figure out who I am

So I don’t know.

At one point I didn’t think that knowing who my biological parents were would really matter.

I spent years like that, saying shit like: I’m me and that’s all that matters.

But then, you’re in some class and someone says, I’m going to draw a picture of siblings, and you’ll be able to tell their siblings cause they’ll look alike.

And it’s weird.

And people ask you where your from, and part of you is sad in side because you don’t know where you’re ‘really’ from. or who made you.

it’s a weird thing. you haven’t any normal ground to stand on and that bothers me sometimes.

I usually try to ignore it, but it’s hard how my sibling has a mom and dad that look like her, and all i have is my imagination and loneliness on the subject.

I stopped caring as much about my parents once I found my biological great aunt and her children, I still haven’t seen photos.

It’s hard I can’t speak korean.

But I do think, that even seeing photos of my mother and father or a birth certificate, will make me feel more real.

I walk through life feeling like:

NOTHING I DO or HAS BEEN DONE TO ME HAS CONSEQUENCES. I never saw the consequences of my parent’s actions in korea, I never witnessed them missing me, etc. They just went on with their lives as did I. But’s so weird, it’s this big crucial idea that holds a person together, someone in you life will love you unconditionally.

Your parents are always your parents…. yeah, everyone always says shit to me like… don’t forget, blood is thicker than water, WELL what am I supposed to do with that?!!!!

Yeah! Buddy, I’ll just hop on a fucking plane and go visit my family in korea, you want to pay for the fare? And my 6 months of intesive korean lessons!!! jesus christ.

but then, I’m supposed to be so grateful to my white american parents FOR quote on quote “saving my life”

so between giving honor and allegience to these people I don’t know, I’m not supposed to get upset becuase these other people saved my life.

SO WHEN is there SPACE FOR ME TO BE SAD about the FACT THAT I DIDN’T Have a REAL birthday until I was 23!!!

?

Huh? Talk about feeling real, imagine spending most of your LIFE not know your REAL NAME, Your BIRTHDAY, or the names of your MOTHER AND FATHER.

yeah. You don’t feel real, you feel like some made up person for a plot line in someone elses life.

And it sucks.

two years. of waiting, and now my family is back in the picture my biological family.
strangely it is like some kind of motivation.

I don’t think it’s a healthy one. I dunno maybe it is.

I want to be the best person I can be when I meet up with them.

I want ot be that person now, but it gives me an extra oomph to do it.

exercise, eat right, lose weight, do well in school, work hard, stay focused, write letters, learn korean, save money.

all of it.

what to do.

christ, I wish I could make it happen like magic, be a real person, all this adoption stuff, not feeling real, no parents, nobody who even looks like me.

it’s one of thsoe weird things that makes you feel, eh, unreal.

a fictional character.

and it has put a damper on my life.

I don’t think anything I do really makes an impact, well I do, but not nearly as much as people who are grounded in who they are.

god, I want to be real.

maybe I just need to release the feeling of being unreal. make believe, because that’s how I feel sometimes.

okay. a shower a release and some sleep.

goodnight.

lately I’ve started really thinking about who I am and I feel like I’ve been force fed all this shit, esp about me being asian/korean and how it’s in my blood and stuff. And I’m fine with being korean, but I don’t think it holds enough force to be a topic of conversation with strangers, I know that my race has def. made people stop and say weird invasive things my whole life, but that isn’t me.

People tell me to go back to korea and learn korean and I dunno be ‘who I really am’, but christ, who I am is a person who likes painting and art, I enjoy philosophy and learning. I have two parents and a sister who are all white and I love them.

I am very involved in acknowleding how racism plays a part in my life as a person of color but I am not who people think. Everyone who meets me thinks I’ve got asian parents and that I eat lots of rice and if I’m defiant about it, it’s because I haven’t accepted my ethnic identity , but my ethnic identity is truly beyond these borders of nationality, I mean if anything I’m just a person, not a white american or a korean, just a person who grew up in america. I am sloppy, I like steak for just about every meal or cheese burgers, I like good music esp. jazz and hiphop.

Sheesh all those stereo types: No, I don’t sit on the floor on some kind of mat to eat dinner, and I don’t dance around in a kimono or something. I only know a few korea recipes and I don’t feel that making more korean dishes will help me ‘find myself’, if anything painting or reading philosophy helps me find myself far more.

Writing in general does surely help.

I had to stop and think about it today, and think, okay so almost everyday someone asks me ‘where I’m from’ or something like: ‘what are you’ how does that effect you?

Often people tell you, you need to get back to your roots or they try to talk to me about the korean language or korean food or korean places or buddhism, little do they know that many koreans are christian and not buddhist but eh, oh well. But I thought what does all of these stereotypes and conversations do to my self image?

Sometimes I used to feel like a fraud like I was supposed to be really ‘asian’ like the incredibly asian hulk or something, and that’s fucking weird!!!

ahhh! that’s even more of a lie! because I didn’t grow up with a korean family. My korean friends had grandmas that prepared great meals for their families and loved to watch korean soap operas, my parents didn’t immigrate here, my korean is horrible, etc.

If anything my ‘ethnic’ look means mostly one thing, that I deal with alot of assumptions, ignorance and racism, but as for the cultural part, that really isn’t my culture, I guess I could try to own it, but it really isn’t mine, and in general it seems that it distracts me from just being me. Not being white, like my parents, from being me.

And I’m done with trying to explain it to every person who decides to be invasive and ask me tons of questions about korea or china, or thailand or mongolia. I know I’m supposed to help everyone learn how to be more accepting and change their behavior but it’s exhausting and sucks.

I guess I’ve never thought about it before, but it has always been people telling me who I need to be: either an ‘american’ or being ‘more’ asian. When I think I just want to be a person and not a title or a nationality or sorts, of course I need to take ownership of my privilege as an american and acknowledge the affects of racism from my outside appearance as asian, but beyond that, I want to be free from this rather weird cage.

I think it’s the first step to being free. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’m asian or korean or american or adopted, but I am not going to trick myself into thinking I’ll learn more about myself by learning things like another language, cooking food or something like that.

I’ll learn more about myself if I just enjoy my life and continue to write, make art, and read books.