(so this is kind of overdue) but my best friend is married!
she was the most elegant & beautiful bride. j & d looked picture-perfect! and i couldn't stop bawling during the ceremony (so unattractive).
it was nice being reunited with family, old friends, current friends, church folks - all in one place.
and it was inevitable that i was flooded with comments like "when are you getting married?!" "you'll be the next to go!" (only from the older crowd, of course) and i just stood there, grinning uneasily saying "oh no no no..." unfortunately there isn't an emoticon that expresses uneasy, slightly perturbed fake smiling.
can we please focus on the bride? it's the bride's day! but i know it's the token thing for korean grown-ups to say to single young adults. that time has come apparently... (i need to get a clever, canned answer of how to reply to such questions about my singlehood)
but yes it feels weird one of my besties is going on to the next stage - living the "real, grown-up" life, while i'm still somewhat living the college dorm-life with roommates & instant noodles. not that i don't enjoy my life, it's just that i still feel like i'm not fully "adult" yet (i guess carrying around a hello kitty debit card doesn't really help).
the weird thing is even if i were to be married + kids, i have a feeling that i still won't feel that way. i guess i will always be "young @ heart" though i paradoxically also consider myself an "old soul" or a "young fogie."
i'll be sad if there comes a day where i won't be able to see the boa constrictor anymore though.
"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." -c.s. lewis, the four loves
i have always had an affinity towards the underdog. there is something that feels morally right & ultimately rewarding about rooting for something or someone that is overlooked and not naturally designed to win. david vs. goliath. the weak vs. the strong. i think this type of mentality also accounts for the part of me that likes to like things that no one cares or even knows about. my own niche group of likes & interests. this obscure indie band is an underdog. this unknown author whose book i picked up randomly - he's an underdog too. most artists are underdogs until they get "discovered."
on the flip side, i also find myself hating stuff that is too "popular" (i.e. the lakers, john mayer, dragon tattoo books)... i know, how noncomformist/hipster of me! i think a small part of me seeks "fairness" and feels that love should be equally distributed, while another part of me genuinely thinks that these "popular" things are just overly-hyped when it comes down to it. i think even harry potter is overrated (i know some of my friends would want to kill me right now).
that is why i tried so hard to not like ryan gosling. he's like that heartthrob at your school that everyone likes, and you keep telling yourself he is lame & so undeserving of the attention, but then when he smiles at you while walking past each other down the hall - you find yourself feeling faint. the reason why i even bring this all up is that i was once again reminded of his perfection today while watching "the gangster squad." what would've otherwise been a mediocre, overly violent movie was single-handedly redeemed by ryan himself.
everyone watched "the notebook" at one point in their lives (at least in the female population), and every single woman fell in love with ryan gosling. i actually didn't like "the notebook" much at all (i found the old lady version of Rachel McAdams supercreepy - didn't help that i saw her in "The Skeleton Key" first), but even then i couldn't deny Noah's charm (oh, Noah is Gosling's character in the movie just in case you didn't know). but my dislike for the movie was still there, so his charm didn't have its full-blown effect on me. then i saw him one of my favorite movies to date, "Blue Valentine":
and that's when i fell in love. the young version of ryan gosling's character dean is very reminiscent of the young noah. both scrappy, dreamy young guys who can charm your pants off. they have their oh-so-idealistic "love-can-conquer-all" badge on their tattered sleeves the same way leo once did on the titanic (it seems as though only poor guys can pull this off? rich guys are the villains, apparently). but the thing that tugs the hearts of all womankind is their resolute, one-track devotion to their girlfriends who later become their wives. there's nothing that says "i love you" (*spoiler alert*) like punching another guy in the face, pretending to jump off a ferris wheel, building a house for you, and fathering a child that is so obviously not his. of course both movies (especially "Blue Valentine") end in not-so-happy endings, but don't need to get into that right now.
and i think maybe the loophole is that he always (on the surface) plays the underdog (with the exception of "crazy, stupid, love" where he played the regular male peacock): he's always the misunderstood street rat character with the heart of gold. anywho - there's just something about ryan and his easy smile & boyish charm that makes us all a little weak inside. and if it doesn't... i question if you're a human or an android.
that is why i'm not ashamed to say that i work for a company that "hearts" gosling even more than i do. time & time & time again.
i still remember this one day i was having brunch with a few of my friends at some point last year. one of my friends who was visiting from out of town asked me about my job situation. i remember telling him i was unhappy (i was at my previous job at the time).
he asked me what i wanted to do then.
i said i wanted to work at somewhere tech-y.
oh you mean like google?
no that's too big - something that's more of a start-up. but a blossoming start-up.
oh i see... are you good at programming? or any of that stuff?
nope.
then what do you expect to do there?
not sure. but to somehow use my skills i have now. and then some.
hmm you haven't really thought this through, have you?
... i guess not.
"in the corporate world, every major company formulates a mission statement. that, in turn, is invoked when measuring achievements & failures. if a company does not know why it exists, then it will never know if it is failing or succeeding. how indicting, then, it is to all of us who will labor for hours to establish a mission statement for a company to sell toothpicks or tombstones but never pause long enough to write one out for our individual lives."
"just think of the alternatives our cultures have given us. pleasure, wealth, power, fame, fate, charity, peace, education, ethnicity - the list goes on endlessly. and when none of these work, some amalgam of spirituality and pragmatism is embraced. but these pursuits do not tell us why we are here in the first place. these may be ways of ordering one's life, but is life to be defined by what i pursue, or must pursuit be defined by what life was meant to be?"
"somewhere in the midst of all this turmoil, the Hound of Heaven was on my trail. his footprints are everywhere as i look over my shoulder now. he was indeed, nearer than i thought. i can see now, in hindsight, the trail that is evident, even in the grimmest moments. when you live in a small, two-bedroom home with four siblings and two parents, you cannot run for a hiding place. yet it is utterly amazing how one can hide within oneself."
-from the first few chapters of ravi's book jesus among other gods
time and time again - visiting home makes me realize how comfortable my life would be living in cali again.
cali is the land of abundance. so much space. so much food. the produce is astoundingly cheap. you can get FOUR ginormous grapefruits for $1?! unheard of! you pay HOW much for your 1 bedroom apartment? what? she's having another baby!?
in cali, i have the luxury of using as many napkins and toilet paper without thinking twice. turning on the heater is like second nature. and my family does laundry here about 3x a week.
as wonderful as all of it may sound though, i realized that NY is my new home now. i feel somewhat displaced here as if i'm living in a past that i like to look back on fondly, but doesn't feel like "life" in the here & now.
when i think of socal, i think of my family & my pockets of friends. but i have no grander view or vision of the city of los angeles. whereas with ny, i feel like i'm a part of something bigger (a movement of some sort), which is both intimidating & empowering all at once.
there is a certain "one-ness" about living in NY- you just feel like you're part of this living, breathing city that brings people together and propels them to new heights. new yorkers (or i guess you can say the transplants that call themselves new yorkers) take pride in living here and see it as part of their identity (one that is chosen and willed rather than one that is predetermined).
there is something definitely unifying about being miserably crammed in a subway car of people in contrast to being miserably isolated in your car during la traffic. something about ny and its close corridors (and this loss of personal space) just naturally bonds people together, even in the most irritating situations. misery loves company, so they say.
