심규선 (Lucia) – 담담하게 (Calmly)

You know the drill, play the song before you start reading.

May 19, 1992, I was born at a crowded hospital in Seoul, South Korea. Lying next to all the crying babies sharing the same birthday, I would calmly and quietly stare into the ceiling, or so I heard. I would smile at anything, at anyone, and that smile would be carried on to everyone around me, or so I heard. People would wonder how I could always be so happy, how nothing would make me cry, or so I heard. But was it because of that, because I was happy all the time, because I didn’t let out enough tears, that one day I stopped smiling and started crying?

As I entered middle school, things happened, things that pushed me away from people. People I trusted, and looked up to, went behind my back and brought me down. What I now understand as a childish act by angsty teenagers became a scar I had to carry and hide all the way into adulthood. I wanted to run away, away from people who thought they knew me, away from people who didn’t know me, so I lied. I lied to my parents that I wanted to go to the US, I lied to my friends that I was going to miss them, and I lied to myself that I’ll be OK, as long as I’m not stuck here. I’ll be OK without anyone to take care of me. I’ll have myself, so I’ll be OK.

I woke up, sat under the steaming water for an hour, got dressed, went to school, came back, played video games, ate dinner, played some more, turned the TV on, and fell asleep, just to wake up again. Days went by without slipping a single word, to a point where my own voice sounded foreign. A kid during choir asked me if I was mute, to which I shook my head and looked away. During freaking choir, I mean come on. I didn’t have friends and I didn’t want friends. I had myself, so I’ll be OK.

I didn’t know why, but I cried. It’s not like I missed anyone in particular; I didn’t miss my parents, I didn’t miss my friends, but, while not their physicality, I still missed people. The only thing that made me feel alive, able to feel, was the hot water that would leave me red after and the ending song to the anime that made me feel shattered. None of the words made sense, yet those words were the only things that made me feel not alone in this world. I would quietly cry and turn the volume up, scared that I might hear myself crying. I’m OK, I have myself. I’m OK.

I asked myself, and I still do until this day, why do I live on? I’m sure all of us at one point in our lives thought of taking the “easy” way out, some more solemnly than others. Some brought knives to their throat while others have tried taking two too many pills. Sometimes… or more often than just sometimes, it feels as though we live for the sake of living, and in that sense, life is similar to the love I talked about in my last post: there are times when we’re not all too sure why we live on, or why we love on, while the arguments against seem so clear. But we still live on and we still love on. So I lived on, without knowing why.

A couple of years passed crouching in the shower, and a crap ton of water/gas bills later, I was fine, the lie had worked. I stopped having those grim thoughts, and as a matter of fact, I stopped thinking all together. I didn’t think, I didn’t worry, I didn’t stress, I didn’t care, and I didn’t feel. I didn’t have a single person to call a friend, and I was completely fine with that. I decided to push away anyone who came close, be it strangers, friends, or family, because I told myself I didn’t love them, while deep down, I feared they didn’t love me. This perception continued on even during college where I met friends whom I could finally connect with and got into romantic relationships for the first time in my life. I gave strangers a cold look, I told my friends we wouldn’t be friends forever, continued to ignore my family, and told all my significant others that I didn’t love them, while again, deep down, I simply feared they didn’t love me, or their love is simply momentary. Because you know, I have myself. I’ll be OK.

Well, I’m not OK. I’m thinking again, caring again, and feeling again. Now I see, as I have finally felt love and loved, what I proudly thought to be independence was in fact loneliness. I lived on, and live on, because of the people around me. Sure, I say I don’t care about others, but I still don’t want to see them cry. Someone once told me, after telling me how she didn’t love me, “drive home safely, I’d still be sad if you died,” and that’s the truth. No matter how much you hate someone and how much misfortune you wish upon them, you still don’t want to see them dead, and how can one even begin to fathom what someone who loves you must feel once you’re gone?

I started smiling at people. I talked to a complete stranger on my way back from work and even got her business card (and proceeded to never contact her again). I message my friends constantly, some who I would’ve never guessed myself messaging, just to talk about something, anything. I even reply to my family, send them pictures the food I’ve cooked, and tell them I’m doing well. It took a lot of people getting hurt, including myself, but that is what people have become to mean to me. Maybe that’s how I always felt, I just couldn’t accept it. Maybe this was me all along.