08/03

Hello. After an evening shower I’m writing in my diary again, I’ve finally gotten the time, and it has been too long. I’m not used to my breaks and feel very tense, whereas when I’m working, I can focus on what needs to get done while stowing my troubles. I write this again at night from a small and furry snow-colored bean bag chair that I bought impulsively long ago. Usually it lies in the corner, reminding me of how rarely I relax. This might be the third time I’ve sat in it. I worry about falling asleep.

Why do I continue to write down this story of mine? I feel it’s strangely important for me to care for the story, like the boy’s entire life depends upon its being written. A part of me aches when I don’t finish what I’ve started, though this is unlike past experiences. I’m feeling a complicated joy in keeping the door open, like I’m whispering a deep secret to the ocean, so that the waves hear my truth. Maybe it’s because I feel pride by con­fronting my fear. I’ve always been afraid of the ocean, and then one day I played a character, Ae-sun, whose mother and child lived and died by it. When Ae-sun grew up, she relied on the water for sustenance, but this time in a different capacity. She had to learn to live with its incongruence, just like the innumerable gen­erations before her. My mother used to say that the ocean is a patient listener. It remembers everything the moment you imprint a ripple, and the ripple is communicated across the whole world, but you would never be able to tell. Aesun’s mother-in-

law said that “a mother who lost her child has more tears than the sea.”

Perhaps I’m writing to save my progeny from drowning, so to speak, in the life that sustains me. Shall I speak directly to him? If any part of you was created immaculately from me, then this invo­cation is the least I can do.

Oh, and a few days ago I finished that song I’ve been strug­gling with! I think it will make a very good addition to a future album, which is a secret, which fits the mysterious, confused nature of the song. It’s closer to me than me to you.

Beyond the boy, why do I continue to have the urge to share this diary? No, I shouldn’t share it. It would be a dangerous artis­tic statement that I can’t take back, about things I would like us all to work through together. Is there any other way to articulate my shame, to reward my trust in you, and finally, to free me?

This is my message to the future. I won’t leak this to the inter­net! I will drop hints only to please myself. If anyone discovers these words or connects the dots, then I promise my managers that I don’t know what they’re talking about, that ‘I’ am an imposter, and will deny, deny.

I’ve been speaking as if the boy is real, and in doing so I may be neglecting myself. My wants are no different from anyone else. I’ve participated in our society for a long time, since before I was sixteen, and so I’m beginning to sort out the more viable requests that society asks of us.

I’d like to feel freer in my thirties, and with it, that means accepting those impulses I’ve denied in my twenties. In the maze of my life, I’ve discovered a new corridor. The rooms are still shift‐

ing, as before, though I’ve finally arrived in the hall of mirrors and can observe myself from all angles. The hall of mirrors is our cul­ture, the angles are the viewpoints of others, and the reflections are my past and futures. Maturity is what illuminates my image, selecting it from alternatives.

I used to think of myself abstractly, like I was following a fate determined by others. I’ve felt sick with shame, or thought that I’m a liar, even sometimes, if I may admit, that I’m one of those cool women whom the world can learn from. These conceptions are surely parts of me which are more ephemeral and may not exist at all.

A man who used to be very important to me said, whenever I complained of being tired, that the real me was the part that lis­tened to myself. At that time, I couldn’t hear him for reasons that weren’t my fault. I’ve wondered if he thought of himself in the same way, or if he merely wanted me to quit my responsibilities. Is it a problem that I feel safe hugging close to my responsibilities, like those fish huddling around a shark? Or is it a virtue?

Last evening, after reminiscing for longer than appropriate about anxieties that were at various levels of my control, I opted to skip dinner and take a nap. I may have posted on Instagram about regretting this afterwards, I may have deleted it.

I was daydreaming about fields of green on the top of steep hills. There’s one in Jeju that I still think about, with the wind shaping the grass like a fluffed pillow. The whistle on the reedy plants reminded me of walks with my grandmother as a child, which flowed like a river to a series of other memories, some color­ful and happy as flowers, others less intense about trips hiking

with friends and family, or being on set and sneaking off during my break to stare at the soothing curves of landscapes, or even the way a tree windily laughs at you when you’re directly beneath it rather than from a distance. I felt especially small then and could barely see over the horizon. I was tired, the same as after a long day walking and listening to friends’ stories unfolding. I’ve gotten bet­ter at listening to stories in recent years. I was wishing that some­one new would gradually reveal the intricate petals of their life to me. Listening like plants with the sun.

Listening becomes an easy thing to do when you spend as much time speaking about yourself as I have.

If I’ve grown up in any way, and can offer this one piece of advice, at least by way of my own experience, well, though giving love puts my heart at ease more than accepting it, I’ve come to understand that receiving love is a way to give it. Uwah! What am I saying? Are these things I can sincerely say to you? Was this already obvious? I’m trying to be deep here!

Last night, after taking the ill-advised nap, I wasn’t physically tired but was mentally exhausted, so I turned my phone on air­plane mode and placed it within my dresser. I spent a few hours cross-legged on my bed in the darkness, counting my breaths in the hope that it may distract me. I don’t remember it working very well, though no one remembers when they’re falling asleep, either.

I had a bizarrely vivid dream that fits into everything written and reflected upon. I typed out the dream which came as a response from this difficult night because, at the time, writing was an activity to hopefully relax my headspace and resolve the reality

of the dream. The first thing I did when I awoke was to type this, that’s how raw the story is. I’m going to copy it over here from my phone, as I’ve heard that the act of transcription strengthens the memory of an event.

“I was falling back asleep and knew it. I could picture myself lying down in my bed. A portal opened up, bridging my senses of being awake and of being asleep. Thinking about the last one, remember, with mirrors and changing hair and alone on the stage that was not a stage and became my bedroom. I felt scared yet curious.

Suddenly, my closed eyes saw my room, and the world got very loud and shook like an earthquake. I knew it was the start of a dream, only sleep has never happened in this way. I was so scared and so tired that I refused to get up.

I thought about my body, and a chill ran down my backside. I had the feeling of being watched. I tried to see who was watching me, but I couldn’t move anymore. Then I saw myself entirely in my bed, not like a mirror. It was as if I was dead. My room looked mostly the same. However, it was elongated in ways that made it feel much grander though not entirely correct, and the walls seemed to squeeze and breathe. Everything was dark, yet I could see objects clearly from a vantage point at the edge of the room.

I was entering and entering the room each time I glanced at myself, like the way a webpage fails to load. Over and over and over again.

There was someone else in the room also looking at me. I wasn’t scared of them. They weren’t yet a real person, which made me think about how I saw myself. Remembering everything as if

it were an undeniably bright light. Knowing about my past woke me in ways from the end of reality. Feeling like I’d been born again. I wanted to speak to them because they could not harm me because it was a dream?

I decided to get a closer look at myself. I realized this was how I looked sleeping. My body breathed, though it was otherwise inanimate. I was very sad without knowing why. It was like pollu­tion muting the midday city. I knew everything was going wrong, only I couldn’t fix it. I tried shaking myself or thinking about wak­ing up, yet this did nothing. I would’ve liked to give myself a hug or simply to have received one. This all felt nothing like seeing me normally in videos. My body was very vulnerable, maybe because it was real time rather than the imprint of it. I didn’t know what to do and expected pain.

I turned around to the boy staring at me, making me embar­rassed and even angry. What right did he have to see me like this? Was he following me? I must’ve accidentally let him in. He shouldn’t have been there. I asked him why, and he tried to change the subject. It wasn’t a conversation so much in words, but we understood something inside one another.

This dream was complex, don’t forget there were many details. Like the way he stood floating above the ground. Or his skin was almost translucent like daytime shade. He spoke without his mouth moving. He wore mismatched white socks with green or brown argyle on the cuffs. He looked young, though his facial hair was less sparse than I expected. That his eyes were almost closed, maybe into a grimace or hiding tears. Not entirely the boy I’d been picturing before. There were new things about this one as

well as more detail. Details in the way he stood and the shape of his skull and pulled-back chin and the stringy and unpredictable directions of his hair like each strand individually chose to curl that way. Could write about it more later. I should.

He asked if I was real or a part of his mind, which I found offensive. For a second I wondered if I was the one pretending. He said something about ‘the truth of me.’ He seemed perfectly real. It reminded me of admiring my costume just before I was about to take the stage.

I asked him to stop following me, though I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was a part of myself that judged and looked and didn’t accept things for the way they were, telling me about my tendency to do this. ‘Dreams are reflections,’ I think he said this, or did I?

What do dreams mean?

Are they coming from me? Was this a different sort of dream?

We knew each other from somewhere. I want to remember this feeling because, despite everything, it was surprisingly warm.”

That was the end of the notes I left myself, alongside complaints about soreness in my body from a decomposed sleeping position.

After, it appears I wrote a series of ideas about making this encounter into a song. I don’t remember this well. The song would’ve been about a special friend whom I feel like I know, even though we never met. I want to scrap it because it has become too personal for others to relate to. I have intuition now about the things you may find useful, and it’s not this. How can I explain my relationship to this boy in words, when my feelings have built

over time, with dreams and music and his spirit? And what do they have to do with you?

I’m starting to believe that he is a surrogate for something that needed to come alive in me, which includes the complicated feel­ings I have for my career, and all those fans I’ve never been able to know personally, and much more. Yes, I’m speaking to you.

I’m frustrated with him because he won’t leave me alone, and I’m frustrated with myself for wanting to run away. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe there’s something selfish in this. Still, it’s cathartic. It will sound like the way the seasons change, that is, bittersweet yet appreciative for time. For all of our complaining about the speed of time, we must really love it. One day, you may recognize these emotions in a song that is tender, contemplative, and free­ing. I would like to find a way to do both and please everyone, usually that is my mission. However, I worry there’s something about this story that threatens who I am. Where would I go if he could live comfortably in me? And what would happen to him? This leaves more questions than answers, so that the more I speak of him, the more past audiences swell in me, and my ballads become as permeable as water, transparent as eyes, and are given away like provisions in times of war.

I don’t know why I didn’t make a note of this before. However, I remember one thing very clearly. In that last dream, he left of his own accord. Only later did I feel safe enough to wake up.