My Fanfic

Chapter 4: I'll Pretend Like I Don't Know

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:08:18 -0800

I was still writing about the past five years when I saw my husband pass by our room. Why did he have that smirk on his face, and then he just keeps on walking down the hallway (as if he knows what is going on). Some times I feel that he knows that I’m frustrated, but other times I just feel that he’s as clueless as I am. But I am the one that has to deal with the broken pieces left behind.

Then I hear him call down the hall, “I’m going to make dinner just to prepare you for a great five year anniversary tomorrow! Is Jieun still in her bedroom playing dolls? I’ll get her ready for dinner. She can help me. Love you.”

Oh, my goodness, I couldn’t think. All I could think of is that I better say “I love you” back or I’ll regret it in the future when I never hear it.

I felt myself sigh as I realized all my insides were telling me to keep thinking back, but my heart just wanted to move forward. He had a way with making me feel loved in the most subtle way that was so aggravating because it also caused me to forget all the hurt I felt.

I must continue to write I told myself as I quietly called back, “love you too.”
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As Sun-hi continues to write...
****Jong-kyu’s THOUGHTS

I’ll pretend I don’t know that my wife is writing away at all her thoughts about me. I know that she has resentment, but for some reason, I am surprised that I have gotten off with little reflection on my part. Or so she would think.

I continue to pretend like I don’t know about the hurt I have caused my wife. My wife is at least trying to keep herself grounded by owning up to her own emotions.

I can’t say that about myself. I’ve become too use to “pretending.”

Emotions? What are emotions? I have been so use to putting mine aside for the past five, nearly 6 years, that I have come to not have much respect for emotions. Which in turn makes me out to be a pretty selfish guy. I couldn’t tell you the last time I really did some thing because it would make some one else happy, although it may have appeared that way such as six years ago when my wife and I were engaged.

I remember courting her for just a short time. She was beautiful, but it wasn’t coincidence that we met through my friend, Bae. I befriended Bae because I knew his wife was good friends with Sun-hi.

It all started with my father of all people. My father knew Sun-hi’s father before he passed away. He passed away while serving in the Vietnam war. My father always respected him because Sun-hi’s father had said, “I am willing to put down my life for a country that is trying to preserve its freedom. I never want to feel oppressed as those that live in North Korea, and if others aren’t willing to enlist, I will.”

My father stayed behind to help my mother with my brother and I and did not serve in the military. Sun-hi’s father did not have any children at the time and was able to come home every few months for a couple of weeks to visit his wife. Sun-hi’s mother appeared to be excited for her husband’s return, but the rumor around town was that she was out with other men while he was away. As the rumor faded with time, my father never had the guts to find out the real truth and share it with Sun-hi’s father while he was alive. And just a month after his last visit home, Sun-hi’s mother found out that she was pregnant.

And my life was so innocent and simple before this story became a part of mine. If only my own father would have found the same respect he had for Sun-hi’s father AND LEFT the life of Sun-hi’s mother ALONE! Why couldn’t he had pretended he never read that letter that Sun-hi’s mother wrote. Little did I know that my father’s own selfishness would turn into mine. Bae always questions why I wanted to marry Sun-hi after only dating for 6 months and then being engaged for 6 months. No one knows my true intentions or what I had to give up... being selfish does require some sacrifices too.

Chapter 3: False Security Blanket

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:14:16 -0800

Do you remember those days when your boy friend or some one you wished to be your boy friend lent you his sweatshirt. It went from a simple gesture of “please keep warm” to “I am going to keep you close to my heart when I sleep at night and think of you every chance I get to smell in every good thing about you.”

Although obsessive in a sense, when does that sense of security lose its loyalty?

I find more security through laying next to a pair of my daughter’s pajamas that were left by my pillow from the morning before than even lying next to my own husband let alone one of his sweat shirts.

Maybe it has some thing to do with his many business trips that started around the same time that Jieun was born. Coincidence?... I don’t think so. But when it all began, I never imagined losing that sense of security from my husband.

It was four years ago today we talked about beginning a family together, to try for a baby. It was in the evening and we had went out for a cup of coffee. I remember Jong-kyu looking at me with such loyalty as I just listened.

“Honey, tomorrow is our first anniversary, and I know it’s usually the woman who brings this up, but how about we start tomorrow in trying to have a baby.”

I found the fact that my husband was so open and point blank very romantic as I remember tears forming in my eyes and the words just coming out quite naturally, “I love you” and then a hug naturally following after. Okay, well, at first, I looked as if I was angry. Within I was trying to figure out how to react.

After talking many times about marriage and family with my dearest friend, Ae-cha (who actually missed my wedding day because she was at the hospital with her mother), I told myself not to talk about having children until Jong-kyu brought it up. I didn’t want to set myself up with false hopes. And at this time, I was in disbelief that he was bringing it up, but my blank stare didn’t last long.

Later that night I called Ae-cha. She had been married for nearly three years, and I was hesitant to call her to tell her the news.

“Hello.”

“Ae-cha, it’s me. I know it’s late, but I’m a little nervous about some thing.”

“What is it? I just talked to you a few hours ago… what happened?”

“Remember how it’s our first anniversary tomorrow and I was telling you about how nervous I was to bring up the subject of having a baby and I was going to continue to wait until he was ready.”

“Yeah, I know it’s nerve racking, but Jong-kyu could react totally opposite than Bae. I know Jong-kyu and Bae were good friends in college, but I highly doubt they sat around talking about ‘what are you going to say to your wife when your married and she asks to have a baby.’ Guys don’t seem to think that far ahead. I mean Bae can barely think a day ahead let alone years ahead.”

I was too anxious, so I just blurted out as Ae-cha was still talking, “he wants to have a baby tomorrow.”

“Uh, does he not know about the 9 months… well, actually 10 months, forty weeks to be exact, that it takes to have a baby, not to mention how long it may take to actually get pregnant? Wow, guys really don’t talk about much do they?...”

“He wants to start trying for a baby tomorrow as it is our first anniversary… I know it may take time, but isn’t that romantic that he wants to start a family and that he thought of it on our anniversary.”

“Yea, as long as Jong-kyu’s ready to be there for you and your child… a child changes every thing about a relationship. I think that’s why my husband is so scared about it. He remembers all too well how his parents divorced just two years after he was born. I guess that’s why I try not to push the issue, but than again if I don’t, will he ever be ready? I feel like I’m just wasting my life away. I know careers are good and all, but I feel like I’ve come to the point that I have accomplished all the goals I set out to accomplish, even those of my parents that they wanted to me to accomplish. My mom’s biggest wish was for me to be happy. I think after years of pressuring me to do well at school and to make sure to do well on my final exam before college, when she was sick, she realized that happiness was some thing that she could not decide for me.”

“I know, but maybe us having a baby will change the way Bae views marriage. Isn’t it scary that when we first marry some one, we think we know so much about them. We try to learn all those little things about them, but insecurities tend to present themselves in the most unforeseen ways at times.”

Looking back now to four years ago, I can only agree with myself, but it isn’t to do with Ae-cha’s husband’s insecurities, but the ones that plague me now. Where did that feeling of a security blanket being wrapped around me tightly go?

Chapter 2: Happy Moments

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:18:03 -0800

Why do we only try to capture the happy moments. For instance, when my daughter was learning to crawl, I was trying to video tape her first attempts. Once she got frustrated and began to cry while rocking back and forth, trying to focus on moving forward, I turned the camera “off.” Then I would miss the part where she stopped crying and accomplished her big goal of reaching the toy just two feet away.

Is that what most of my marriage has been life? Turning the camera off of myself when times get rough and never getting a chance to learn how to change the ending because I stopped recording.

Or was it the part where you think the camera is off and no one is noticing your rough times but in reality the camera is still playing. It’s playing over and over in the minds of the people who love you the most and you’re the one that is not clueing in to the countless times the recording has been played over and over again… with just a different circumstance trying hide the similarities.

But what about all those happy moments recorded. I remember those moments.

Five years ago today, I was hurrying to my aunt’s home where my sisters and I met along with my soon to be sister-in-law to go over last minute wedding planning.

“Don’t be so nervous. You’re the first to get married and the youngest out of us three girls. We should be the ones getting nervous,” my oldest sister, Mi-na, said.

“I’m not nervous necessarily, just excited. I think I’m more excited to get to the yellow outfit I chose for our flight to Jeju Island. Once I’m wearing that outfit, the memories of our wedding will already be played out and it will be like I can take a deep breath and get onto the rest of our life.”

For some reason that was always the part of the wedding that stood out to me… the part where the woman was now married and blissfully strolling off with her husband with the cutest outfit she could find that would some how compete with the wedding dress she wore earlier.

As I look back at our wedding day, I can honestly say, the picture that I had recorded in my mind before being married had played out as I had hoped. I remember feeling so special as my now called husband and I said our good-byes to family and headed off to our honeymoon.

I knew marriage wasn’t bliss, but I was grateful for the fond memories from that day and the days following in our first year of marriage.

Was I missing clues that first year of marriage though or was it when I got pregnant and stopped working full time that my husband looked at me differently and therefore treated me differently? Maybe that’s where the cluing in truly needed to begin

Chapter 1: Clueless “Me,” Selfish Him

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:23:27 -0800

Can you believe we’ve been married for 5 years. We are planning for our fifth anniversary celebration tomorrow. For some reason, instead of having happy flashbacks of the years behind us, I suddenly feel clued in to recognize the years behind us and realize what that then means for the years ahead.

I wouldn’t think of myself as the clueless one, but rumor has it that I’ve been stepped upon too many times by my husband… in turn making my attempts at loving and being loved in vain.

And here I thought that marriage and family took away those selfish tendencies that people have when they're single. Take for instance all those sleepless nights waiting for a call from a man you desperately need to feel compassion from and those tireless trips to the salon to spend half of your month's income on straightening your hair and buying the latest trend outfit to go along with it. It’s all about you!

But it’s changed for me once we had little Jieun. She is our pride and joy. Life revolves around taking care of her needs and those of my husband. I think that was my first mistake, being caught up in the life I need to lead for the sake of my loved ones around me as my husband became more capable of putting me off and doing a darn good job at allowing me to feel like I deserved it.

So, I’m here to share my truths as we are one day away from our five year wedding anniversary. Come journey with me as I flashback to five years ago today and step forward every so carefully through the five years that followed, to reveal the selfish ways of married life along with the clueless cycles that can occur over and over again.

If I had changed my clueless ways, would my husband still be as selfish today?

Characters

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:42:05 -0800

Lee Da Hae: Sun-hi
Mi-na: oldest sister
Sun-dae: second oldest sister
Ae-cha: closest friend

Hyun Bin: Jong-kyu
Hyun-ju: sister
Bae: college friend

Jieun: Sun-hi and Jong-kyu’s daughter