Spring cleaning: Day 1

There’s so much Korea in my drawers. Receipts from K-Rail, programs from various cultural and historical spaces, notes from former students, and two laminated mentions I got in the Korea Herald have been left to pile up. Some bags were time capsules from 2010, our first year in Seoul, and included manuscripts for a book I wanted to publish and a short story I did. Others featured stamps with my name and ink pads, machinations for the glory I believed would come with books and stories and animated series’.

They mostly made me sad. I remember believing that I was going to be a constantly published author. Not prolific but with a new book or two a year. I had dreams of being a writer but didn’t keep up with it. I fell away as I felt that if I wasn’t doing it all the time I wasn’t doing enough, which led me down a sad path of empty pages. Now, I’m getting back to finding the cornerstone of that mindset with a new side quest of finding a way to feel okay writing on nights and weekends.

I remember pivoting wildly between flights of excitement and sinking sadness about writing. And now I’m here hoping that with the emptying out of drawers, shredding what unnecessarily filled space and clearing of my desk top I can find a better excuse to call myself a writer. And, you know, be cool with that.