from the Backseat.
My brother and his wife, my sister-in-law, have finally moved out of our apartment — where the three of us all lived for 17 months. I always knew that this day would come, but I was unprepared for the flood of meloncholy that swept over me when I received the following message from my sister-in-law the other day, after I thanked her for watching my dogs while I was traveling:
Below is a blog post I wrote in a rare moment of foresight about this very moment — the moment I would realize that we have all turned the page to a new chapter.
“Can you buy for me…?” is a phrase heard often around the apartment. My sister-in-law tosses this short hand for “love me, please” like handfuls of bright paper cranes, inviting my brother to collect them while dishing out the remonstrations that his current salary demands, yet placing them on the very broad mantel of his memory so that when he gets a “real” job and things get better, he can pick them off, one by one, and hand them back to her.
In the evenings, I often like to plop down on their bed to surf the web and listen to them grapple with newly-wed life. Jaesun will be sitting at his desk, watching Naruto or scrolling through Facebook and YJ will be lying in bed with me, similarly scrolling through Facebook.
Today, Jaesun and I happened upon the same article while scrolling: “6 Toxic Behaviors That Push People Away.” Jaesun read the article out loud to both of us (though YJ, understandably, paid little attention) and we launched into a discussion, immediately, regarding which of these “poisonous” (the word I used to define “toxic” for YJ) attributes the three of us most exhibited. We determined that Jaesun’s propensity to dismantle public property or hurl four-lettered invectives that even I’ve never said out loud labeled him “Excessively reactive.” And even YJ admitted that she had a tendency to believe that everyone hated her, which was the first of the 6 toxic behaviors (“Taking everything personally”).
Meanwhile, my addiction to approval (particularly from my parents) made me a dead ringer for “Needing constant validation.” YJ vehemently disagreed with my self-assessment, though, reminding us that I eschewed all my designer handbags for my “[insert name of my employer]” bag–an old, ugly, backpack that the firm gave me a few years ago. Someone as obsessed with the material trappings of success (as the article described) would never be caught dead in public wearing that thing, she concluded in the most deadpan imitation she could muster (in Korean).
This had me rolling on the floor, nearly in tears. It is during these moments, when my mind is wrapped so securely in the gauze that only family can provide, that I realize how few and precious these moments are and will grow to be. Though I am only 3 years ahead of my brother in age, I’ve already been married and divorced. I’ve already experienced the chest-flattening “firsts” that attend–exclusively–first loves, and this is nothing extraordinary. However, what they cannot know is that I have gained a vantage that they have not–looking back, I now know that far more indelible than the moments that Hollywood has deified (e.g., first kiss, wedding night, 5 year anniversary) are the ones that drift, unnoticed, into the blue-grey recesses, where they stack against one another like a library of love-worn books. First time she takes the wheel while Jaesun is gripping the dashboard of their Hyundai Sonata for dear life. First time he takes YJ’s hand in his while strolling down North Avenue one particularly scalding August afternoon, because he promised her a long walk the night before in a moment of (regrettable) infirmity. The time he explained to her, with his trademark patience–a rhythm of speaking patented for natural-born teachers–, why the fog rolled so thick and lazy over Lake Michigan, how Americans preferred running over speed-walking, how ketchup was anathema on a proper hot dog.
I sometimes feel like I am living my life backwards. Jaesun and I spent the latter half of the evening debating the merits of two people “merging” to form one. He calls me a cynic, I call him a romantic–I don’t believe “merging” is ever a good thing, and he thinks it can be, especially when the two minds are too fragile to survive alone. I don’t think frailty should be a prerequisite for soul-matehood. I believe the opposite: self-sufficiency is the most vital ingredient to a successful relationship.
It is easy for me to tout the above, to type the words onto my blog, to fling them at my brother with all the surety that inheres to my “noona” status. But, I often wonder whether I allow myself to disappear too much in this home of ours, whether I am growing complacent with merely sitting in their backseat, collecting all their precious moments as if they are my own. There is a gnawing fear in my gut–that I will never find the kind of love I thought I had when I was 18 years old, that I’ve lost, forever, the one love that could have been the thing that propelled me to be the best me that I could ever be in this lifetime. It is a weird sort of fear–it doesn’t render me immobile, it just leaves me very confused.
The answer to this question remains undefined, though. Today, I thank God for this blue-grey chapter in my life–where I can watch, from the backseat, as two people bicker and pull each other apart in a manner more loving than I can ever remember seeing in my own lost love, without having to be concerned, in the least, where we are all headed.
