tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9356722878338872042024-03-13T07:06:53.407-07:00crayola yellowsarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-18035696136732855332016-02-13T00:46:00.001-08:002016-02-13T00:46:54.486-08:00I appreciate the quiet moments. The ones when the thoughts finally settle and the small whispers of my mind lull. I can breathe more easily. I can sleep. Then rest weighs heavy on my eyelids, and like curtains they fall over my brown eyes. It's in these moments I see no visions, no color, no shapes. I am alone with myself, and I find it strangely lonely and comfortable at the same time. Do you know this feeling?sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-25648355728674520222015-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:002015-12-09T11:30:01.902-08:00Disintegrating Mind"But pretty soon he was calling people on the telephone. He called everybody. He talked for fifteen minutes, or a half hour, or an hour, or two hours. At first, he was entertaining, as always. People were happy to hear from him. He called his friends two or three times a day. Then five or six. Then ten. Then twelve. He called from his apartment. He called from pay phones around campus, the locations of which he had memorized. Leonard knew about a phone in the subbasement of the physics lab, and of a cozy telephone closet in the administration building. He knew about a broken pay phone on Thayer Street that recycled your coin. He knew about unguarded phones in the philosophy department. From each and every one of these phones Leonard called to tell his listeners how exhausted he was, how insomniac, how insomniac, how exhausted. All he could do, apparently, was talk on the phone. As soon as the sun rose, Leonard telephoned his early-rising friends. Having been up all night, he called to speak to people not yet in the mood for conversation. From them, he moved on to other people, people he knew well or had barely met, students, departmental secretaries, his dermatologist, his advisor. When it got too late on the East Coast to call anyone, Leonard went through his phone book, looking up the numbers of friends on the West Coast. And when it got too late to call Portland or San Francisco, Leonard faced the terrifying three or four hours when he was alone in his apartment with his own disintegrating mind."<br />
<br />
- Jeffrey Eugenides, <i>The Marriage Plot</i>sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-46864323585194796452015-08-26T23:26:00.001-07:002015-08-26T23:26:09.891-07:00My life is in pieces. It is little granules of sand slipping through my fingers. But there are these people who try and gather up each of these grains and whisper simple words. <i>Hold on</i>, they say, <i>it'll be better</i>, they say. The simplest of words that is honey. Honey that is my glue, honey that holds me together, honey that helps me pursue tomorrow.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-12167056189940152732015-08-07T02:47:00.001-07:002015-08-07T02:47:38.485-07:00Happiness makes the world spin differently.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-47421423436840105272015-04-30T02:49:00.001-07:002015-04-30T02:49:13.334-07:00I just want to drive. And drive, and drive, and drive. Until I hit a place where I recognize nothing and know nobody. And where none of them know who I am and where I've come from.<br />
<br />
This is the place I want to go to.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-60944561702382570122015-04-05T01:10:00.001-07:002015-04-05T01:10:52.389-07:00I feel pieces of me fading away.<br />
<br />
It feels like death.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-48733190989169145772015-03-01T00:49:00.004-08:002015-03-01T00:49:53.722-08:00Though life has been smoother and I guess you could say easier, my eyes are constantly brimmed with tears these days. And then, the littlest things cause me to cry. A person's unique laughter, the lyrics to a particular song, the faded memories that haunt me. I cry and I cry and I don't fully understand where these tears are coming from, but it's oddly refreshing and feels strangely freeing.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-85918979367321596292015-02-15T19:59:00.003-08:002015-02-15T20:07:36.334-08:00There are things I think and feel that I try to neatly wrap in the words that I know, the words that I have been given. The grant of writership gives me permission to try, but sometimes, it's not enough. My amateur self feels too inadequate, ill-equipped, and small to fully put into words what it is that I want to say. Not that what I have to say is profound; it is the same wave of emotions that everyone feels, those waves of simple sadness, secret joy, and bouts of frustration that escalate into anger.<br />
<br />
So I drown in the melodrama of myself, and I look back on my writing and either laugh or cringe.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-86300391010641683922015-02-05T00:27:00.002-08:002015-02-05T00:27:58.220-08:00Destiny. It is word that ought to carry immeasurable weight and contain unfathomable depth. Yet, beyond its surface, it's a word whose seriousness has become diluted. Too many Hollywood rom-coms and a myriad of Nicholas Sparks novels have made "destiny" a joke. But sitting here, it is the word that I find myself thinking of in the middle of the night.<br />
<br />
It's sad, really. The fact that I seriously claim to know my destiny when in fact, I can't even predict what will happen in the next half-second. And if destiny is a joke, but I tenaciously cling on to it, does that make my life a farce? The thoughts that I ponder night after night have strangely mutated from grim to comical. And for some reason, that makes me think of Shakespeare.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-31733631381688004132015-01-29T01:00:00.001-08:002015-01-30T15:01:42.915-08:00I've read that the composition of tears varies from situation to situation--these tears of sadness are not made of the same stuff as the tears cried when I dice an onion for my spaghetti lunch. Under the microscope, zoomed in a thousand times, grief is biologically made of ingredients to help <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears" target="_blank">relieve stress and numb the pain</a>. So I cry, hoping to feel better and waiting for better to come.<br />
<br />
By this time, I have cried so much that I thought I'd be completely depleted of water. I imagine myself, withered away like a once delicate bouquet of flowers that now hangs upside down from the ceiling. I've cried on my pillows, I've cried on my carpet, I've cried in my car, I've cried in cafes. But the body is such an amazing thing; regardless of how parched my mouth and throat may grow, I always manage to cry and cry and cry. From somewhere, the tears gather and flood my eyes. The sadness always manages to seep out.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-44629726311300406902015-01-27T01:51:00.003-08:002015-01-27T01:51:58.964-08:00These days, I can't help but think about the future. I fast forward the number of times the earth orbits the sun and wonder what my tomorrow will look like.<br />
<br />
I pray it does not look the same as my today.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-1281047681452324832015-01-22T02:09:00.001-08:002015-01-22T02:09:07.357-08:00My head has been having a hard time synchronizing with my body. My head is blurry from the racing thoughts and memories while my body is begging me for sleep. My aching limbs, my throbbing back, my drooping eyelids all tell me that it's 2:00am, that I should sleep. But I don't listen.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-13033877823818157842015-01-13T01:32:00.001-08:002015-01-13T04:18:26.519-08:00In 2009, my roommates and I sat on our creaky, green futon and were busy watching an episode of <i>Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? </i>Suspenseful music blared from our twenty-seven inch television while we waited for Regis Philbin's crackly voice and wrinkly face to formulate the words, "Is that your final answer?" But the contestant had picked the wrong answer--"No, I'm sorry. The answer was <i>C</i>, the Doppler Effect."--and he stood up, shook Mr. Philban's hand, and took home a little bit of money and some defeat.<br />
<br />
The Doppler Effect. It is the alteration of sound as a moving object changes position relative to its listener. Standing on the sidewalk, I could hear the ambulance before I could see it. The sparse leaves on the trees that lined the street quietly swayed side to side, almost in sync with the sirens that were wailing rhythmically. I heard the sounds getting slightly higher and more alarming, and with this change of sound came the anticipated ambulance itself. The sounds were still shrill, but as it approached, closer and closer, the tone changed. No longer piercing, but deep and solemn, like a young boy whose voice begins to change that summer between junior high and high school indicating that he had become a man almost overnight. The sounds continued in this lower register, diminishing as the ambulance moved farther away, past the horizon, hurrying to save someone's life. I always imagine an old man for some reason.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-8613837279681201082015-01-07T05:01:00.001-08:002015-01-07T05:01:46.691-08:00My grandmother is a woman of prayer. She lays one hand on the top of my head, and she places the other on my shoulder. This is how she always prays over me. But even when I am not with her, I know she prays day after day, night after night without fail. She prays for me, my mother, my father, my two sisters, my three aunts, my three uncles, and my six cousins. The gravity of this truth, however, did not sink in until this past trip to Korea.<br />
<br />
My grandmother prayed that I would be a woman of many dreams, a woman who would see those dreams fulfilled. She clung onto me and she said these words with conviction, with aspiration, with confidence. She said them as if these words were already true in my life, as if these words would certainly be true.<br />
<br />
And so I say yes and amen and will believe that this is real.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-14542350994510519212015-01-05T03:04:00.002-08:002015-01-06T18:52:19.086-08:00I opened my refrigerator and there it was. Sad and saggy like an old lady wearing too many layers who had fallen asleep on the bus on a cold winter's day, the persimmon I told myself I'd eat but had forgotten to. It sat there on the clear, plastic shelf. Its leaves now showed indications of limpness that came from rotting but a crispiness from having dried out; they were like a little knitted hat on this grandma.<br />
<br />
The persimmon that he... yes, he. My resolution lasted for so short a time. But it is the persimmon he had given to me. Because he knew how much I loved them.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-69897092395823758372014-12-31T21:35:00.001-08:002015-01-14T00:39:45.472-08:00There have been a lot of thoughts that have cycled through my consciousness this past month. Most of these thoughts revolve around him since I see him in the smallest details of my life. At the Los Angeles airport, I saw the bakery that my older sister had catered her wedding cake from, which took me back to the actual night of her wedding. My younger sister and I had sat down with him in our hotel room and happily ate the leftover tier. No forks, just spoons in our hands, eating scoop after scoop of vanilla-strawberry goodness. Only later did we realize that we had completely forgotten the tradition that newlyweds are supposed to freeze their wedding cake and eat it a year later. These sorts of recollections are tinged with a sadness but also a nervousness--that all I'll have are these sad things to remember but he will still be absent.<br />
<br />
I think about him at the most arbitrary moments triggered by random images and sounds. A funny sound made by a tail-less cat, a sweet moment shared between my feisty grandparents, an awkward encounter with twice, thrice-removed members of the family. It is in these moments that the dark corners of my mind that used to be dim with contentment are now lightly soaked with subtle sorrow. I see his silhouette, but it's simple a ghost of a thing that used to be real.<br />
<br />
I'm able to better suppress the sadness now--the sadness of not speaking with him, the sadness of missing him, the sadness of having lost him. It's still there in my life, but softly, only a whisper right now. He's still there. Ironically and rather unfortunately, his absence is a reminder of his presence. It's unfair, this gloominess that stays with me, a constant presence that lurks around me. But I learn to cope as best as I can because I don't know what else to do to win him back.
<br />
<br />
I know that this is my life now. We are apart, and though I earnestly hope that our paths will cross again, some deep unspoken part of me knows that this is the end. He will go his way, I will go mine. This is why I cry, why I listen to break-up songs on repeat for days on end, why I desperately cling onto my phone and text or call anyone who's willing to deal with me that moment.<br />
<br />
I've told myself that this is the last time I will openly speak of this breakup. It's been a month, and I'm sure people have read my posts, have rolled their eyes and thought, "She's still whining about it? Pathetic." So this is it because it's already over; no amount of tears or poetry will change that. This isn't the path I chose, but it is the way I will walk. This is how I say goodbye.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-46756303610257394882014-12-27T08:01:00.000-08:002014-12-27T08:02:06.316-08:00It's been nice to be in Korea. The change of scenery makes it easier to swallow the sadness into darker, more unknown places. I'm able to cope. Standing amidst all the other passengers in the subway or walking on the uneven, cobblestone sidewalks, I feel like he was nothing but a figment of my imagination--someone I created during a happier, more peaceful time in my life. But reality always manages to resurface, and with it comes the blunt force of loss.<br />
<br />
Blinking away the last moments of sleep is the hardest. I dream about him still. Last night, I dreamt we were sitting in his car and were just talking. Nothing extravagant. All we did was talk. It was the simplicity that made it feel real. It felt so real that I deeply sunk into belief that this is my life as I know it now. So waking up and realizing that this was a thing of the past... Is it sad that a small part of me feels connected to him because I have these dreams? People keep telling me that it's not healthy to cling onto these visions. I know. I know I should let them go. I know I have to let him go. But easier said than done, right?<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I'll try to enjoy Korea as best as I can because this is the country I love. And even though there are small reminders of him even here, this is the country that makes me feel the most myself, the most free.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-85052567651532157212014-12-23T18:08:00.002-08:002014-12-27T08:03:12.481-08:00There will be moments when you think you know a person, really know her. You think you understand how this person thinks, how she functions, how she reacts. But in those moments, I advise you to stop. The minute you think you know, you cage this person within your own limited perception. She is not who you think she is. She will simply be a creation of your own thoughts. She is no longer free to be who she is but limited to what you <i>think</i> you know.<br />
<br />
A person is a myriad of thoughts, a million little pieces coming together to compile the atoms and cells and organs that make up who she is, at her essence, at her core. How could you possibly think that she can be contained?sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-36819096710443659202014-12-21T17:26:00.001-08:002014-12-21T22:42:58.160-08:00Love is a strange thing. I struggled to find what books, movies and rumors call "The One," a person who will accept you, understand you, and embrace you for all that you are despite your flaws and inconsistencies. So there I was, searching and searching in hopes of finding someone who would accept me, understand me, embrace me.<br />
<br />
And one day, I finally found him. My interest only further peaked when he unveiled an interest in me. He asked me questions about myself that even I didn't know the answers to. I pondered them, rolling them over in my hand like smooth stones that are soft to the touch but full of weight. We talked for hours on end. Even as the sun would rise over us, it made no difference. Our curiosity in each other was consuming and the lapsing time was but a marker of the minutes of our lives overlapping, connecting, merging. In the dusty pink dawns after cutting our conversations short to include brief moments of sleep, I layed in bed and thought to myself, I have finally found him. A year later, two years later, three, four, I felt confident in calling him mine. He was mine. And I believed it.<br />
<br />
So where does that all go now? Where do I put those emotions that have grown roots so deep? How do I let it go when it still tugs at me?sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-71787754820925255042014-12-15T01:47:00.001-08:002015-01-01T23:56:59.412-08:00On my walls, there are holes where our pictures used to be. Little white squares in the middle of a collage of stationery knick-knacks that I've collected from the world.<br />
<br />
And just like that, he's gone.<br />
<br />
Yet, I can't help but save the memorabilia that's him. He'll stay with me, in a small box, in the darkest corner of my closet because I still hope. I close my eyes and hope with the inner core of who I am that this is not how things will stay.<br />
<br />
I imagine us fatefully meeting, casually talking. I imagine me putting up the pictures we took together back into the small empty spaces in my wall. I imagine us being happy again.<br />
<br />
This is not forever. I hope that this is just for now.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-10958468744088185172014-12-13T04:18:00.001-08:002014-12-13T04:34:06.938-08:00The stuff of books and songs and movies are real--heartache really does feel like your heart is being wrung out by the disbelief that he's not in your life anymore. Every time realization hits, I get the wind knocked out of me, and there I am, crying again. But it's not a cry that is cathartic anymore. Instead, it feels tedious like folding laundry or watering the plants; it's just something that has to get done. I'm exhausted, even irritated with myself. The incessant self-loathing, the steady grieving, the never-ending questions circle around me, and I'm dizzy trying to keep up with all of these thoughts.<br />
<br />
I know that this isn't what I wanted; I know that I cry because of the frustratingly silent separation. But I'm here. And slowly, I'm making do. Slowly. Today, I surprised myself with how loudly I laughed at someone's jokes, how easy it was for me to genuinely smile at the woman at the checkout stand.<br />
<br />
This limbo is not what I wanted. But I am here. What else can I do but live my life?sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-59662030960443683142014-12-12T05:05:00.001-08:002014-12-13T04:34:00.973-08:00Everything reminds me of him. His words, his reactions, his laugh linger in the background now. Is that so bad? The memories haunt me ever so lightly, a silent breath that lets me know that he is there still.<br />
<br />
And, yet again, more waiting rests on my shoulders.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-51664987265399413032014-12-10T01:45:00.000-08:002014-12-10T01:45:43.098-08:00Silence is an odd companion. But sometimes, he's all that I have. And I remind myself that silence grows you. In the silences, you unravel who you are and slowly piece the oddities together. Your thoughts ring truest in the deep silences as you ponder and reflect. It is in silence that peace can rest on your shoulders.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-60517282620962137812014-12-09T04:06:00.003-08:002014-12-10T01:45:51.817-08:00천천히,<br />
모든 옷들이 축축하고<br />
따뜻한 이불도 다 젖었다.sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935672287833887204.post-66819517006896690462014-12-08T15:22:00.000-08:002014-12-10T01:46:04.272-08:00And so reality hits me right now, real and raw, with no gentleness at all. This week has been the hardest--the incessant fluctuation between false laughs and constant tears makes me dizzy; the anticipation of waiting to hear from you is the ticking seconds inching by. I try to keep busy with the things of life, but I just keep waiting for you. I'm still waiting for you. But am I just waiting for a ghost?sarah h. hwanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688221678369085348noreply@blogger.com