Hi, I’m Koseli. This is a weekly note about my life in Seoul, motherhood, creativity, books, and products I love. It should feel more like an email from a friend than a newsletter.
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Good morning friends,
What do you want to be when you grow up? is not a question I thought I’d be writing in my journal this morning. I’m 35. This is a question you ask little kids you don’t know very well but need to talk to. I kind of hate this question. It’s implying that you’re half a person until you “become <insert profession or parenthood> which is, of course, garbage. I also think kids born from 2010+ are going to have wildly different professional and personal ambitions than we had. Will people drive in 2040? Will we cure diabetes and find the cure for some cancers? Will institutional universities exist? Will Instagram and Tiktok still be on our phones? Will we still have personal phones? Do kids even know what the possibilities will be 10 years from now?!
So anyway, I wrote What do you want to be when you grow up in my journal this morning and then wrote pages and pages finally writing down some thoughts on my personal religious beliefs, my professional path, my sexuality, my health, the state of my little family, and some tedium because I do love some tedious list-making in my journal. Gotta check all the boxes!
Is this where I mention that when I was 13 I went back through all my journals (maybe 4-5) and edited them. EDITED THEM. I crossed out embarrassing stories. I took a Sharpie to angry things I said about my parents and siblings. I literally striked out anything that wasn’t nice or ‘I’m okay’ aka my real feelings. I re-read these journals in high school when I was organizing boxes I found in a dusty storage room in the basement. Luckily, 16-year-old me knew better and saw my impulsive diary copyediting as freakish perfectionism and I remember parading around the house telling everyone how weird I was at 13. Ha.
Cut 20 years later and I still hesitate to write how I really feel in my journal. It takes everything I have to not just, maybe, but, soon, try my way out of core feelings like disgust, anger, and sadness. I’d say it’s about 80/20. 80% truth 20% hedging because it still feels weird to me to get it all out. (Also, I don’t write a ton with pen and paper and my hand honestly gets tired. If I actually wrote everything I felt and thought, my hand might die.)
Maybe there’s more truth to that 20% than I realize. I desperately crave openness and growth in every aspect of my life—I want my journal to bend and breathe with me. I don’t want hard, fast lines drawn that won’t hold up after the sun goes down.
Nobody reads my journal. I don’t know if that will change. I may start hiding it for real once curious kids start searching my drawers, just like I did in my mom’s drawers. And I don’t know what I want to happen to my journals once I die. I don’t care if Keenan reads them. But my kids? Maybe only some of it? I don’t know. I want to say I’d be fine with them reading them all but I’d like to withhold some personal details, some of my dignity. Do they really need to know everything—not that my journals say everything about me. Honestly, they perceive, have perceived, so much more than my journals could say. Maybe? I can never lie to them. If they ask why I’m crying or grumpy or "being too mean” and white lie they totally stare at me until I confess “yeah, I’m grumpy because I’m too tired and need to sleep and I looked at my phone too much today” or “yeah, I’m sad because dad and I got mad at each other and we’re taking space but we’ll talk soon and work it out” or “I didn’t go for my walk this morning and I need to go outside and get fresh air”.
I listened to this interview with the author of Raising Boys this morning and it was maybe one of the most heartfelt, sweetest interviews I’ve heard with a man. Ever. I’ve felt that talking with some men in my life; I know many many sweet, kind, gentle men, but I’ve never heard that tone come through on a public interview. Steve talked all about being human and teaching men as a psychotherapist, to be human, even men that have done terrible things, because they never learned. He told personal stories like losing his second child as a miscarriage at 11 weeks and “going weird” for months afterward. I’ve never heard a man talk about his experience with miscarriage. Only the woman. As someone who also went weird after a miscarriage at 11 weeks 11 years ago this time of year, I felt so seen and so moved to hear this 65 year old man express his feelings about his wife’s miscarriage—their shared loss, though hers also physical—maybe 40 years later. He was human. He wasn’t hiding. And he was willing to share to thousands of people that he was still sad he lost his (he believed) daughter.
Journaling, sometimes jotting thoughts down in the Notes app, or writing an email to myself can be enough for me to synthesize the emotions, experiences, gut feelings. physical sensations, and thoughts swirling all the time. I’m so glad my mom encouraged me to journal from a very young age. (Maybe at 3 years old?) I’m so glad I kept writing lie-ing because even that was good practice for later so I could grow to my 80/20 truth/lie rule. And even in my dozen childhood journals, my real handwriting, beginning cursive, first crushes, vegetable people doodles, sunday school truth, and friend drama unveiled and unraveled who I was and what I thought about the world. Even though I struggled to assert my self outside in the world, I was practicing in my inner world in my journal.
Read + Listen + Watch
Your book recommendations (and here in Stories) blew me away! I’m compiling them all and will share soon so we can feast. This week’s podcast Ep. 56 Mix it up about feeling stale podcasting and going back in the archives to remember why I do it in the first place. Last week’s newsletter Let’s Go Fly a Kite about playing in the rain with my kids.
Just finished The Stranger in the Woods: the extraordinary history of the last true hermit and ready to disappear for one month in the mountains. The book reminded me to delete Instagram, go outside, play a board game, and bake porridge cake (which is quickly becoming a family classic. highly recommend.) Also started 3 other books and stopped reading* all 3 of them.
This episode of On Boys podcast mentioned above. And add The Fully Human Parents to your Libby!
Looking for a light Korean drama? Hometown Cha Cha Cha is really fun. You may need a VPN to watch—it didn’t seem to show up when I was logged in in the US.
My mouth hurting after laughing so hard. Watch this hilarious Tiktok. (Thank you Whitney!)
Just say no to Squid Game. Just kidding. Watch it if you want but even the music and memes scare me. #smallchild
*really big deal because this makes me feel bad. but I’m growing up and not going to spend time on books I don’t like just because I feel guilty. Woot woot! baby steps
Make + Eat
Bake porridge cake using leftover cooked oatmeal
Put your grapefruit in the toaster oven. Sounds weird but it is delicious.
Eat your green leafy veges. I rarely do but when it happens I’m like, Ahhhh. That’s what was missing. Gotcha.
Have a wonderful week you all. Thanks so much for being here. Hugs.
Koseli
P.S. We have something really fun and unique happening in the next couple of weeks. I’m excited to share about in a month!
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