Dream, Delusion

I write about friendship, motherhood, grief, growing older, and the strange experience of missing versions of ourselves.

My poetry collection, Before We Become Memory, is now on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253905191-before-we-become-memory

When we met again,

I arrived carrying questions.

What happened after?

Where did you go?

Who did you become?

Years had passed.

Enough years

for entire sections of our lives

to unfold without witness.

There were people

I had never heard of.

Places I had never seen.

Stories that belonged to you

but not to us.

And I carried the same absences

when it came to you.

At first,

we attempted the usual thing.

The condensed version.

The major events.

The milestones.

The highlights selected

to represent entire years.

But it quickly became obvious

that no summary

could do the work.

How do you explain

the ordinary days

that quietly changed you?

The disappointments

that altered your thinking?

The people who stayed.

The people who didn't.

The countless moments

that never looked important

while they were happening.

Those chapters were gone.

Not forgotten.

Simply unread

by the other person.

For a while,

I thought that was the loss.

The missing information.

The years we couldn't recover.

Then I realized

we had both made

the same mistake.

We came looking

for an old friendship.

As though it had been preserved

somewhere between the pages.

Waiting patiently

for us to return.

But that friendship belonged

to two people

who no longer existed.

The versions of ourselves

who created it

had moved on.

Changed shape.

Collected experiences the other never saw.

What we found instead

was something unexpected.

Not the friendship we remembered.

A new one.

Built from familiar foundations

and unfamiliar people.

Less certain.

Less automatic.

More honest.

A sequel

rather than a continuation.

And perhaps that's why

it worked.

Because neither of us insisted

on being recognized

as the person we used to be.

We arrived as strangers

carrying shared history.

And somewhere between

the missing chapters

and the new ones,

we found a story

It doesn't.

The person before didn't know what happened yet.

You can't go back to being someone who hasn't learned what you've learned.

The girl who thought she was behind.

The woman who thought she wasn't enough.

The employee who thought she needed to try harder.

The mother who thought everyone else was doing better.

It's strange looking back.

None of them were failing.

They were surviving.

Not officially.

Nobody sits you down.

Nobody says goodbye.

The conversation just becomes less frequent.

The replies become slower.

The updates become smaller.

Until one day you realize you know more about who they used to be than who they are now.

Not your childhood.

Not your teenage years.

Just a specific version.

The one who still believed people meant what they said.

The one who thought effort guaranteed outcomes.

The one who hadn't yet learned how expensive disappointment could be.

I don't want her life back.

모두가 앞만 보며 걸어가는데

나만 홀로 제자리에 멈춰있다.

나를 붙잡는 건

내 생각들일까,

아니면

미처 떠나보내지 못한

지난 계절일까.

나만 아직 그 계절에 갇혀

헤매고 있는 걸까.

아무것도

알 수가 없었다.

(Translation)

With what words can I explain this feeling.

Everyone is walking, looking only forward,

but I alone am stopped in the same place.

Is the thing holding me back

my own thoughts?

Or is it

the past season

I haven't yet let go of?

Am I the only one still trapped in that season,

wandering lost?

I couldn't

You will feel at 2am

The tears with no meaning

The pain when you smile

I don’t come alone

I bring my closest friends

We are the scars that cover your body

The voice that you despise

But soon you will learn to trust

I am the only thing

- The loneliest people are the kindest.

“ 슬픈 사람들이 가장 밝게 웃는다 ”

- The saddest people smile the brightest.

“ 고장나는 사람들 가장 현명하다 ”

같이 상담을 받았지 부모님 왈 날 잘 몰라

나 자신도 날 잘 몰라 그렇다면 누가 알까

친구? 아님 너? 그 누구도 날 잘 몰라

.

Trans;

.

On the first visit to psychiatric ward

My parents came up with me

We listened to the consultation together

My parents said they don’t truly understand me

I don’t understand myself well either

Then who would understand?

Friends? Or you? Nobody knows me well.

.

한 사람과 변하지 않고 수많은 계절을 함께 지나올 수 있다는 게

인생에서 가장 의미 있고 아름다운 일이었던 것 같습니다.

~사랑하고 있다면,

아름다운 사랑하길 바라요.

¤Trans¤

There's nothing that doesn't change in this world

Being able to pass many seasons without changing with that one person

Is the most meaningful and beautiful thing in life.

~ If you are in love,

그래서 괜찮다.

사랑도 일도 꿈도

다 다시 시작해도 된다.

You are still young.

So it's okay.

Love, work, dreams

You can start it over again.

- “ I lived with the word "I'm sorry." But I was the one who really needed this word. I was always lonely and harsh on myself. What's the point of making other people happy? I'm dead. What's the point of being happy when you can't feel anything? The first person I had to love was none other than me. Me. I find myself disappointing, but I'm proud of myself for trying so hard to live.