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[josieswrk]

I’ve Totally Internalized the Patriarchy

But when grown men cry it breaks my heart. It makes me want to reach through the screen and clutch them close, it makes me want to find the mothers and fathers who hurt them and kick them in places that hurt. Today I had a string of grown white male clients who were emotionally abused by their parents growing up. It resulted in them not feeling like they can feel their emotions, in feeling like they don’t have a consistent, independent identity apart from being a caretaker to the narcissistic people around them. One of them was sobbing, telling me how weird it feels to be crying into a computer screen. It almost made me cry. 

[josieswrk]

Advent 13

It’s early morning and the crows are cawing outside as they hop around on the grass, pecking for their breakfast in the mist. 

I have been in California since Wednesday. My body feels like it’s caught in an inter-dimensional wormhole. I am sleeping and working on East Coast time: 8 AM client appointment means I have to be up at 4:30 AM here. But I am feeding my body on Pacific time: distanced breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my parents at normal hours. My stomach is constantly gurgling and fully of gas, unsure of when to produce digestive fluids.

My quarantine space is like a simulation of my studio apartment in Philadelphia. I have a folding table in front of the bookshelves which serves as my desk/workspace during the day. The couch sectionals have been pushed together to form a cozy fort in front of the television. I work, eat, and play in one large space, similar to the way I would at home. 

I wonder what God has in mind for me these last few weeks of 2020. 

[josieswrk]

Advent 5

Today, I saw the city through fogged up glasses. Each street lamp and lightbulb emanated a hazy halo, as if I had been transported to another dimension.

I wondered today if I become attached to depressive moods because I think they help me see differently, see more clearly. I begin to look with the eyes of my heart rather than the eyes of my flesh. 

And when I do, what I see around me is the longing for a silent embrace. A wordless hug that asks for no explanation, no rationalization, no defense of how you are. It holds you, unmoving, and at first you feel awkward. Surely this person is secretly thinking of pulling away. But the hug remains and you find yourself settling into it, letting yourself enjoy it. 

And then, to your surprise, the tears come. 

The tears that speak of how hard you have been trying. To be responsible. To care for others. To be a kind and patient person. The tears that speak of how hopeless you have felt over things out of your control, whether it’s external circumstances or your own behaviors. The tears that speak of how tired you are, how much you have been hiding a deep groan under a cheerful smile. The tears that cry out in anger, “Where were you? I needed this hug ten years ago, why didn’t you come sooner?”

Father, we are a people who don’t know that we are missing your touch until You touch us. Embrace me and my loved ones through this final month of the year. 

[josieswrk]

Advent 3: Memorable Love

The other day, my friend and I played a “free” version of We Are Not Really Strangers. (By “free,” I mean that I googled pictures of the cards because to purchase the actual game would be $30). 

One of the cards asked this question: “Who do you miss right now?”

I miss you, Evan jundosanneem, and I have thought of you often these past few years. Evan jundosanneem, my youth pastor from high school. To this day, I have not seen a man who pastors with such integrity. He wrestled so deeply with the how of ministry - to Evan jundosanneem, the ends never justified the means. Evan jundosanneem never believed in forcing people before they were ready because he believed that committing to Christ was a voluntary choice, one that must be made by counting the cost, not by succumbing to a rush of emotions. To that end, he preached the gospel but did not chase after kids with flashy fun.  

His style of ministry sometimes made him unpopular, with my friends and with their parents. They chafed at his rules and complained that Evan jundosanneem only invested in his “favorites.” Like any mortal man, Evan jundosanneem was not perfect. He could be stubborn in his refusal to form relationships with people who he did not understand, with people who did not understand him. 

But of all the pastors and mentors I had, Evan jundosanneem and his lessons live deepest in my heart. “You make time for the things you love,” he told me, a saying that still challenges me to be intentional about how I use my time - busyness is not enough of an excuse. He challenged me to demonstrate to the world that God is my priority, by committing to Friday night discipleship time no matter what, and to communicate to other competing commitments that on Friday nights were dedicated to church. He walked with me and my friends through some really dark times - friends in our community committing suicide, chaos with family at home, depression and hopelessness... 

He loved me purely. He saw who I was and what I could become and was more interested in making that happen than making me think he was a great pastor. I was neither a pawn in his grand visions of ministry, nor a test of his ego (”Josie, your approval [of my ministry] means a lot to me...”). To him, I was Josie, child of God. And he took seriously the weight and responsibility of discipling me to become more like Christ. I could see it. 

When I shared this with my friend, she noticed that the love that remains with us is not necessarily the love that makes us feel good. (She had shared about a missionary who left a deep impression on her, who was so consistent in service but had little interest in connecting or conversing with others). We reflected on what it would look like for us to do the same - to love people purely and rightly, not necessarily to make others feel good or to make ourselves feel good by fostering connection or improving our image. Because that’s the way Christ loved. Not everyone understood what He was doing, but He was undeterred in loving with integrity, in ways that brought deeper healing and wholeness to those around him. That is what I desire. 

[josieswrk]

Advent 1

Repentance is deeper and broader than acknowledgement and apology for sin. It is often described as a “turning away” from sin and a “turning toward” God. But even that description doesn’t go beyond a behavioral change. At its core, I believe repentance is a paradigm shift - dying in one world and waking up in another, the first major paradigm shift being when we first accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. 

This waking sounds dreamy, but it often isn’t. The world you wake up to may be grittier and more unpleasant than the last. You sleep, plugged into the Matrix of pleasant distractions. You awake, coughing and sputtering in some mysterious fluid, shivering and wishing you were once again asleep, even if it was a dream, even if it was a lie. But you must make a choice: return to comfortable delusion or liberate yourself and others in the new reality. 

Incomplete, but I’m trying to write more intentionally this advent, so going to “bless and release” as I go. 

[josieswrk]

Josie’s Recipe for Getting Out of a Funk

1. Cry it out. I think the true source of the depressive episode was all of the feelings I had about my clients and work that I was keeping inside because I was just trying to survive and not get fired. The Thanksgiving holiday, particularly today, was the first true break in a while where I had no tasks to distract me from my feelings. I cried it out to my friend who encouraged me to embrace my feelings about my clients as a gift: “There are people out there who wish they could empathize but can’t get themselves to,” she said. I’m really thankful I didn’t have to spend this Thanksgiving alone. 

2. Eat. Goro Majima knew what he was doing when he got Makoto some pipng hot Takoyaki. My friend’s super healthy meals were not enough for me, I think. We went to ALDI’s together and got some snacks. I cried while peeling and placing my tangerine pieces in straight line. Once I was done, I ate them, along with some white cheddar popcorn and potato chips. Now we’re going to have Tonkatsu for dinner. 

3. Comedy/distraction. We watched one sad video, and then slowly moved to funnier, sillier things. My friend had not seen drunk history, so we saw one of those. Then we watched a hilarious Japanese skit about a failed medical student who pretends to be a doctor on a flight because he has always wanted to save someone’s life.

Now I’m dancing to this song and things are right in the world again:

[josieswrk]

Fog

My depressive episodes are like a cloud of fog. It’s disorienting, and I can’t see. All I want to do is stay in bed and run away from everyone and everything. But I gently prod myself to move on with life, knowing that the depressive fog will dissipate as I brush my teeth and make a pot of coffee. 

I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream. I was surprised by the wave of sadness that washed over me as I lay awake in the dark. I wasn’t necessarily surprised that I had feelings about the situation in my dream, but I was surprised by the magnitude of the emotional reaction to a situation I had mentally prepared myself for. It made me feel vulnerable and homesick, a feeling which opened a pandora’s box full of my deeper fears. 

My time in Philadelphia and in this apartment has been one of the best gifts God has ever given to me. Yes, it was an opportunity to get away from things in California, but more than that, it has been proof that I am capable of living independently and being, for the most part, happy. 

Something that helps me develop compassion for my therapy clients is my own experience with mental illness. Of course there are moments when I am tempted to add the chorus of voices around them to “get over it” or share what I think is an obvious solution to their problems. But what someone who has never struggled with mental illness does not understand is that the person themselves already feels frustrated and ashamed at what they’re dealing with. 

There was a time in my life when I thought marriage and kids were off the table for me. I could not imagine pulling other human lives into my mess. I couldn’t imagine a man being patient with me through my distress. I couldn’t imagine passing on my misery through genetic material to my children. I could barely manage my own mind, how would I be able to take care of other precious human lives? I knew back then that I had nothing objectively to be so upset about, and that made it all the worse. It meant that there must be something fundamentally wrong with me. 

24 year old Josie would never been able to imagine 28 year old Josie living independently in an apartment in Philadelphia, managing studies and then a job, paying rent and bills on time, cooking her own meals, socializing with other people. I have depressive episodes like the one this morning, but never enough to last for days (as it did for one of my clients this week - I encouraged him to get out of bed and stretch even if he goes back to bed right after). 

Feeling homesick unsettles me a little because I am afraid of losing my progress. I love my parents so much, and I know I won the lottery with how well they love me. I am thankful that I do not have to brace myself before going home, that it is a safe and comfortable place for me. But every time I feel like running home in my vulnerability or every time I am struggling to adjust to life in Philadelphia after I get back, I do get a little unnerved. For a brief moment I wonder if I am slipping back to that place years ago.

But feelings, as long as they are small or based in identifiable non-truths, are easily shaken off. (Other feelings like those associated with trauma or grief, where previously held truths and expectations are fundamentally and forever changed, are not so easily brushed aside). I’m not the same person as I was four years ago. I am still weird and sensitive and probably make no sense to the people around me, but that’s ok. These days my depressive episodes are easily dispersed with a wave of my hand, as if clearing a bothersome cloud of smoke. And that’s yet another thing to be thankful for this strange Thanksgiving season. 

[josieswrk]

Pandemic Thanksgiving Morning

This time yesterday, I was waking up in Baltimore, writing the following: 

Lying on an air mattress at a friend’s apartment in Baltimore, I am reminded of Station Eleven, a speculative fiction novel set in a post-apocalyptic America, set in a world that has been ravaged by a devastating flu epidemic. The novel illuminates all the precious elements of humanity we take for granted until it is taken from us.

Driving with a friend into the night, singing and harmonizing worship songs together - these are moments we took for granted. Moments that we cannot enjoy anymore without risk. 

Today I am back in my apartment in Philadelphia, sitting across from a friend playing quiet Korean worship music as she does her quiet time with God. The weather outside my windows is gloomy, the sky thick with white clouds. 

As the year ends, my attitude is shifting from lament over loss to preparation for the post-pandemic future. The time I had on earth with people, every conversation and in-person encounter has always been this precious, I’ve just been blind to see it. As I patiently wait for this storm to pass and do what I can to love people from afar, I am also praying that God will calibrate my heart to make the most of a post-pandemic future. 

As I learned in Bible study last night, if my true aim is Christ, it doesn’t matter if I’m more or less loving than the brothers and sisters around me. There are days when my self-centeredness and grumpiness and oscillating need for space and deep intimacy look so ugly in comparison to my friends who love so purely and consistently. It makes me want to hermit away in shame and not try at all. But I am not measured against the ruler of how well other people love. What matters is that I love more than I did yesterday, more joyfully and sacrificially than I did yesterday. Maybe I’ll never be as loving as someone else, even if I had a lifetime of sanctification. But how amazing that growing nearer to God is not a race against others, but a path made available to me by what Jesus has done. The Lord delights in me standing up and walking forward again, He is not disappointed or confused why I haven’t traveled as far as the next person. 

That is how I want to live the rest of this year and in 2021 - patient and prayerful and persistent. I may not experience any grand triumph in the visible, first-world-problem, conventional-markers-of-success areas of my life. Work is getting better but still stressful and awkward. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do about dating and I’m approaching 30. I still find myself falling into old insecurities and vices. And at the same time, I know that this isn’t everything there is to life. If I get fired, I’ll find a new job. Every day my family and friends are still alive is another day to love on them and enjoy them, I’m healthy and can afford to take care of my immediate needs - there’s still so much going on! Honestly, who really even knows if I’ll make it into 2021 and not die in a freak plane accident or because of COVID in these next months. 

But today I’m alive, and looking forward to a week of delicious eats. :) 

[josieswrk]

The Great Therapist

It’s quite windy today. The thick electric lines outside my window are bouncing up and down. 

How am I going to make it as a therapist living alone during a pandemic?

I am going to lean on the Great Physician, the Great Therapist. 

I was really blessed by this morning’s Bible study. One of the central verses was Ephesians 5:1: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

The moksanim went on to explain that regardless of what we do, we are to emulate Christ. If we are a doctor we are to be a Christ-like doctor. If we are a politician, we are to be a Christ-like politician. I began contemplating what it looks and like and means to be a Christ-like therapist, especially in a secular setting. 

I thought of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. I thought of how He engaged her in conversation when she wanted to hide away in shame. I thought of the gentleness of His approach but his unhesitating candor when it came to the truth about her romantic relationships. 

Through this realization, God has given me more peace about my work. My work so far has been “sink or swim.” My supervisors have thrown me in the deep end, and tossed a syllabus of trainings and books as a life raft. Nobody is holding my hand and yet with every passing session, clients are entrusting me with more of their lives. How do I create my own structure, how do I prioritize what books to read and what trainings to do? How much time should I devote to these things? 

This morning I am reminded that in all my doing, I cannot forget that God’s primary calling is about being. He has called me to do certain things, but what matters more is His calling for me to become like Christ, no matter my occupation or identity or life stage. It reminded me of what Pastor Russell said at a retreat earlier this year - when I wake up in the morning, before I take an inventory of all the things I need to do, I should ask God who He wants me to be today. 

I still have trainings to do and books to read, but I cannot forget that my foremost discipline Is to pray before my sessions that I would reflect Christ to my clients. I am to reflect both His gentleness and His incisiveness. If I am not gentle and compassionate, then my work will not be out love but out of judgment. If I do not shed light on my client’s thoughts and behaviors, then there will be no transformation. I need only to think back to the times when supervisors have gently but firmly brought my blind spots to my attention. I did not feel attacked, rather I felt seen and energized to correct where I had gone wrong and return to my work with greater confidence and purpose.  

[josieswrk]

My Father

In a writing flow, keeping it going. Cleaned all the gross things in my house I’ve been procrastinating - the bathroom, the stove, and some leftover soup stock that went bad. Taking a writing break to clear my nose. I feel like gagging.

The last father-daughter date I remember having with my father was in 2018, the week my grandfather died. We were in Seoul, two days after we had interred my harabujee’s ashes in a hillside far outside of the city, somewhere close to the DMZ.

My grandmother’s house is simple and warm. A small crucified Jesus hangs from yellowing wallpaper, over a flat-screen television set warbling the news. Family members dressed in black are spread out across the heated ondol floors. Some lay on their sides, propping up their heads up with their hand, some are seated upright, peeling fruit. Two slim candles from my grandmothers seongdang, or Catholic church, burn quietly next to the television in front of my grandfather’s chosang photograph, encased in a thick wooden frame. In the photograph, my grandfather appears reserved, dressed in a black suit jacket, his grey hair combed neatly. In the photograph, he almost imperceptible smile on his lips, his eyes staring straight at you through large wire-rimmed glasses.

In my memory the scene is quiet but tense. My family must have hit a lull between fights, everyone restoring their strength before the next battle to come. My father, wanting to get a break from his family, had been suggesting for days that we steal away for an afternoon to run errands and get coffee, our shared love language. 

My father announced to our family members that we were leaving, as we put on our shoes and bundled up for the Korean winter in the foyer. My grandfather passed in January, right around New Year’s. The cold was such that it sliced at my legs with an icy knife even if I was wearing pants. I don’t know how my old great aunts and uncles managed to climb up the trail to my grandfather’s grave, the freezing cold biting at any unprotected skin. 

My father and I stepped into the cold apartment stairwell and called the stainless steel elevator. Our shoes echoed against the grey granite floors as we waited for the elevator window to appear. We took the narrow elevator down to the ground floor and began to make our way down to the main street, where the shops were. My dad’s side of the family lives in Donam-dong, in a village of tall apartment buildings on top of a hill. We walked for a ways before reaching “the shortcut,” a covered stairway that took you straight down the side of the hill to street level. From there, we walked a couple blocks to the cell phone servicing store. 

I’m not sure if there is an equivalent in America. It was a store dedicated to repairing and troubleshooting cell phones, not selling them. The small office space was filled with nine or so desks, each with an IT man or woman. When you arrive, you get a number and wait for your number to flash over the attendant who was ready for you, the way you would wait in line at the deli. 

I sat on the waiting chairs until my dad finished what he needed to do, and then we walked back out into the cold together. We found the nearest coffeeshop (I think it was a Tom N Toms) and stepped inside. My dad ordered two large coffees for us and we sat together at a small wooden table, each of us in a comfortable black leather chair. 

This date stands out in my mind, not only because it was our last one but because it reflected a shift in our relationship. Something about my grandfather’s death had tipped the scales. As soon as I landed at Inchon airport, I knew that I wasn’t arriving as a spectator. I was here to support my father so that he could grieve as a son. I have seen my father cry before, albeit not very often. But this was the first time I saw him sob with his whole body, kneeling in front of my grandfather’s grave. This time, when my family fought, I was no longer a timid spectator, sensitive little Jungah stressed out over conflict. This time, I stepped in and defended my parents when the accusations against them crossed the boundary into the ridiculous. For the first time in my life, the adults were looking at me with new eyes, asking me for my opinion, saying that my arguments made sense. 

Safe within the walls of Tom N Toms, a hot cup of coffee in each of our hands, my dad and I could pretend for a couple hours that things were normal. We talked about many things, including his thoughts about his relatives. I think growing up I was always an 애늙으니, a child with an old soul, because my parents were always sharing stories of their relatives with me. “This samchon has this fatal flaw and that’s why he failed at his business.” “You have to be thankful when things are going well and don’t get too greedy - that’s when things start to go wrong.” “This cousin was unhappy in their marriage because they married someone who was not right for them.”

My dad and I have an interesting relationship. We’re both passionate brainiacs with poor communication skills. Sometimes we’re bouncing off ideas and theories like two jazz musicians adding layers of complexity and nuance as we riff back and forth. Sometimes, our chests are puffing up for a fight, usually based on misunderstandings and leaps in logic that we think the other person should be able to easily follow. Sometimes, my dad makes me so frustrated with his aggressive projections and assumptions about my arguments that I’ve shredded up napkins to keep my cool. 

When I was growing up, his anger was more explosive. I hated it the most when he exploded in the car, a small, enclosed space. He would, by all accounts, lose it. The car would fill with his angry voice and sometimes his hand would throttle the gear shifter (wow, what is that stick called?) 

But the dad I have now is so different from the dad I had then... a testament to God’s work in his life. He also learned how to better love me. “I learned from Dr. Lea [my therapist] that it’s not necessarily a good thing when you always do what I say and never fight back,” he once told me. “So I’m trying to see you arguing back as something healthy.” 

It’s weird to think about my dad’s most explosive moments. Now he’s such a chill guy... he has his moments of anxiety, sure, but not anger, not toward us. When he gets drunk he always, always says “You know that I lub yoo right?” his eyes closing and lips curling in an annoying smile. And yes, he says that he loves me even when he’s sober too. 

These days when we talk, he always reminds me not to worry about my future. Once, he reminded me of the lyrics to a famous Christian song: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know-ow-ow He holds the future. And life is worth the living, just because He lives.” “Life is worth living, Jungah-ya,” he said in the car, me sobbing in the passenger seat next to him. “Just because He lives.”

A date with my father in Seoul seems like an impossible occurrence now, with the pandemic who knows when either of us will be in Korea ever again. But for a few hours that day, we got to sneak away from the rest of our family and be ourselves over cups of steaming hot coffee. How often do I get to have my father to myself, to pick his brain and study his face? His salt and pepper hair, his wire-frame glasses, his small eyes and button nose. It’s a memory I know I’ll be thinking of in the future, when the time comes for me to grieve my father the way he grieved his. 

[josieswrk]

A Guide to Proper Dating / 바른 연애 길잡이

ㅋㅋㅋ boys are so weird. What’s wrong with showing your excitement??

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 귀 ㅡ

I SCREAMED. Their eyes met cause they were peeping at the same time and she dropped her head down!! I would DIE inside. SO AWK.

My friend gave me a whole excel spreadsheet of webtoons and I am hooked on this one. All the characters are so likable. The writer really captures the nuances of all different kinds of relationships - the long term one that has lost its spark, the one-sided 짝사랑, the 썸/thing, and maybe the beginnings of tru love?? I’m rooting for 바름 and 유연ㄴㄴㄴ.

[josieswrk]

A Little Collection of Moments While Working at Home in the Pandemic

I have a running list of things that have changed due to the pandemic:

(Also, if we think about it, haven’t we lived through multiple eras? The “how long will it last” era. The era when we were running out of things - toilet paper, men’s hair clippers, yeast for baking... The era of George Floyd protests and BLM conversations... A summer and fall of relaxing a little and seeing people outdoors... A brief week of election anxiety and jubilation and perhaps grief... And now we are entering a new era of increased isolation and exploding cases...)

Anyway, I have a running list of things that have changed due to the pandemic, and these are particular to work:

Water cooler conversations - During my internship I shared an office with someone who became my friend. It was because we would chat in between sessions about things both related and unrelated to work. Having conversations with my coworkers were such an important part of the flow of therapy work. Sometimes after a heavy session you need to decompress and chat about something stupid (or process that session with a friend). These days after a session I look up and realize I won’t be spontaneously running into anyone to talk to. And therapy sessions aren’t something you can chat about with anyone - both due to confidentiality reasons and because you’ll get the “look.” The very, very normal and understandable look when I bring up something very real but uncomfortable for people like suicide or rape or abuse -> O_O. And then I’m like fuck I forgot not everyone is living in my dark but joyful corner of the world. Forget what I said. The first couple weeks I felt trapped and wanted to scream, but one of my many strengths is that I am flexible and good at adapting/creating new systems. I can’t really chat with a human person, but I can write out my thoughts in between sessions (as I am doing now) so I can prepare my mind and heart for the next session. 

Markers of time - I don’t think I have ADHD, but wow it’s hard to focus at home. I keep imagining a world where I am working in a therapy office. If we have a staff meeting, I’ll notice out of the corner of my eye that my coworkers are making moves and I’ll go with them. If I have a client, someone would let me know that a physically present person is waiting for me. I would gather myself for a few minutes and then go get them. 

But when everything is virtual, I found myself missing the start time for things. Google calendar notifications are 10 minutes by default. I would be reminded and think, ok I’m going to scroll through instagram for these 10 minutes. And then I look up and it’s a minute past the hour. ACK! And then I scramble to get on. Or I log on too early and I’m staring at the screen for five minutes (which isn’t bad, my personality just likes to keep my mind active with something at all times). It took a couple weeks but I adjusted my notifications so that it reminds me 5 minutes and 1 minute before the meeting. That way I am reminded early enough to prepare myself if need be, and reminded again closer to the time if I get lost in distraction on the way. 

I’m going home - All year, the pandemic situation has been changing. All year, we have been adapting. All year we have been taking things “day by day.” All year policies have been conditional and subject to change. 

I made the decision to go home a while ago because my work is virtual. I developed a plan for travel, quarantine, and testing. But that was before the cases started spiking enormously. And now I have clients who are crying to me because they can’t go home for the holidays. What will they think if they see me at home for the month of December, when they notice a different background through the screen?

Should I not go? But I am concerned about my emotional well being through the winter and the holidays, doing therapy by myself in my studio apartment. Do I need to develop better boundaries? Or is it is inconsiderate of the people who are unable to go home to their families? 

I need to think through this, but for now, it is time for another client.

[josieswrk]

I am Old

I want socks for Christmas. And slippers. And a furry mat to put under my desk.

Because no matter what I do - turn on the heater, wear thick socks - my feet are cold. I wear my thick black sweats. I pile on sweaters up top. But my feet. What can I do about them? They are cold. They cry out. 

[josieswrk]

A Letter for Y o u

Hi. I’m thinking of you a lot this morning, and I’m not sure why. I prayed for you today. Not sure if you woke up grumpy and not wanting to go to work, but praying that today you would find moments of peace and satisfaction.

Or maybe you’re not going to work today, I don’t know. I don’t know because I don’t know who you are, but I am praying in faith that you exist, somewhere, out there. Maybe I’ve met you already, maybe I haven’t.

I connected with someone on Sunday that reminded me of you. We shared a lot of the same values and thoughts about life, and oddly it made me wonder if you’d think the same way too. We even laughed together about the mystery of who you are and where you are. I hope you get to meet her one day, she’s truly a gem. I hope you’ll forgive me when I say I kinda fell in love with her for a bit. We talked over coffee for hours in gloomy weather and went to a new grocery store together (so exciting!). I’m sure you’ll understand when you meet her, but remember - you’re not allowed to fall in love with her too!!! >:) 

I haven’t written to you like this in years, maybe since college. There was a time when I thought doing something like this was overdramatic and embarrassing. 

But today I’m missing you and believing in faith that God knows what he is doing. God knew what he was doing when he delayed my job - I cannot imagine doing therapy months ago, when I was overwhelmed with my own anxiety and depressive episodes. Last night at 9, I got an email from my client’s psychiatric nurse practitioner that our shared client emailed her about homicidal ideation. There’s never a dull moment when you’re invited into the inner lives of human beings. 

So I trust that God knows what he’s doing with you and me. I can’t wait until the day I can snuggle into your chest and tell you about my life. But until then I will try and be better about praying for you.

[josieswrk]

What heights of love, what depths of peace- when fears are stilled and strivings cease...

[josieswrk]

Day 13, 14: Seasons Change

And with that, my friends, my quarantine is officially over. 

I stepped outside briefly this morning in short sleeves and was met by chilly autumn air. My shoulders tensed, and I wished for a sweater. 

People like to ask me what I prefer about the East Coast, about Philadelphia. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint the most accurate answer sometimes. I usually cycle through one of the following: I like the down-to-earth people I meet here, I like that Philadelphia is a city that’s not as intense as New York, I feel stuck and complacent in California, and I like myself better when I’m challenged and growing. 

The shift in temperature this morning reminded me that I also love the distinct seasons of the East: Hot and humid summers; cool autumns with fiery displays of fall foliage; harsh, snowy winters; and springs exploding with flowers. I love being able to cycle through short shorts and large, comfy sweaters. 

Changing seasons invite me to change with them, too - to shift, to make room, to leave the past behind and look forward to what’s ahead. Changing seasons invite me to reflect; they act as a marker, a milestone in a life that often feels repetitive and meaningless. 

To me, the summer was full of possibility and confusion. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, or where I was supposed to be. I applied to jobs and met people and looked for part-time jobs based on shadows of possibility. Am I really supposed to be in Philly or am I called to be elsewhere? How does one really know? I kept looking for signs, and then became doubly confused whether certain signs meant to give up or try harder. 

But God is good because He always reveals things to me in the process. I’m sure everyone hears from God differently: some people hear God more clearly and are willing to obey, but for some reason I have to try things, to test things out, and talk to Him on the way in order to discern what His will is (maybe I have too much fear, or maybe I’m stubborn). I reached the final round interview for a job in Kansas and knew, after having gone through the interview process that it was not for me. And oddly, though I somehow only get interviews outside of Philadelphia (lol), the more I interview, the more I feel like now is not the time to leave Philly just yet. I can afford to stay here without a full time job through the rest of 2020 because of nannying, and I think with that cushion in mind, I feel more focused on giving my best effort to stay. I think these experiences showed me the balance of being flexible and open to possibility while having a more focused, concrete goal that I am working towards. 

I think in the summer I also learned that everyone will have an opinion about everything (often conflicting), and that I need to be thoughtful and discerning about what I share and what I receive. This is not to say that I should isolate myself and never ask anyone to share in my burdens. But I was reminded that at the end of the day, I need to check in with myself and God. Otherwise, I will run in circles with the differing sets of advice that people give me about what I should or shouldn’t do. I need to operate “from the inside out” and not in reaction to what other people around me are doing and saying. 

With that in mind, I am so looking forward to the fall. I’m not expecting anything to save me or solve all my problems - not even a full time job. I’m looking forward to interviewing and loving my friends and loving myself with integrity - with more thoughtfulness and purpose, with my whole, contained self and not just the safest sliver. 

I’m looking forward to the *basic* things too, haha. I crap on basic things so much, but who am I kidding, there’s a basic b*tch in all of us. Autumn playlists and special order lattes. Cozy evenings with my bougie Anthropologie candle, reading, watching TV, and playing video games. I’m still sad that I don’t get to see people as freely as I would like, but maybe for now, I should take advantage of all the cozy things I can do at home. For who knows how long I’ll be in this apartment, even? 

After a summer of crazy, I’m excited for the calm and quiet. 

Ok. Now back to studying. 

[josieswrk]

Day 10

Current status: still asymptomatic and all that but I’M TIRED. 

I’m the kind of tired where I space out on the toilet. I close my eyes for a second and then I forget where I am. 

It’s the kind of tired where it doesn’t matter if you’re tired because you have to do what you need to do. Whether you’re tired or not, you have to do. So you do. 

I have my coffee study shift in the morning and afternoon. Then my tea study shift in the evening. 

I squeezed in a job application right before dinner. And then I thought - once I start making money, I want to live in a place where I have a washer and dryer in my apartment. It made me think of one of the question prompts on the dating app Hinge (which I have not opened since the pandemic started lol): I’ll know I’ve made it when _____. I’ll know I’ve made it when I have a washer and dryer in my apartment lol. And maybe a dishwasher. Wow, that sounds nice. 

Laundry is one of my favorite chores. I love sitting in front of the TV and folding warm laundry. At my family home, we let the laundry dry out in the sun, on drying racks we brought from Korea. We never did it when I was growing up. But after my parents lived in Korea for a few years, it was a new habit they brought back with them. 

Time to sleep, then rinse and repeat.