the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
6.20.2007
Treading Water.
One of my most distinctive memories of going to the beach on the Jersey shore is floating in a giant black inner tube. I have never been a strong swimmer, so I always had to rely on a giant inflatable tube to keep me afloat. If I went far out enough, past the breakers, I could just ride easy, with my forehead, nose, shoulder, and upper arms -- everything above the tube -- getting sunburned while my submerged legs remained a pasty ocre hue.
I never particularly cared for going into the water. I couldn't swim, and as an abnormally large child at the time, I looked like a fat idiot floating around getting sunburnt and flailing my limbs while remaining stationary. Jellyfish and squid and fish and pinching crabs were also a constant worry, and even wisps of harmless seaweed would send me into a gasping panic. But I was young, and my family rarely went out on trips to the beach, so the time in between visits to the shore were long enough that I would forget how miserable I'd feel there.
One of the last times I went out in an inner tube was probably when I was 7 or 8 years old. I was very fat and wore an awful diagonally striped neon yellow-and-black swimsuit that had a gaudy bow on the side and a ruffly attached skirt. I trudged out through the unsympathetically cold waves, tube held up around my waist, fat dimpled elbows bent, legs shaking, the cheap polyurethane squeaking with each step. Looking out at the crashing waves, it seemed like everyone else my age (and older and younger, for that matter) was having a great time, laughing, screaming with joy, splashing, swimming. Everyone seemed to have a lithe, buoyant quality that allowed them to slip in and out of the water and through the waves unharmed, something that I just seemed to lack for some reason.
So into the water I went, with the tube pulling me and pushing me with the waves. I put on a brave smile for whoever happened to be watching me, and hopped over several waves, the black donut around my waist serving as some kind of ballerina tutu as I pirouetted in the water.
Then, a girl's voice:
"HERE COMES A BIG ONE!"
Other kids squealed with anticipation, but my stomach filled with dread. I looked up at the wave, and it was as though I was a rat cowering in fear, and the wave was a giant elephant reared up on its hind legs about to smash the daylights out of me. I wished desperately that I could run out of the ocean before the wave crashed, but I knew that running would drive me further in the path of foamy destruction and that the friction of my legs cutting through the water would only let me move in slow-motion.
I gripped the tube with one hand -- the other hand tightly pinching my nose shut -- closed my eyes tightly, tensed my body up, and let the wave crash onto me. I was suddenly in a suffocating wormhole, doing underwater sommersaults, with water trying to force its way up my nose, in my ears, into my eye sockets, down my throat, tearing at my bathing suit, pulling the tube underwater. The waves finally vomited me ashore, as though discarding something very undesirable, onto some sharp rocks and shell shards, with me on my hands and knees, sputtering and coughing, the salty water burning in my nose and throat, my fingers splayed out to hold me up. This was fun?
The years went by, and my confidence as a swimmer didn't increase over time as much as I instead decreased the frequency of trips to the beach. I ditched the tube long ago, but I never went out far enough so that my feet couldn't touch the bottom. It was a thought so ludicrous to me that it didn't even cross my mind as a possibility or an option that I could take.
During the last five days, I was down at a beach house and played it safe for the most part by swimming close to the shore. The water was pretty cold, and it sometimes felt like torture taking baby-steps into the freezing water, even though several people said, "If you just jump in, it's a lot easier." I didn't listen and prolonged my suffering by inching my way in. In the shallower waters, the rocks scraped my knees, and as usual I winced when seaweed felt like jellyfish legs wrapping around my legs. I never considered going out very far into the ocean.
At someone's gentle encouragement, I swam out way past the breakers, beyond where I could touch the sandy bottom under the sea, way out to the point that the waves were breaking again. I had never ventured out that far so I couldn't even tell you how far out it was. But it was certainly the farthest out I have ever gone. There was a sand bar out there that I could feel with the very tip of my toe -- a place to stand. And I was scared, and coming back to the shore, it felt like I was kicking an awful lot without seeing any progress really. I felt some panic grip me in the process, but eventually the ocean spit me out again all the same. And I wasn't so afraid after that.
After that, on the fifth day, my last day at the beach, I decided to swim out to where I couldn't feel the bottom again. For the most part of the first four days of my trip to the beach, I barely exerted myself. I spent a lot of time catching up on reading outdated magazines while reclining on the sand. My muscles didn't feel sore at all, because I was basically just doggypaddling in place, floating, looking around at everyone else jumping through waves having a great time, as I worried about whether my eyeliner was running.
On that final day, I realized that if I never forced myself to go out where things were uncertain, to a place where I wasn't 100% safe and comfortable, that I would never realize how much I can actually do on my own. I would never build my muscles, I would never exert myself, that I would never feel the exhilaration of completing something just to know that I can do it.
The reason why I was miserable when I was little and had to use the tube was because I just didn't realize that I could go it alone, without the floatation device. Though it did keep me above the surface most of the time, it let me become lazy and I just didn't enjoy myself. And when a big wave came up, the tube actually weighed me down and dragged me under. I realize now that I need to set the tube aside, shed my fears, face the uncertainties, kick out beyond the breakers, and teach myself how to move, swim, live, and breathe all over again.
I understand how you feel, horrified gopher/beaver. I understand.
Living at home again after college is certainly an overwhelming experience. There is much more to adjust to than I thought.
The main point of conflict with which my parents and I have been struggling is the fact that I really don't have a focused, intense goal in life at the moment.
In high school and during my freshman year of college, I really, truly wanted to go into the field of psychology or maybe sociology. I took several courses in high school, including all of that honors and AP bullshit, and did well. I enjoyed it. And I wanted to help people as a counselor of some kind, a psychotherapist I guess.
But my parents immediately quashed the idea. My mom has been a nurse for over 15 years, I believe, and according to her vast experience in the psychological world, I would basically be a social worker (not to knock social workers at all) and would be making next to no money.
I struggled with this for a long time. I thought that I had found my one interest that would be lifelong, something that I wanted to turn into a career, and my parents stood heavily in the doorway of opportunity with giant red "STOP" signs. I found myself very confused -- was psychology really not a worthwhile occupation? Was I not qualified enough to be a successful psychologist/psychiatrist/psychotherapist (I hadn't even gotten to the point where I had researched the difference between those)? Would I truly be poor and overworked and miserable?
My interest in psychology grew dark, withered, and dropped away. My grades in my psych classes wavered, as I dismissed the courses I was in as just dead weight to my future. I lost my passion in it.
Instead, I took up journalism as my secondary major and my new main interest. I like writing, yes, and I like talking to people. Seemed like a good thing to go into, considering my interests. Yet, again, my parents just weren't happy with it. They asked me patronizingly if I would get a small column in a local newspaper, and if I really thought I would make enough money doing it to support myself. The problem was, I didn't have the confidence nor the experience to say "yes." At this point, I was wondering what the fuck I was going to do with my life. Psychology was out. Journalism was also being presented as a dead end.
My parents have pretty much been like those people who stand in airport runways with protective earmuffs with those orange lights. But instead of guiding airplanes into their respective terminals, they have constantly been shepherding me and to some extent my brother into being something like a doctor or a lawyer all our lives. Out of resentment or out of hope for something different, I decided that I wanted nothing to do with either of those. Or maybe the constant scolding really hit my confidence in general -- if I wasn't good enough to make it as a journalist or a psychotherapist, what makes me think that I'd be a good doctor or a lawyer?
I've been talking to them lately to try to get them to understand that constant negativity really just makes me want to do nothing but curl up into a ball and die. Either that, or sleep all day -- which is what I've pretty much been doing since I've come home. My hand has been slapped away from the cookie jar of things that I've actually wanted to pursue, and my nose has been pushed into a giant bowl of V8 -- nutritious and rewarding, yes, but something I just do. not. want.
I know that they ultimately have my best interests in mind. My mom constantly tells me that if I had started pre-med classes during my undergraduate education, I'd be well on my way to medical school right now. And if I had taken my LSATs early, I could be in law school right now.
This is all well and good, but if I don't have that itch inside that makes me WANT to be at those places, what would convince the admissions officers at competitive schools that they'd want to pick me over the thousands of people all over the country that are dying to get in? Why would they pick an apathetic, clearly parentally driven individual over those that truly have the desire to dedicate the rest of their lives to a specific career?
My mom says she's most afraid that I'll turn around and regret all the time that I have "wasted" until I finally decide that I want to become a doctor or a lawyer. What I think she fails to understand -- which frustrates me a whole lot -- is that if I do something passionately that I actually enjoy and love and want to do for 10 years, even if I do not make a ton of money, I would find that rewarding in itself. I would never regret years of dedicating my life to something that I truly want to do and love. If, at that point, I decide, "Fuck, I'd really like to be a lawyer/doctor/whatever," then I would put my whole heart into that.
But this constant attitude of "don't even think about starting a career in ____ because you won't make enough money/you won't be good enough/you can't do it/I don't want you to do it" makes me not want to do jack shit besides sit around and feel sorry for myself. It doesn't inspire me to try harder. It doesn't encourage me to be a doctor. It convinces me that I am an incapable fool. And if I spend decades, years, months, weeks, or even a day beliving that I am an idiot that can't make a living -- then THAT is what I would truly, truly regret and wish to take back.
I've spent the last 10 days or so cleaning out my horrendous mess of a room. It's not really a bedroom, come to think of it, as much as it's kind of an archive of my entire childhood. I have things that I've drawn/written/made when I was 7 years old. I have stuffed animals strewn about that I have not really given a shit about since I was 10 (okay, maybe actually 13). I have, as I have mentioned before, an archive of every single note I has ever been passed to me since I was in 4th grade, filed in chronological order. It must be some kind of sickness. Now that I think of it, my dad is almost the same way, except his habits include saving up thousands of newspaper clippings which are now yellowed and decaying, illegible.
Combine the fact that I am a huge packrat and am incapable of throwing things away with about 10 years of compulsive flea market and thrift store shopping. I have over 80 pairs of pants that I am looking at right now. I have a box of 23 pants that I am donating/giving away. Many of them I have worn no more than three times, some, I have not even worn at all. This is not to mention the horrible shirts and sweaters that I've also packed away, too -- the ones that didn't even fit me, the ones that I wanted to tailor to fit but never did, the ones that I brought home and wondered what exactly I was thinking in the first place. All of this had been growing and growing in my closets like some kind of terrible tumor -- it even spread from my closet to my mom's closet to my dad's closet to the two coat closets downstairs and into the garage. I have way, way, way too much shit. And I'm not proud of it.
Going through all of my shit, and picking out all of the things that I will never wear -- there is just so much, so many pairs of pants, so many ill-fitting tank tops, so much fucking shit that at first, it seemed like an awful waste. Sure, I paid no more than $1.00 a piece (my mom and I are seasoned pennypinchers and skilled hagglers), but it still felt like a big waste.
My dad is strictly anti-flea-market. He is of the opinion that I should only buy one very high quality item now and then, and not waste the time and the money spent on digging through tons of shit to find things that I may or may not even use or wear. When I was in the 7th grade, he absolutely forbade me to buy a certain kind of silly cheap perfume that I wanted (it smelled like cotton candy), because it was too cheap and tacky and said that he would buy me expensive perfume instead. Honestly, yes, it was an incredibly cheap and tacky thing to want, but for gods sake, I was like 12 or 13 years old and wanted a cheap spray that would make me smell like cotton candy. I didn't want Chanel No. 5. Plus, he didn't even fulfill his offer, so I bought it on my own anyway, but was so wracked with guilt and the fear of getting "caught" wearing it, that I never even used it anyway. If I hadn't been made to feel so terrible about having a silly fun thing, I could have used that for a few months, gotten sick of it on my own, and thrown it away after enjoying it temporarily.
So I think I have to tie this all together. I think if, in high school, I had taken my dad's advice and spent $100 on a pair of expensive designer jeans... Let's step back and consider the fashion trend of 4-5 years ago. I would be stuck with a $100 pair of shitty jeans with weird bleach washes on the ass and no back pockets, that I would totally be embarrassed to own, let alone wear out in public. Instead, I spent $10 on ten pairs of thrift store jeans -- sure, maybe two out of the ten, I never wore, and 6 others I wore only a few times, but the other two out of the ten, I wore every single day, loved, and wore to pieces.
I don't want to be stuck with a handful of expensive clothes that I would be sick of wearing after a while, but would feel obligated to, since I had spent so much money on them (and probably had no money left over to buy anything else). If I really wanted to smell like Chanel No. 5 since I was 13, and wear it for the rest of my life -- sure, it's possible that I could be happy like that, but I'd likely be boring as a turd drying on the sidewalk. If I want to smell like cheapass cotton candy, goddamn it, I will smell like it and I no longer want to be made to feel like some kind of cheap worthless bum for doing so.
Even if I have to bust my ass and make next to nothing in doing whatever it is I do in life, I think if I am not getting tons of negative energy from my parents that make me feel incapable and worthless, I will enjoy it regardless, and those experiences will shape whatever I pursue in the future. Did I have a shitload of clothes to give away after 10 years of hoarding them? Yes, I really, really did. Do I regret finding a bunch of clothes that were different and special to me, that I really loved? No. Come to think of it, the only instances that I can recall where I really hated shopping was when my overworked mom would take me to the mall (the bane of my existence) when I was a teenager, complain that she was really tired and for me to hurry up and just buy something, anything to justify the trip out... and I'd end up getting wheedled into buying something overpriced that I didn't really like, and feeling huge amounts of guilt for never wearing it afterwards. Do I regret spending hot summer weekends at flea markets with my mom, laughing and gossiping, and digging through piles of clothes? Not even for a second.
Does this make sense to anyone else out there? Am I really the crazy one? I just want to live a life where I have the opportunity to try new things, to figure out what I'd like to do on my own. My mom told me when I was small that the reason why she wanted our family to grow up in America is for opportunities and individuality which would not be available in Korea. So it's hard for me to stomach the idea that we're here in America, and tons of opportunities are just blasting by, and I'm left feeling like an inert turd, wasting my abilities because I'm getting bullied into being a doctor or a lawyer, the same goal that millions of other Koreans across the sea want for their own unhappy kids.
Sigh. If you can't tell, I'm a little frustrated over here... Can a nigga get a hug around here?
[Peek-a-Foo]