#063: Back to the future

On homecoming.

In between moments of bed rotting during my visit back home to Seoul, I’ve managed to laser my face, reconnect with boys I had a crush on almost a decade ago and watch, in real-time, Korea’s president get impeached and hopefully soon arrested.

I’ve been less interested, unfortunately, in making my annual vision board for the year and doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing: creating content. I’ve barely posted in almost two weeks and with each passing day I am reminded of my obsequious documentation of my life that seemingly comes most easily when I am in New York being “busy” and in a regular cadence.

Coming back home is always a little weird but in recent visits, it feels even weirder. For one, Korea, and Seoul specifically, is the coolest place in the world right now. I had lunch with a friend from high school who told me she feels protective over Seoul, how she doesn’t want to share her favorite places with anyone (she has a significant following, too) because they just “won’t get it”. I told her I feel the same way. That the Seoul I know and love so intimately can never be translated to someone who has taken a newfound interest in my country and culture by way of K-dramas or viral TikTok videos on K-beauty and personal color tests (which I don’t really believe, by the way). “Why can’t I gatekeep?” she lamented with a huge grin on her face.

I am constantly plagued by the affliction of being so far from my family, feeling the pull of a community that gets me but ultimately being addicted to the challenges and rewards of living in America’s cultural capital where one paycheck equals five in Korea. Coming home, both to a nation that continuously reminds me of how easy life could be and to my family home where I am the only one in my immediate family that chooses to live abroad, makes me feel culpable in my own loneliness living in New York. I chose this life, I have to remind myself, therefore I must suck it up.The older I get, the more I come to understand the importance of belonging and the confusing, and oftentimes sad, reality that I probably won’t ever feel like I belong in a country that constantly reminds me of my otherness in more ways than one. I’ve learned to adapt and find enough love and community in New York to make it feel like a home, insofar as I’ve been able to proclaim it the place to be at the moment. But that doesn’t make it any more okay. In a way, I think this has contributed to my shutting down in creating content every time I come home. Coming home is my restoration, my safe haven, my little secret of why I’m able to sustain myself. Like, what do you mean I have to share my hauls and skincare routine while I’m trying to rest?!

I read somewhere that the first heartbreak of your life is leaving home. In traditional relationship heartbreaks, the only way out is through. But this kind of heartbreak, the one of leaving home, doesn’t necessitate endurance. As I get older, my visits back home are more frequent, my stays get longer and I’m feeling more inclined than ever to reach out to people from my distant past, to reconnect with them after all these years because they’re the only ones who truly get it. “It” being this feeling of being an outsider in whatever home we’ve decided to make for themselves after leaving Korea. “It” being growing up in a Seoul vastly different from the one today, that suddenly has so much global interest. “It” being the homecoming year after year to remind ourselves where we came from because there is truly nothing like idiosyncrasies of growing up the way we grew up.

I’ve been thinking a lot about K*mala’s coconut tree reference. You know the one I’m talking about. “You exist in the context of all in which live and what came before you.” I owe a lot of my successes and my personal triumphs outside of work to my upbringing in this mighty little country that has somehow defied all the odds of history and civilization. And my commitment to touching base as often and as deep as I can proves that maybe I don’t want to bury the most vulnerable parts of myself I thought I had to bury in order to reinvent myself in New York.

I’m committed to growth and adaptation because I’m realizing that home, for better or for worse, transcends a physical location. That feeling of safety and belonging actually lives within you and permeates beyond all traditional notions of home. Returning back to a place won’t evoke any more of a sense of belonging than your strong will can. Home is creating a group chat with eight of my friends from Seoul who now live in New York so we can plan monthly gatherings. Home is waking up and kissing my dogs in the morning, one dog in Seoul, one in New York. Home is walking around with kimchi breath and not giving a fuck.

When I graduated high school eleven years ago, I was riddled with anxiety that my quirky creative interests had to amount to something worthwhile for all my peers back home to see and be in awe of. When I started “making it” as an influencer and as a figure in the fashion space, I felt like I had to uphold this illusion of allure and cool for all my hometown friends who chose more traditional career paths to perceive. As a graduate of “pick me girl” behavior, I’m still not immune to wanting a little adoration here and there but I’ve also done enough self-work to know that in the grand scheme of things, no one gives a fuck. At least they shouldn’t. My friends from home are unclear about what Substack is just as much as they are confused how I can afford my life in New York while seemingly being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. While this would normally upset me, send me into a spiral on how to prove myself, the aforementioned allure is just a made up thing in my head that doesn’t welcome the notions of familiarity I seek or the warmness and comfort I hope to actually foster with my community. I am built for love, not performance. I’ll get to explaining what I do when the situation arises.

The world keeps spinning, Korea keeps ascending and I keep growing. How lucky am I to get to choose my own fate as an observer, a writer, a creator, a friend. It is not lost on me that I am in a very unique position to tell stories the way that I do. I’m more committed than ever to share my life in meaningful ways to inspire and be an authority in the spaces I am so fortunate to find myself in.

(Also, I’m not totally serious on this whole gatekeeping thing. You can find a list of my Seoul recommendations on the AmiGo app and use my code LAURAJUNG to skip the waitlist)

This is likely the last issue I send out before my great big rebrand and renaming of my newsletter. Sorry to just slip this out so casually, especially because there are so many new faces here. When I was teasing all the things I had in the pipeline last year, I really meant it. There is so much happening in this space and I’m so excited and grateful I get to do it with you all.

With so much love,
Laura