I am the rain

"Life is hard and unfair and then you die." It has been said a hundred times over in different ways.

My uncle is dead. Like the cat in the box he wasn't dead until the words are spoken to me, in my world. But out there in the real world, his heart stopped beating.

I try to live out there in the real world and I feel like I'm visualizing ghosts - no, not even ghosts; like I'm trying to sculpt rain. I don't belong here. I wasn't equipped for this.

Is he really dead until I've put my hand on his chest and felt that his heart isn't beating? Is he really dead until his body has rotted away in the ground? My cat is very much alive in me, as much as when he was actually breathing, so why would the death of a human be any different? In my world, since I hardly ever saw my uncle, if I never see his body, if I never go to the funeral, is he really dead?

It's not my uncle's death that upsets me, but the death of my uncle inside my father's world. And it's not the real world that scares me; it's my world. Me. And the wonderous ways I could destroy me, so easily, so fabulously, so beautifully.

Life really is hard and unfair, but what if the inevitable death is not the final injustice but the reward? "Congratulations, you made it. You survived." What do you think? More dramatically viable?

Chisel to the Stone like a Blade to Flesh

I think I'm done.

Life feels like a series of momentous moments linked together by a string of luck and chance that determines how those moments turn out. I remember my moments clearly. The time I really looked at myself in the mirror the first time. The time my mother said my brother looked up to me, without any sort of jealousy, despite... everything. The time my father brought home flowers for no reason and I saw my parents kiss the first time. The time my grandmother kneeled by my mother's bed and said, with the biggest honesty I've seen in my life, that she wished she could have taken this hell, cancer, instead of her. The time my mother said, sitting in a chair somewhere, that she felt like she had a great responsibility to take care of me because she'd chosen me. And now lately, looking in the mirror and seeing my Korean self looking back, and fighting with my father to the point of him saying if I wanted to walk away and never speak to him again, then fine.

If life is a marble statue, I believe genes and blood is the stone, and these moments are the chisel. But how the chisel is put to the stone is determined not by either of these, but by chance, luck - by how we choose to process them. And I think I'm done processing these last two now.

From looking in the mirror I was forced to make a decision if I liked what I saw. And I decided I liked some parts and didn't like others, and that I would choose to change those that I liked the least. I have. From hearing of my brother's feelings, I made an effort to understand him, and learned to see the world more like he does and respect his point of view. Now I'm jealous of him sometimes. From the kiss, that my parents, however unlike a storybook their love is, love each other in their own way. From my grandmother I saw the infinite love of mother and daughter, and like an inmate seeing god I can't deny it. From what my mother said of my adoption, I learned I never want to be a burden to anyone, I never asked to be and to my power I never will - I will never be a duty but a choice. 

The most recent two are linked. My mind was spinning with seeing my Korean side, and I couldn't pick it apart, I couldn't settle it. Something was nagging on my mind but I couldn't figure it out. Then we fought, and I walked away hurt and angry and confused and frustrated. It took a long while to process that one, and it ended up linked to the other. But I think I'm done.

It's difficult to put words to this one. I'm still conflicted. I still believe I'm a Korean and am unsure of what that actually means. I'm still hurt about what dad said, because emotions can't be controlled like that. But I feel more like an adult. I think what I realized is that I also make sacrifices to walk my path, just like I've seen the things my dad sacrifices, and mine are just as much and as little worth as his. I rebelled against the idea that he would sacrifice other people around him, but I think that what he really sacrifices is himself; risking to end up alone. And I realized that I am no better than him; I am ready to sacrifice him to walk my path, even if that's not what I want. Stubbornly, stupidly, he has raised a daughter who is just as stubborn and stupid. And that is the road I will walk. 

Then the words are spoken again, "cancer". Someone else, somewhere else, linked but not too close to me, but to someone else. I hear it and I cry. So I'm wondering... does my father cry? Does he speak to anyone? I don't know. And I'm thinking, my path will not be like that. I am not alone, and I will never sacrifice that. Another momentous moment, another lesson learned for life. While somewhere else someone else has been told their life is about to end.

Run!

I've been hiding. I haven't read any blogs, including my own, since the last post. Was it not for that I can't bring myself to ignore my cell-phone I wouldn't have talked to anyone either. I haven't been on facebook, and I haven't answered any mails, and yes. I've been running away and hiding.

All the running ended in playing with fire and getting burned when it came to the people physically in my presence. And what have I learned from that? Don't ask questions you don't want answers to. Don't play with fire when you can't handle the pain. The sad thing is I thought I could handle the pain, and I will have to learn the hard way now, but what I really really learned is this:

That I am nothing more than the usual human tropes; The Girl With A Father Complex. The Firstborn Son.

And that never, ever must I let myself get angry. Never ever let yourself go. Or I'd be asking questions I don't want answers to, or play with fire I cannot handle. I have always believed in honesty first and I still do, but I guess I learned fear. Which I suppose can be a good thing.

I am weak, is what I learned. I'm thinking, from that base I must grow stronger. Nobody told me how, however. But the lesson I was meant to learn, I suspect, ironically, was this: That I am fine with being exactly what I am.

Thank god my cousin just said she was pregnant

Internal thought processes are awesome.

Situation: christmas celebrations with whole family. Grandma says something along the lines of "hey W (my brother) is the youngest of the people celebrating christmas here." I say, "Yes, he always is (because our cousins and their children celebrate elsewhere)." Grandma answers, "He shouldn't be for much longer should he?" *nudge nudge, wink wink*

Thought process: Are my cousins bringing their children here for christmas, that makes no sense, it's really far away and they have their own families to celebrate with, does she mean that my brother should get children, because he's only seventeen, that's way too young, she can't mean that although sometimes she doesn't think before she speaks, I guess he has been in a steady relationship for a while now, but seventeen still, and I guess they should OH MY GOD SHE MEANS ME!

Solution: *smile and edge away*

A Home At The End Of The World

I slept badly tonight, think it had something to do with the overwhelming feeling I got just before going to bed... I was watching Korean gameshows again, getting absorbed like usual beyond the world, and when I turned the computer off the world came crashing down on me. These people and this culture and this country... it's not mine. It'll never be mine. I can go there and I can talk to them, and I could meet them. In the realm of inconceivable improbabilities that are still possible, I could actually marry that cute guy in that boyband and move over there and have children and raise them in their native surroundings. But the country would never really be mine, and, for some reason, the feeling I got was that the guy would never relly be mine either. That world is like a different dimension hidden within the bend of light; I can know it, learn it, but never actually be there. I could see it and interact with it but when I reach out and try to touch it my hand would just move right through. It wasn't the kind of heart-stopping fear or pain or sadness that it should be, when I think about it, just some kind of huge, gigantic realization that sank down on my shoulders like a rock sinking in deep water. When I went to bed I tried to think of other things, resorting to WoW tactics eventually, but when I fell asleep I slept badly and dreamt strange dreams.

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling desperately low on oxygen and got up and opened the door. And I don't quite remember what I dreamt, but I had strong emotions left from it. I remember I thought as I got back into bed, that if I had one wish, and it counted as one wish, I would wish to become that cute guy's perfect match and live happily with him ever after.

Someone closed my door this morning. It was out of consideration, to let me sleep, but it woke me up and hazed from sleep I thought angrily that their damned kindness would suffocate me in my bed. Then I ignored it. And I had dreamt something strange again, something about saving children from something and almost succeeding but not quite, and I remembered what I'd thought about the wish and got angry with myself. I'm a grown, independant, modern woman with goals and aspirations, and right there being able to wish for infinite money or success for my writings or happiness and health for my friends and relatives... I wished, selfishly, sheepishly, for a guy I don't know and can't speak to and have only ever seen the fancy media-made-up side of.

I could blame the tiredness and the realization and all that. It could be that what I'm really wishing for is a home, or belonging somewhere, or a simple and predetermined fate. But I wonder.

The Value of Communication

On the note that the moment I step inside the doors of my childhood home, I become the witness of the always ongoing, pointless battles between my brother and my parents, that seem to stem from both side's complete inability to understand and respect each other, and grows ridiculously worse at their other complete inability; to communicate with one another in a sensible manner. I would blame this mostly on my father and brother, which makes sad connotations to gender, but I know that my own literacy is only a flaky illusion; when it comes to serious and heartfelt matters, I become just as stumped for words as my father.

Can I estimate how much people actually say what they're thinking, on a grand scale average? Not much. How many times of these would they even be able to put words on what they're actually thinking? Half maybe? Meaning a lot of times, people wouldn't be able to say what they're thinking because they don't know how. Why?

Communication is the solution of all things. Not just exchanging words, because that in itself is pointless and often more harmful to the cause than helpful. But exchanging ideas, thoughts and emotions, through all means of communication from a slight change in a small muscle above your eye to yelling at the top of your lungs. Those we communicate best with; those that understand us best, become the people we like to surround ourselves with. This leads me to another thought:

Once you have all the facts, you can make a solution. Communicating means providing everyone with all the facts so that they together can work out a solution. Making peace with someone won't work until he admits why he's mad at you, making love to someone won't work until you've show who you are.

I won't butt in too much in the conflict here at home. A mediator might possibly have helped them, but I'm not a mediator, I'm a daughter and a sister. It's not as bad as it might sound, I will add, but I'm endlessly frustrated by the pointlessness in their endless fighting about every single thing. I hate conflicts because they're like that moment when you step into the water the first time a warm summer; it's too cold but it will get better. Some people just get stuck in that first moment, and that makes me sad.

What do you think I think of you?

Was walking back from the store with a Coke (I'm still keeping to my three-day rule, it's even been five days since I bought the last one) when I thought, what do people think when they see me? I mean, just as a curious thought, how do they preceive me? Because I felt awesome, walking in half-dark with my fake leather jacket, perfect hair, Coke in one hand and the other in my pocket.

I mean, if they think at all, what do they think? This is hard. Thinking like other people is hard. As a writer of course I can fabulate, but privately I have no idea. Cripple? Because it's really obvious I limp, especially when I'm carrying something in my hand like that. I don't think I dress agressively enough for anyone to think dyke. And I think they can see I'm a girl at first glance, if nothing else they will assume I am from size. Corporate bitch because I'm carrying a Coke? Fashion disaster because I don't dress like the 60% of this town that wear black or the 90% that wear cloth coats (yes they overlap, a lot). Ah, and also foreigner, or more probably, Asian? Because in Sweden, people tend to be divided in those two categories for some reason. Or maybe that's just me.

"What I think isn't as fun to analyze as what you think I think of you."

Also an observation related to my store visit; the trend of my head-turners seems to navigate towards broad-shouldered guys, short according to scandinavian standards, probably crew-cut, who looks very serious but are quick to laugh. Those of you who have seen my father, shut up. I know. I can't fight every stereotype.

Tongue

Orenmanieyo - It's been a long time!

My Korean is progressing, if not at all at the pace it would with actual real lessons. Self-learning does appeal to me in many ways, though. The optimal would perhaps be to just know someone personally to ask if you have questions.

Anyway, I do love languages. I had my sights on something like Japanese or Arabic before, but I like Korean better and better, even disregarding the fluff. I love the sounds and the way people look when they speak it and the way it makes perfect sense even thinking through the filter of western grammars once you cut through the initial layer of prejudice. I'm not going to pretend it's easy, but what language is, really? One of the hardest part is how f***ing fast they talk natively. I mean, French doesn't stand a chance. Another complicating factor is that I briefly studied Japanese not long ago, and tend to mix up words sometimes. Not because they sound alike, because they don't. I actually have no idea why. I guess they have similar base sounds or something.

Having listened to, say, the same song in both Korean and Japanese, though, I can officially state that Korean is a much more beautiful language. And whether or not it could prove useful to me I will learn it. And when I know enough to survive (vague term, right? but I know what I mean, you I don't bother about) I will go to Korea. Maybe find my family? Maybe.

Korean

I've been watching the Olympics. No, I won't ramble about sports and stuff. What I will ramble about is nationality and identity. See, these laste six or eight months I've been feeling myself changing a lot on a certain point. Confidence. And within that lies the fact that I've changed attitude to myself being Korean.

Before I've always ignored it. Seriously. As a child I avoided mirrors. When people pointed it out or asked questions I just turned my head off and answered blank statements that I'd learned from listening to mom. I kept myself completely, utterly neutral to the fact and held it at arm's length. It didn't exactly damage me. No one ever made me do it. I just chose to not handle it at all. (Being made easier by the fact that I've been lucky enough to never have encounteder racism.)

This christmas I met an old man who had been everywhere and met everyone and had had four wives. He was always blunt to the point of rudeness. As soon as he saw me he started talking about that I should go to Korea and find my biological parents. I got angry, actually, but he just kept talking about how nice Korea was and how beautiful the women were and how they all spoke english so I wouldn't have a problem speaking to them. (Not true, as I've found out, the english that is.)

But it got my head going, and the more I thought, the more I felt... maybe. Maybe I should. Another guy at school, also unafraid of speaking his mind, had a theory that the bond between mother and child the first few weeks or months are very important, life-defining. I asked him face to face if he thought being adopted disrupted that and he said yes. People around got uncomfortable, but the oddity that struck me when he said it, was that I agreed.

And this week put two more nails in the coffin, so to speak. For one I watched the Olympics, and the nationalism is always as strongest in sports. I got to see more Korean people than I have in my entire life, and somehow as I saw them, something clicked into place. Just the way they looked and moved. This is my people too. And then I talked to another adopted Korean who have found her family and spoken to them over the phone. They don't speak english, but they talk to her anyway, for some reason. And I felt, as I listened to her story, that it could be me.

It is biologically in our blood, isn't it. The feeling when we stand side by side with someone who shares our genes and our faces and look into the mirror, seeing the ghosts of two of ourselves. And people who have lived with that their entire lives, do you understand it? What you get? I didn't. Not until now, when I'm starting to wonder;

Can you ever replace family?

Ever get the feeling that you don't belong in your own family? You're not alone.

I made one of those realizations today that I imagine makes the difference between kids and grownups (that sounded really cheesy, but I'll keep it). I've been criticizing my parents pretty hard for the way they've treated my sickly little most-beautiful-in-the-world... ehrm, I mean my cat. Mostly the way they've been talking about him, like he's over and out already. But it's just their way of dealing. Mom almost started crying today talking about him. Just watching him getting worse has been wearing on all of us, especially coupled with grandma's condition (which is all too alike). Some things I know without really knowing it, know what I mean? I know it intellectually, but I don't understand it. Well, today I better understood that I've been the one pretending I'm the only one who loves him, when we only feel it different ways. I've been missing the most part, away at school. They've been dealing with it day-by-day.

My family and I are still very different, and I still can't stand them too long periods at a time (but who can I stand too long periods at a time?), and often it feels like I'm the only one fighting to adapt so we can coexist, but they are my family. For better and worse.