Told You So

I'm an adult.

This is not new information, but I do need to remind myself from time to time. I used to think that adulthood was about doing whatever I wanted. Probably most children think that way. I remember the day that Mom told me I no longer had a bedtime. At 12, I though I had arrived. I remember that night.

I remember having to get up the next morning.

So then, apparently adulthood was about making responsble choices, and probably some other big words that I still don't fully understand. That's what Mom told me. That's why she let me stay up late, why she stopped nagging me about cleaning my room (mistake, btw) and why from 8th grade on, I was responsible to do my own laundry and ironing. I had to learn about another big word: Consequences.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm glad my parents wanted me to be responsible. It just seemed like they had a rather grim outlook on responsibility.

"I know you think being an adult is going to be sooooo much fun, but you don't know how good you have it. This is the best time of your life. I would give anything to be your age again."

I never quite bought that line. There was something else. Something about the fact that I could smell popcorn with butter coming from the living room about half an hour after bedtime. This was a time and place somehow forbidden to me. It was the same reason I couldn't sleep with Mom and Dad every time after I had a nightmare.

It was Dad's laugh too. The one he saved for the Tonight Show. He never laughed like that for the movies we watched with him. Jon and I would often sneak out down the long, dark hallway, careful not to step on any of the boards that creaked. Crouched on the stairwell, just out of sight, we couldn't see. We could only listen. I couldn't understand anything that Jay Leno was saying, I had come for the laugh. That distant call from a world that I could never know until the day that the title was magically bestowed on me.

Adult.

I wanted it so bad, and they were just being selfish. They told me that they needed time to be alone.

For what?

I want to play too.

"When you're older, you'll feel differently. It's just hormones."

It occured to me a while ago that I'm an adult, but something else occured to me that I didn't expect. It's something that 5-year old me stubbornly clung to, and swore the most sacred of oaths that he would hold to forever.

I was right.

Responsibility is just another word for freedom, and they tried to change my mind. My professors, family members, sunday school teachers, classmates, lab partners, bosses, supervisors, camp counselors, and even my subconscious, and the ways it was offended by all the things I would become, with or without my permission.

And those bastards didn't get me.

I had to grow up just to prove them wrong. I still feel the same way, and it is just as valid as it was when I was 5. I still like Batman comic books and cartoons. My room is still a mess, and I'm still a pretty damn good drawer.

I can say damn too. Nothing explodes. I checked.

So this is adulthood. It's what I've always been, plus those other cool things that I can see and use and know about.

Savings account
Sex
Parenthood
Paycheck
Facial hair
"R" for disturbing images
90 proof
Surgeon General's warning:
License

And perhaps I will make some really big mistakes with these things, but they are completely mine, and I am allowed to make them.

I was right all along.

I grew up just to prove you wrong.

Strength in Layers of Cardboard

Crawled out of bed today. Sleep is my favourite. There's a ukulele by my bed made completely out of corrugated cardboard. It makes me want to try harder. I feel important today, like it's possible to do something, from start to finish. I used to want to change the world. Is it possible that this is a small dream as well?

I wonder.

I still get most of my news from Facebook. I guess it's better than being out of the loop, but I should probably pick up a newspaper from time to time. These days, everyone is passing around either a video by the Invisible Children guys about a man named Joseph Kony, or they are posting rebuttal articles, calling the video "one-sided and not helpful." All I can think is "damn it, here's another thing I have to form an opinion about in order to be an adult."

They really make you work for it, don't they?

Everyone says that the world is going to Hell and there's nothing we can do about it. Seems like they've been saying that forever. Saving the world is a small dream anyway. It'll never last. My thoughts today are on a cardboard ukulele, and the strength of the human heart, all wrapped up in layers over time. There is nothing in the world more important.

I want to save one of those.

Weather Or Not

I don't know why, but I felt like waking up when my alarm went off this morning. There is something that I find sickeningly abnormal about a strong desire to face the world exactly at the time that such motivation is required.

I don't trust me when I'm happy. It's been too long.

I showered
I drank coffee
I listened to music.

I need all three to wake up in the morning, and today...

...I don't know what I need.

I taught the 6th graders in the morning. When I first came to this school, they were in the 4th grade.

I remember.

김예슬, my 6th grade co-teacher was a 5th grade homeroom teacher last year, and the year before, she was a student. I feel like I've been here forever, and I will be here for longer than that. What else would I do with my life? I have been doing this forever.

It's cloudy today, and 10 C. I know what that means now. I don't know what we would call this the way that my people speak about weather. Perhaps we would call it "nice." As in:

"How's the weather today?"
"Oh, it's nice."

I'm not used to this.

I've been keeping my days busy, instead of wasting them on Facebook. It seems like this world has been waiting for me to get my act in gear, and it's not going to get going again until I decide something.

Where do we go from here?

The weather is nice.

It's been a while since I've had this sort of day, but I remember the last time.

You can come back if you want. I think tomorrow's forecast is the same.

A Foot Condition

I've been having a thought lately. It's been running circles in my head and it won't come out. Who's to say it ever will? That's the work of a lifetime, I've found: to make it all come out. That's why a lot of artists kill themselves.

Cowards.

Gonna make it all come out before I get out of here.

I think I've given up on happy. It's a race. I've never been much of a runner (I have a foot condition). I'll have to settle for purpose over happy, if I can have that. Most days I fear I'll fail at that too.

I confuse the two, happiness and purpose. If I'm happy, I think that everything I do has meaning. If I'm not, then everything is stupid and I've failed. Everyone else is doing better because they seem to smile when I don't look at them directly.

After all these years, I haven't learned to be direct. Maybe I should try happy?

No. It's a race. My feet weren't designed for that. I'm going to stay.

Maybe I wasn't designed for happy either.

We can't all be happy all the time, you know. It's like money. In order for some to have a lot, most people have to get by with little or none. I don't mind, but it seems like I don't meet too many of the people with lots, and if I'm going to have to do without, I would at least like to know that the people around me aren't going through the same thing.

That's one thing I would ask God. If you must continue in this way, will you take care of the ones I love? I will be satisfied in that.

People talk to me all the time about being depressed. Their arguments usually amount to something along the lines of "I don't like that, so stop it." It's a fair argument, but it's not complete.

You don't know what I've seen.

What I'm able to see. Not yet.

I'm not afraid.

I'm not afraid of sacrificing my entire life to failure for the hope of one success. I'm not afraid of death; I will embrace it when it is my time. I am not scared to be misunderstood. Got to keep breathing. Got to keep writing happy endings because I haven't seen a real one. Got to make it all come out before I go.

I will be satisfied in that.

Umbrella

I find refuge in the time I have to myself.

I think, at one time I was supposed to find refuge in something(someone?) else, but I often forget who that is, and mistake that identity for someone else. I guess I had better hope that this great thing that I never seem to stop looking for is also somehow inside of me, or I may never find it.

Or perhaps, I'll find it and then I'll just give up because I'll never get my head around it or it scares me too much. That's why we watch movies and listen to music. That thing is out there, somewhere in the real world. Better to stay indoors as much as possible, and always go out with an umbrella.

Actually, I prefer Youtube. Sometimes the movies talk about it too.

I'm in a shop called "Hands Coffee." The barrista is kind of cute. I wonder what would happen if I went up to her and told her that, and maybe kissed her on the cheek. Maybe it would be like a movie, except for the part where it's her turn to react.

That's another thing I like about the movies. There's always a main character. I can never react to anything properly because I'm pretty sure I'm an extra. With the amount of effort I put into my life, I'll be lucky if I'm even credited.

The slogan for this place is "My life, my choice." I'm suddenly worried that there are stem cells in my coffee. I forget why that's supposed to make me angry. It has something to do with Christopher Reeve, but he's dead. Should I still be upset?

Anyway, I'm about finished with my latte and I can safely say that the slogan is the only strong thing about this place.

The PA system is playing a jazz cover of "Tainted Love," This has nothing to do with anything (I wish it did) but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

I think the barrista is smiling at me out of the corner of my eye. I try smiling at her. I don't think she was smiling at me anymore.

What I wouldn't give to be at least a supporting cast member. Like Ron Weasley.

He got Hermoine. How the hell did that happen?

This place is orange. I can see the cold, steel blue of the outdoors through the windows. I've been learning about color temperature online in my free time. Everything we think we know is backwards. All the cool colors come from high temperatures, and all the warm ones come from lower temperatures. Does that mean that the outside is warmer?

Or at least, more heat?

Heat isn't the same as temperature. We learned that in school. Temperature is a number, but heat is motion. A vat of molten steel has nothing on the heat generated by the ocean.

Motion. So many things moving around. Life has no plot that I can find.

My hand is on the door. I wait for the heat to come. THe ocean. It spins around in circles, and no one can breathe underwater. The barrista notices me leaving.

"감사합니다! 안녕히 가십시요!"

I'll bet she says that to everyone.

Candid/Candone

God is a photographer.

I've been a bit into photography lately, and one of my more willful sins is to think that God is a little bit like me. Perhaps we have a few hobbies in common. I feel the need to indulge in the mood I'm in right now, so you, O loyal reader(s?) will have to forgive me (as He often does).

He put a soft filter of fog down around the whole of the landscape. Spared no expense. The colors are outlined deep against the grey of yet another subtlety that they all dismiss as absence.

He is not seen.

He is behind.

He is gathering exposure.

These days, I am becoming more sensitive to light. I don't understand what it is, but I think that the world is posed; caught in the middle of saying "cheese."

I'll wait until I catch you off guard. I can picture you better that way.

The Easy Hurt

I'm having one of those "not tonight Korea, I have a headache" moments. Everything is a fight.

The students don't listen.

I can't concentrate.

The teachers can't communicate.

The food smells like death.

To be honest, most days, I like the fight. It keeps me awake. In America, life was too easy. I was fat (in more ways than one). Convenience is a slow and happy killer. All we need to do is relax for long enough to mix with the dirt.

Put down roots.

Soak up the sun.

Never move again.

Today I wish I lived close to my sister. The sound of her voice would be like therapy. She understands me without hearing me speak. Don't know if there are other people like that in the world. I moved a world away from it. I don't even think I was happy when I lived near.

It's not you, it's me.

It's easier to be unknown most days. I'm a little bit famous in my city (my face is strange), but that's not what I mean by being known.

Everyone stares.

No one speaks.

It's easy without people. It's easy, but it hurts. It's when you're alone that you notice all the things that you could care about but shouldn't. Things like crowded buses, cranky coworkers, long work hours, persistent coughs, your Facebook account, and the time difference between Seoul and Los Angeles. Not to mention unapetizing elementary school cafeteria food.

Smells like death.

One of my favorite movies is about an Irish man who becomes a butler for an eccentric millionaire who keeps alligators in the house. I'll never forget one particular part of the movie. After his first day, the butler turns to the cook and asks "is it forever like this?"

"Like what?," she says, confused.

"Like this" is something I want to remember. I want to carry it with me until my dying day. Fight to stay alive. Remember what love is. It is, in fact, love that I want, and not the easy unknown. It is not envious or proud. It is not forever like this.