ineedtoprovethatiexist

[ineedtoprovethatiexist]

being in korea for the first time in weeks and stuff

a week ago i broke up with my boyfriend and came to korea.

i should probably process the whole boyfriend thing but i feel kinda disconnected from it when it's happening on the other side of the world and the only aftereffects that i can see are social media posts. kinda odd how he's blocked me from one account and been posting more than he ever has on the other.

anyways, the korea thing.

i've thought a lot about family in the past week, although i've felt like i was viewing mine from an eagle's eye the whole time. after all, any pair of sperm from my dad and egg from my mom could have created a member of my family, yet it's my state of being that has somehow been the one to be blessed with consciousness on this wretched earth. maybe without the acne my grandmother so gracefully pointed out this afternoon, but a granddaughter and a daughter nonetheless. of course, it's not really worth complaining about when everyone here has been subjected to it.

there's nothing quite human as seeing someone living with their parents. when i met james' parents, i couldn't help falling a little bit in love with him. i know everyone is actually human, but proof of it just makes my heart beam in a special way. it's the thing about knowing versus understanding probably. anyways, i'm living with my dad and his parents right now, and it's probably the best thing that has happened to me and my dad's relationship. my dad has a really good relationship with his mother, which is honestly surprising considering the red flag he is. it's just nice to hear the way their conversations bounce off of each others', even after so many years apart. and nothing about my dad has ever really been just nice.

speaking of mothers, i really miss mine. my grandfather (on my dad's side) has always been sort of quiet and not a part of conversations, and my mom always makes sure to relate it to him even though he doesn't even have any blood relation to her. i feel bad that i can't do the same when she's gone.

sometimes when i'm doing something i find myself imagining james being in my shoes, experiencing what it's like to be me and feel what i feel and do what i do. i've been doing it a lot more here just because everything seems to be more related to my origins and how i came to be and we've always had this whole thing about how i feel misunderstood (or rather me getting upset that he couldn't relate to a feeling i made for myself because you know me, i just have to be special somehow). i think, maybe if he could see everything i've been through, he would just get it. not even get it in the sense that we would still be together, but we would leave our shared journey with a mutual understanding and respect for each other. people say la la land is a sad ending, but it's honestly the second best ending you could get. at least they got some sort of self realization out of it. so many other relationships end with only the realization of their own delusions and wasted time.

when i first came to america, i had to explain where it was when i told people i was korean. and then gradually, i saw the associations people made when we talked about my origins, from gangnam style to north korea to kpop and bts. and now, being a korean girl is like, a thing, like i wasn't the only korean girl in my classes for all of my elementary and middle school.

i wish james could read this. of course i could make it easier and send it to him but that ruins the fun of it and i already know i would despise his reaction. a part of me still thinks he's hurt me more than i've hurt him, just that mine has been dulled by time. i was just so much younger, and the hole he was filling was one that had been in me since i gained consciousness, wheras the one i was filling for him was only a couple years old. i don't like this whole metaphor. he probably will get over it, but a narcissistic part of me hopes he doesn't think it. god, all those years running around trying not to do to people what he did to me only to do it to him. it's kinda poetic if you squint really hard.