, flat bed in California. To the lone child still selfishly waiting, it felt worse than sitting backstage, watching parents hand their kids plastic roses and head home to real dinners. Worse than when I told a brown coffin why I couldn’t take my grandma to Ueno anymore. I felt the things I’d carefully buried.
I was so accustomed to this ‘alone’ that I became good at it. When I’m surrounded by nothing but four plaster walls, everything’s the way it’s supposed to be and my life is continuing in a way I’d imagined. This was comfortable and all I knew how to handle. So when I wake to an Apple-Vinegar-Onion sandwich (the way I like) with mom’s real hand laying down a cup of warm milk next to me, I can’t breathe. Would I wake up in a meager room back in California. Could I then crawl into the garage as I did when I was too young, thinking about letters that should have read, “Eunji, we’re coming back to get you.” I don’t want to blink. I owe it to myself to try and enjoy being by my family’s side for the summer, however uncomfortable and nerve-wracking it makes me (however instinctively, I want to drive them away from me). Would I survive if I were to see my clouds turn into fire one more time.
One of the most difficult parts of any relationship is accepting that it's happening to us right now, and isn't some far off figment of our imagination that we've long desired for; we don't wish to let this and the inevitability we will be parted from them for however long become of part of the reality we've worked so hard to establish. These people and these emotions, however, are key to our growth as human beings, as well as helping the knowledge we hold about life and interacting with one another even closer to being full circle. No matter what has happened in the past it will always be in the past and can only have as much power over us as we choose to give it, especially in terms of the ones closest to our hearts. For a person to fully enjoy their time with their treasured ones means not to languish over what the future may bring, but to calm the mind and enjoy the moments we can share with them here and now. If one cannot let themselves be at ease when those precious few moments with their loved ones finally arises then the only thing that will come about is them allowing all the changes to forge those long desired emotions they've so long slip through their fingertips, left to wonder what could've been made and returning to a life of always longing, never fulfilling.
Beautifully written.
I like your blog, it speaks of emotion and personal experience that turned unknowing child hot-pot-handle hands into a careful yet risk taking thrill seeker and endure-er.
Hey girl, Ben and I were talking about his parents the other day. He moved out to California when he was 18, and he said that he almost never talked to his parents. Pretending that he didn't care about them made it easier for him to deal with missing them, and the reality that someday they'd be gone forever. A few months ago his grandma died, and he went up to visit them and realized that he'd been making the wrong choice all of these years by avoiding his family. Now he calls his parents everyday, and his sister more than once a week. As much as it hurts to keep reopening wounds when it comes to your parents, know that you're making the right choice by not driving them away. Embrace them while you have them. And have fun in Korea!I love you, and I miss you, and Ari misses you! Hell, even Ben misses you, haha.
dude, your such a deep writer…….D:
Your prose is so gorgeous, so free-flowing, I would float through 75,000 words of your writing just like that. Tell you what: you write that novel you're carrying inside you – about you, your mother, your friends, your school, your writing, your joys and heartbreak – and I'll buy ten copies just to pass around to friends. Oh, I'll save one for myself, for you to autograph when you tour my city. You know I will. Just write it!
I'm feeling more sad now.. I wish I could be four again before it all began. For some reason this brings on image of a fading flower.. perhaps a Lily in the pouring rain.
This lovely and as a mother and the daughter of a dead mother it reaches me on many levels.Life is bitter sweet, like your favourite sandwich. But it can tastes good while it lasts.
The execution of this is quite good. You have given me enough concrete imagery so that I can see the picture and the perfect amount of emotion to hold my attention. Excellent work!
I wish I could have homemade Korean miso soup made by my mother. I bet the sandwich you had in Korea was unbelievably great!
Homemade Korean miso soup? I haven’t tried that before. She must share her recipe!