I am that petite build, with that straight, black and shiny hair that every white girl envies.
I have those slanty eyes that turn into slivers when I laugh.
I love kimchee, rice and mandu.  There is never such a thing as too much garlic.  I put red pepper flakes/paste on everything.
I use chopsticks.
People think I'm "cute" and pat me on the head.  That drives me nuts.  It still happens and I'm 32.
I regularly tell people that I don't speak Korean, except for "Where's the bathroom?" and of course "Anyonghaseyo".
My skin turns a dark tan in the summer months and I wish I was more peachy or pale like the white girls whom I think are beautiful.
I wear glasses.
I love to read and research things and I'm a good, diligent student, but I'm terrible with math and science.
I'm musical.

****

I play the clarinet, not the piano, violin, or cello; like every "Asian" should play.
I'm a tom-boy; you will never find me in a tu-tu or frilly-like dress (in public).
I do not wear make-up.
I'm loud, boistrous and obnoxious at times.  I have a serious *****-mouth and I'm not reserved or "refined".
I ask the guy out; not the other way around.
My career is more important than "settling down"-- at least during this point in my life.
I choose to never have children -- EVER.
I bite my fingernails and I've never had a manicure.  I've never even been inside a manicure shop.
I am a fantastic driver.
I am the only person of color in my immediate and extended family.
Over 99.5% of my friends are white.
I have never been in a relationship with an Asian man.
I grew up in an all-white neighboorhood and when I saw the Vietnamese, Cantonese, and Hmong students at my elementary school, I always wondered what it must like to be "them".

In 2007 I lived in South Korea for 3 months.  I encountered complex questions concerning who I am.  Who am I, really?  Am I an adopted Korean?  Am I a "real" Korean? Am I a Korean-American?  Am I none of these?  Does it even matter?  I was left with a gaping hole in my chest of deeper questions, deeper insecurities, and a poignant feeling of loss.  I thought, back in the States that who I am there is who I really am.  But, here I am, in the country of my birth, surrounded by people who share my ethnicity.  This is who I really am, right?  I felt such a deep responsibility to be more Korean.  I felt that if I identified as "white" or even a Korean-adoptee, that I was betraying my culture, my People, my home.  But, while I was in my homeland of Korea, I was so homesick for Minnesota.

When I returned back to Minnesota around Thanksgiving time, a few months later, Eastern Social Welfare (adoption agency in Korea) found my birth mother, Yoon, Young-Hee.  They were able to confirm that she was indeed my mother.  They tried to tell her that I have begun a search and that I wrote a personal letter for her, waiting at the agency.  Once they mentioned me, Young-Hee hung up the phone and would not answer Eastern's calls over a course of a year.  Children's Home Society and Family Services in St. Paul, MN contacted me and said that Eastern Social Welfare suggested that I wait a few years and try again.  I waited 6 years.  Last Decemember I re-intitated the search with the hopes that Young-Hee had gained the courage to talk to the social worker.  I had prayed for this for so many years.  I visulized light and love surrounding her.  I asked God for help.  I have heard nothing from my social worker and it's been almost 10 months.

I am learning how to let go of this search and let go of Young-Hee.  I am learning how to take my healing and my identity into my own hands.  I have a million questions that I wish I knew -- questions about my birth family's medical history.  Questions about why she gave me up. Questions about her current family.  Endless questions.  Now, I have come to terms that my questions may never be answered.  I could always have a mystery around my birth and possibly the future cause of my death (until I am diagnosed with something).  Can I live with this ambiguity?  As of right now, barely.  I am barely able to keep myself from falling apart with the frantic wonderings of my mind.  But, this is something I have to live with every day.

The Adopted Korean Community often hears wonderful and inspiring stories of adoptees being re-united with their birth-families. This is not my story.  My story is the all-too-common story that is rarely heard.  No one wants to hear how your birth mother will not cooperate with the Korean social worker and even read a letter you wrote for her.  No one wants to face the fact that millions of adoptees around the world live with this reality, too.  No one wants to acknowledge the pain, the rejection, and the loss that prevails.  Why would anyone want to hear a story like that?  Well, people who do not find their birth families or are turned away by their birth families have a story to share too.  It may not be an "upper", but it's a pretty important story to hear, too.  It lets us remember how we've all felt this way at some point in our lives, as an adoptee.  Most importantly, hearing stories like this helps other adoptees cope and feel that it is okay if their birth families wish to not meet or communicate with them.  It's not the adoptee's fault.  Adoptees who do not have success stories need to hear that this happens to many others and that a giant rejection does not mean he or she is worthless and less "special" than an adoptee who has been fortunate enough to reunite.

Why is it that I so closely tie my identity and then my self-worth to my birth family?  Why can I not be sovereign unto myself?  I am Korean.  Yes, I am.  It doesn't mean I must do, be, act, believe, see, or think in a certain way.  I am human, too.  I choose to have little identities that I see myself as while in different situations, with different people.  Indentity is complex-  it often signifies one thing-- oh that, (points) THAT is a chair. But simultaneoulsy, identity can also be so fluid and flexible -- (points) THAT chair is a folding chair, but this one isn't. But they're both chairs.  Maybe in some situations I can be a folding chair.  I'd like to play around with identity and let the concept roll around in my mind.  The thinking error comes when we think we must be one, same thing at all times. That is when we become stagnant.  How refreshing it is that we get to have such fluid identities!

Like every person on Earth, I have many shades.  I have many identities, and I surrender the long, hard fight to conform to one identity or another. This is my life and this is who I am, so I reserve the right to identitfy with whatever and whomever I see fit to be ME! :-)

I feel out of place
Out of place like a mushroom in a green salad
Like an all-male rendition of Cats on Broadway
Like Godzilla on Melrose Avenue
I feel like an adoptee in my own body
It's like "Hey! how long have you been here?"

My sentences are cut short whenever I try to speak because
Of all the train wreck shows that people could watch, I'm the one that's been off air for billions of years
Relevance
That's what I lack
If I open my mouth
I sound like I'm from another planet
A stranger on this earth, in this land, in this city
And I can't forget my mother's words
"You'll fit in somewhere."
But the boat to ****** island already left, and I'm a bad swimmer

Let me feel at ease
Let even my whispers make sense
Let me touch someone without feeling like I'm burning them
Let me do my campaign of shock and awe like a living creature in a cabinet of curiosities

I feel out of place
Like the lightning that falls inches from the tree
Like a satellite thrown off the Earth's orbit
Out of place
Like a missing sock ****** for the rest of eternity
Like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, thank you Katy Perry

In my own skin
I feel too big and too small
All at once
This rock in space feels odd, like it's not home
But the mothership is long gone
And, what can I say
I guess I'm stuck here

i’m lost
my legs are tired
and the concrete looks like a trampoline
if you throw something hard at an even harder surface, the something does not bounce
it breaks
if i throw my body to the concrete that looks like a trampoline
my bones will shatter
but my soul will only bruise
and that annoys me

because i thought death was easy
it’s this life that’s hard
what happens when escaping life becomes so difficult that death disappears from sight
when i thought death was easy but there’s no more fight left in me
when did trying to die become so difficult?

they tell me i’m not alone
which i find to be pretty funny because when my thoughts are falling out of my head too quickly for me to catch i’ll look around
and all i see is fragmented thoughts splintered on the ground

you have commitments
appointments
social obligations that consist of lifting others up
you have a job
and friends
and school
and papers to write
i know it’s hard for you sometimes, too

i know i drag you down
you say you won’t entertain the thought that my existence is a show put on by lucifer’s angels because i’m just
dramatic
you say
my idleness is the reason why my brain is wasting away
i’m the reason i’m wasting away
if it’s all in my head,
will the pain get better as i get worse?

they tell me
i’m here
and they’ll miss me if i go but when i tell them i’ve been trying to leave for years
they tell me no
i’ve been trying to stay for years
i laugh

they tell me
there’s so much more to live for
smiles and hugs and really dumb jokes
art and literature and art and art and art
and art

one thing art has taught me?
everything dies
everything ends
and humanity’s soul takes a beating every time we try
to erase the existence they’ve worked so hard to create
we could be frail
and throw ourselves to the pavement
the headlines the next morning would read Another one Bites the Dust or something

it’s really hard to be positive when you don’t want to be
or remember how to be
when stats of suicide are so frequently reported you wonder if that’s what you’ll become, another statistic
“the percentage of suicides of queer, korean adoptee, catholic, females has now risen to 1% this is Fox News reporting”
or something

i’ve heard that.

when did trying to die become so difficult?

-rgp

blood of mine so far
to live the life of a double star

the constant war in my head
separate from a woman who birthed my connection thread

the days and nights spent in a deep state of trance
the wounds isolate me wanting to watch a ghost dance

must I feel like a wanderer every month?
pass by strangers while I am on a tedious hunt

o' universe teach me how to converse
so I can move on without such need to rehearse

always the outcast in my environment
people have yet to learn about my abandonment

a fragile soul I live in
I will always live with Nemo's small fin

I love ever so hard
for I know how it feels to be left scarred

blood of mine so far
to live a life of a double star

~ p o e t r y of the lost adoptee