late summer, some kind of syndrome and tomatoes
an interlude of sorts because writing is hard.
Hi,
Every day this past month, I wanted to write. But every time I sat down I kept thinking about the last thing I wrote and it stopped me from writing anything else.
I sat at my desk to draw something, and something stopped me again. It has been an absolute nightmare, because I keep thinking about how creative I was once. I used to make things that made people feel something. And now I just…can’t. My brain won’t allow me to do anything.
My thesis film will not win any awards because my thesis film was, despite being personal and important and a massive feat to me, simply not good enough. And I’ve made my peace with it. There are more, better films to make. (but is there really?)
I’ve been sick for two weeks. I turned 24. I started my postgraduate program. It feels like the fresh new beginning I’ve been waiting for, and a death sentence to my creative career all at once. Except I never really tried hard enough for my creative career to begin with. I am too afraid.
John Green of all people wrote that he “took some pride in 'not fulfilling my potential,' in part because I was terrified that if I tried my hardest, the world would learn I didn't actually have that much potential.”
“Fuck you, John Green,” I want to scream. But really it just hurts in that dull, numbing way.
Summer really isn’t all it’s made out to be in the movies and books.
As a child, summer meant pool days and perfectly chilly bookstores where I’d have my pick of the Magic Treehouse series. It meant flying out to the Korea for a couple of weeks with my grandparents - this was before my halmeoni got ill and before I stopped looking up to my grandfather - and eating my weight in watermelon and papaya.
As an adult, summer usually starts off with a sense of relief. A much needed reprieve from the months of early evenings and cold, I usually welcome summer with open arms. And then it gets too hot and too long and it gets a little harder to breathe and well, you can’t help but feel that it’s overstayed its welcome.
I planted a tomato seedling when I moved into this house in the spring. I didn’t expect it to really yield anything, I just wanted to see what would happen.
I watered the little plant, and it grew taller. I was sure it would drown during the monsoon season, but it persevered. It started blossoming, and then we got tiny little tomatoes that blushed under the sun.
All this to say, I made a tomato and carrot salad with my own tomatoes the other day and it was delightful and strange, all at once. Mostly because it did feel a little cannibalistic to eat something I grew. I talked to them. (And that is my own doing.)
A plant allegory for life and perseverance? Overdone and obvious, but maybe still relevant.
My tomato plant is still yielding little fruits, even in this unbearable heat.
My brain self sabotages, I’m pretty sure.
I am confident that I can do whatever I put my mind to, and I am also incredibly sure that I am inherently weak willed and undetermined to follow through with anything in life.
But I am a competent person. I am good at what I do.
I might need to get diagnosed with something.
I can practically hear the texts I’m going to get from my lovely friends, so I’m going to preemptively respond to them.
I know I’m only 24. I know I can always change my career path (multiple times!) in my life. I know it is never too late to start again.
And comparison is the theft of joy, I’m aware. These feelings are fleeting (as fleeting as a few months can be). And hey, I’m writing now, aren’t I?
I remind myself that we are not built to be perfect at everything we do. We are built to fail countlessly, to keep tripping and falling, just to get up one more time.
My knees feel scraped to the bone, but I’m blowing over it in hopes that the stinging will ease enough for me to move forward again.
It’s been raining. And rain towards late August in this country means one thing - the seasons are changing.
The sky will be gentler.
I hope I will be, too.
Until next time,
Kim