헤르쯔 아날로그 (Herz Analog) – 애정결핍 (Love Deprivation)

If you’ve been following this series, you probably know by now my reluctance towards human interaction in general, and it’s no different when it comes to family. Sure, blood is thicker than water… it IS on average about 3 times more viscous and around 6% denser. But if you’re talking in the figurative sense of how blood related relationships are more important than others, then no, that’s simply not true. To me, my family is no different from my friends. They’re just people.

Before any of you jump to conclusions, I want to state that nothing ever happened between me and my family. I hear stories of divorce and abuse, and realize how fortunate I am to have a healthy family. But as with everything, we get used to what we have.

I’m the youngest in my family and have always been treated as such, and it didn’t take me long to have a rather discomforting revelation: while my family has been a part of my entire life, I’ve only been around for a fraction of theirs. My parents were a woman and a man before they were my mom and my dad. They had lives of their own, lives longer than I’ve been alive for, lives I have neither the right nor the interest in knowing, and they still do. They still have their own desires, desires they had to push aside as my brother and I entered the world. And for some reason, I feel bad and guilty over the fact that they had to sacrifice so much for someone like myself.

It’s not like I don’t understand why. It wasn’t the eyes of others that pushed my parents to feed us and to love us; they really do love us. I’ve always made the effort, however, to distinguish my current family from my future family, and I’ve always valued the latter over the former. While I’m sure I’ll love my family the same way my parents love their children, I can’t say the same for my current family. There’s a wall that grew taller every year I spent away from my parents starting 7th grade. I never picked up their phone calls and they had to confirm that I was indeed still alive through my grandparents. And every year I went back to Korea, I felt more and more uncomfortable around them, until finally one summer, in the arms of my dad greeting me at airport, I asked myself, “Who is this man?” I still don’t understand why… Why did I push them away? Did I not want to be loved? Perhaps it’s because I felt like I’ve done nothing to deserve their love. And while I may never be able to accept their love and love them back, I’ll reciprocate by loving my children the way they love me.

Ugh, the next one in this series is going to be a hard one. Isn’t this song nice?