Today's my 21st birthday. Last night, there was a kickback prepared for me by my housemates, which was pretty fun and enjoyable, but today was meh, alright, so-so, comprised of normal everday activities. Although last night I swore alcohol had no influence on me whatsoever (my friends failed to get me drunk), tonight I cannot help but be so easily swayed by the powerful influence of the little alcohol I had with my parents and housemates during dinner (my parents came up from the bay with delicious Korean food). For some reason, I cannot stop these tears from streaming.

How could I describe these feelings? I feel like a mixture of "24" by Switchfoot and "Fix You" by Coldplay, for the small audience who understand what I mean. Twenty one leaves me only in twenty first place; I have not one but twenty one regrets. When I try my best, I don't succeed, only getting what I want but not what I need. I fear loving anyone since I already know, as always, that my love would go to waste. And tears stream down my face.

I cannot help but think that all this attention is so temporary. I know everyone who hosted and came to the party really do care for me. I was surprised when I heard that my parents were coming to visit me, and my housemates seemed touched, too. But see, I know things they don't know. The food that my mom said took all day for her to cook when asked by housemates, as typical "good" Korean parents would, was actually prepared by different church families for an annual church sports competition, not by her. See, people hosted this party for me, as nice housemates would, but aftewards, as soon as it was over, from the next day, everyone was back to doing their own stuff, and if i hadn' volunteered to take the University Writing Program test with my housemate, I would have spent the majority of the day alone, whlie people worked, studied for midterms, etc, immersed in their own selves. A solitary day in fall.

Perhaps I'm just exaggerating my emotions due to the alcohol within my veins. Just this morning, I was so happy reflecing back on last night, re-reading the gigantic card that everyone signed, and smiling at the different flowers and a sock puppet handmade by a friend that I had received. I had even recorded everything on my hard copy journal: everyone who came, everything that happened (You should be familiar with my insatiable desire to remember every minute detail), but I realize now, even more clearly, with my heart pumping and my blood running, that all those materials, all those petty details don't really matter. All that will matter in the future is your memory, your ability to recall your past emotions of being loved on and cared for by other people, not out of a sense of obligation or duty but because of the sincerity of their genuine concern for you.

You see, I don't need a huge number of people to care for me on the surface level, but just one to truly, genuinely care for me, to pull me out when I'm stuck in reverse. But I lack that one person in my life, and so I run to this blog. My very few faithful readers would know that when I write, I write about sincerity, what is true, what is real. So, many apologies for this unintentionally long post, bug I'm just being my melancholy self again, writing at night in solitude, with tears probably dry on my face by the time I finish writing.

I'm reminded now of an intro to a How I Met Your Mother episode I watched tonight with my housemates. In my twenties, I still don't have life figured out, but as my philosophy goes, perhaps we are all meant to be confused. 
The older I get, the more I feel that life is just a constant, never-ending search for sincerity, whether it be through explorations of relationships or religion... til we run with open arms to heaven, at the end of our plastic life here on earth, to the only source of sincere love we know and praise, that sometimes seems the most unreal of it all.

Am I pouring myself out for nothing? Will all this be in vain and crumble into ashes of nothingness? Or am I just over thinking, my heart too over feeling?

Why do I want to run, but only far enough to make you miss me? Will you even notice when I'm away?

I'm so tired.

I promise I'll learn to love again.
But tonight, I will stand broken.

I have a weird tendency to write really deep into the night, when I am away from all friends and housemates, all living things besides God. It is in the tranquility and the serenity of the night when all my housemates are asleep that I find the most peace and comfort. I am sorry I haven't written in a while, but I have been writing more and more faithfully in my hardcopy QT journal that I have been too lazy to update here. Plus, with all the New Student Outreach activities that occur during Welcome Week, I have had too little time to simply sit down, be still, and be alone in the midst of hecticness...

There have been so much that I wanted to write about, that I have been thinking about recently, but with the physical and perhaps emotional drainage that inevitably come along with the welcome week annually, everything seems like a blur, especially at this time of the night. Or should I call it day...?

The director of the Baroque Ensemble had emailed me today, saying that the Chamber Ensemble director referred me to him that I may possibly be interested in joining the Baroque Ensemble (I had never expressed this interest, although I admit, it is true). Another email by the new conductor of the University Symphony told me that I did a great job performing with the Davis Summer Symphony and that he would be interested in talking to me, wanting me to stop by his office with my violin during the day. Unfortunately, I had read the email too late, due to the infrequency with which I usually check my emails, but perhaps it's better this way. I fear I already know what that talk would have been about, and I had already promised God that I would give up orchestra if it meant I couldn't go to Large Group for InterVarsity. I will give up all things for God, if He commands, no matter how painful it is... I already learned that lesson really well, extremely painfully, last year, and now I'm learning it again, except not by the force(?) of God, but out of my own free will, out of my own passion to serve Him more fully.

Am I selfish to expect a reward for my sacrifice? I know I willingly give, but I can't determine whether I'm doing so cheerfully. It's almost as if I want to hold onto everything at the same time, except that I refuse to let go of anything that I'm already holding... I want to believe that with God, hands can be multiplied, that all things can be done at once... Or am I just foolish in the eyes of God in the pursuit of so many passions that are only earthly in His eyes and wisdom?

This Fall Quarter is going to be hectic with studying for classes, serving in ministry, preparing for the GRE's, researching and applying to graduate schools, participating more in the performance groups of the unversity, and working at the same time. Today was my first time working a full 8 hour day, and although I definitely enjoy how much I've earned, I must admit, it makes me not want to socialize and just be by myself on Friday nights. I think I'm turning more and more into a hermit, isolating myself from people because I'm so tired of being surrounded by them most of the hours of my life, except for when I'm asleep. Even after the Welcome Barbecue on Tuesday, when friends came over to our place, I was too tired to get out of my room to simply greet them and didn't leave the comfort of my room for a while.

Because of this lack of solidarity recently and my passion for music, outreach, and success that persistently knock on my heart and call me to do everything at once, I'm finding it difficult to maintain balance of all the different things I want to pursue. All my dreams are heavily weighed and tug at my heart equally, each with an astringent grip that knows not how to let go. And so I stay up late, alone by myself at almost 3 am, to simply enjoy the serenity and solidarity of the night and pursue yet another passion of mine, writing.

 

Tonight, a family friend came over for dinner, the last dinner my family will have together til winter break. She had recently been widowed couple months ago when her husband George passed away after their marriage of about fifty years. During the conversation around the dinner table, one of the topics that came up was my brother's car, a Subrau WRX. Then, our family friend mentioned how George loved his Subaru too.

I remembered thinking, then, 'Who's George??'

But I didn't say it out loud because she was in the middle of her storytelling and I figured it must be the name of her son... And then I remembered. He was the husband of this couple dear to my family, the lover of soy sauce, coffee, and all things sweet, the father of a dog named Lucky, the American soldier who had fought in Korean War and shared about his experience so frequently with us...

Thank God I didn't ask my question out loud! Imagine the shocked looks that would have appeared on everyone's faces if I had asked...

Later in the conversation when I remebered who George was-- or rather, the exact moment when I realized how I had even forgotten his name-- it was then that my heart suddenly felt like it was tearing in two, punishing itself for allowing me to be so entangled in the world of the living that I had so easily brushed off the dead, the same ones who had laughed, cried, and resided with us on this world, no matter how temporary.

It was then that I had a sharp pain in my chest that I had never known before-- shocked and terrifed by the horrors of the short memory span of our human hearts, as if our cherished memories and persons were nothing but transient candle flames, DESTINED to be put out by this fast moving, gushing wind called time and the human ability to move on, no matter how great the loss or deep the pain. (But if the candle were to go out, how would we see in the darkness that surrounds us?) It's a disease and a cure, all in itself-- the source of healing to all types of pain, but also a source of pain in itself.

I wish I could remember everything, everyone, every moment forever... But at the same time, ever since the heart break from my first love that I have recovered from, I can't help but be selfishly(?) grateful for the passage of time that empowers humans with the ability to move on.

So today at Border's, I picked up a book by Philip Yancey titled Disappointment in God. I didn't get past the preface because I happened to meet some of my high school friends at the cafe within the bookstore and stopped by to chat, but I'm pretty sure one of the questions addressed in the book was this:

Why do our loved ones have to die?

Recently, just this past week, I've had four people around me, both distant and close, pass away, either due to old age or just by pure accidents. Two of them were acquaintances/ former classmates of mine, long ago, in high school, but honestly, I had never made that much effort to get to know them...

What saddens me is not just that they passed away, but that they left when I didn't really know them, allowing me no opportunities in the future to do so.

I still remember how funny Tomo was in our Japanese class in high school, but I can't for the life of me remember any specific jokes he had made, or if we were even in the same class for one or two years... I barely remember anything about Sharon or what she looked like, except that she wore glasses and had some freckles on her face, a younger sister and an aunt who was the head of the Korean school. When I first heard about her death, I couldn't even remember her last name. Same for Tomo.

This is what saddnes me- that I've already forgotten so much about them in the few years I haven't seen them in college- that it is only a matter of time til their faces and names, and hence their lives, their existence on this planet, will be completely eradicated from my memory. Will I remember them when I'm thirty? Forty? Fifty?.... I feel sorry for these poor, dead, lost souls, who can only wish for their existence to be remembered in the ever-forgetting minds of the living ones... And when I die, how will people remember me...?

Human existence seems just too faint for me, too vague, too easily gained and lost, too easily forgotten... This makes me wonder, for me, for the living, how we can live our lives to leave marks, traces, PROOFS of our existence after we leave this world... Traces of us that will outlast ourselves, our lives...

It's been a week since I've been home. As anticipated, home has been really nice, which it always is, with its abundance of music (instruments, music scores, people teaching/playing music...) and of course, my mom's Korean translations of authors or poets who have now also become my personal favorites. I've been recovering from the strange sense of homesickness by indulging myself in two things that always remind me of home, my piano and the works of one of my favorite writers, Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American philosopher/writer/poet/painter.

Here is his portray of death, in painting:

And here's how he speaks of it, in words:

"For life and death are one even as the sea and the river are one.

What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tide that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?"

If only I could perceive death, embrace it whole-heartedly without fear, like Gibran... If only I'm not saddened by the eventual emptiness and meaninglessness of the names, faces, actions, sayings, lives, and consequently, the EXISTENCE of those who pass away, I think I would be able to cherish the good memories and recall them with a true smile on my face... If only then, I think I can grive, but with hope. I really want to grieve with hope, but I have still not mastered the art of losing myself in surrendering, so I write this entry to remind my future self to never forget these people who were ONCE a bigger part of my life...

Goodbye, people I never really knew.
Goodbye, now people I will never get to know.