cher journal: "You can't have your cake and eat it too"

It’s a fine Friday afternoon, and I’m currently at a café (as always), this time being a responsible student and adult.

What? An adult? It’s such a foreign concept to me. Daunting too. Yet exciting.

I come from a family of three daughters, the last one being me. I am not only the youngest (also known as “maknae), but also the late-born. My two sisters and I are respectively twelve and ten years apart, and thus I am the “baby” of the Kang family. If I were to be asked whether I enjoy being the maknae & baby of the family, I can answer in a heartbeat, “Yes!”

Actually let’s take out the exclamation point. More like, “Yes.”

I’m only taking out the exclamation point because I’ve been discovering the “cons” of being the youngest the past couple of years. In a family of bunch of adults, the parents obviously, one sister who is now a mother, and the other sister who’s a lawyer and well established in the working world, I, the 2nd year college student who has just entered her twenties, don’t really have much of a place in terms of authority/making decisions. Not too long ago, I was just a cute (debatable) maknae who made the family laugh. I had no desire to be heard back then. Now it’s a little different. I’m at that awkward stage where I’m not the cute baby (debatable too, hehe. Just kidding, but really, it’s Asher), but I am also not an adult like the rest of the family. So where do I stand? There were many moments during our family trip (which was wonderful~), when I felt this tingling of desire to be heard and taken seriously as an adult, but was overlooked by the family. Who can blame them? I’m not a baby nor an adult.

One time mom and I were speaking of my post-grad plans, and..

ME: Yeah, depending on where I continue school, I’m going to stay in LA or move back to SF I guess. Finally, I will get to live alone.

MOM: What? 너가? 혼자산다고? No Jane~

ME: Um.. Why not?

MOM: 너가 어떻게 혼자..

ME: I’ve lived alone in Berkeley, I’m living in an apartment right now.. What’s the difference? Eunice Unni lived alone from her 3rd year in college?

MOM: 아.. 그냥.. 너가.. 어린데.. 혼자 산대니까 이상해서

Sigh.

As much as I want to be taken seriously as an adult like the rest of the family, I know deep inside, I’m not ready to let go of being the baby of the family. With being the maknae & baby of the family comes a lot benefits and honestly, blessings. I have room to make mistakes, many to seek advice from and depend on, and a lot of love and attention.

It's paradoxical of me to desire to be treated like an adult but still be babied. But it seems like there are many opposing and paradoxical desires within me, within human beings in general. This is not the first time I've experienced this. As much as I wanted to fight for poverty and Gospel in Uganda, there was also a coinciding desire to go back to the worldly comforts and comfortable church/ministry routine. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus says one cannot serve two masters. Yet, we want to serve two or even more than two masters. Is it greed within us? Or is it what the society fostered?

In the end, I can’t ask my family to take me seriously as an independent adult but be so dependent. I’m experiencing a second phase of growing pains (this time not physical) to become a self-sufficient adult. It hurts. It's daunting. But it's exciting too.