Tae Yoon: Life from 2006-2021

i prayed last night.

i usually don't pray too often, because i've never really sincerely been able to do so. i've blogged about this before, but when i used to go to church in high school and would pray, it just didn't seem to naturally flow. i would think, well God knows everything, and while i'm purely doing the physical act of closing my eyes with my hands together and trying to have a conversation with Him, i would think that He knows that my thoughts are vacant and even if i tried to pretend to pray, He can see that i'm really thinking about something else so it would be disrespectful to even try. hence, that is why i usually don't pray. but last night i did, and i told Him that i am putting aside my usual prayer issues because i really just needed to talk with Him. i asked for the courage and the strength to make the right choices in my life in order to be happy. i don't feel like i'm ever happy. i have moments of happiness, but they fade away like the passing wind. sure, i know that life is not filled with just happy moments, but i have this constant, underlying sense of emptiness at all times, which doesn't ever feel like a strong enough foundation to support any emotion at all. it envelops everything instead, and the emptiness remains. i'd like to be happy, but i don't know how. and i know it's something i need to find within myself, but i just don't know how to. i don't believe in the concepts of "ideal" or "normal" or "standard" because they don't exist to me, so i'm searching for my own version of these things. but i haven't discovered them yet. i'm 27, when will i know how to define these things in my own life? when i think about my childhood, my brain tends to focus on all negatives impacts that happened, and i want that to stop. but those impressions are there, and i feel that they're what my real foundation is, and i hate that. life is all about choices, i'm well aware of that. people choose to wake up in the morning and get out of bed. people choose to a eat a over b for lunch. people choose to make that decision which will affect their life in a or b way. most times, i try to choose and see my life in a certain way and take the positive learning lessons from any negative experience, but my system feels flawed due to the lack of a healthy basis. like all humans, i have my moments of self-pity (and perhaps that could be what this is right now), but i'm always humbled by other things in life and the challenges others experience, and that puts it all into perspective and i try to move on. then that moment will pass and the next one will appear and i'll do the same. i just---i just wish i could re-wire my brain sometimes. however, i know that's impossible and so i work with what i have. but it just doesn't seem like it's working and i don't know how to make it work. i aspire to feel fulfilled, and that's what ultimately made me decide to take a huge chance and leave nyc for a while and go to korea. that turned out the way it did, and so i decided to be in bangkok now. throughout my life, it seems like i set up a goal and achieve it, and when i get there, that moment of satisfaction and achievement never materializes. it leaves me to think, "okay, now what?" i don't want to dwell and obsess anymore. i want to feel free and liberated from all this worry and anxiety that wants to define me. i know that my insecurities, mistakes and past fuck-ups don't define me, but in reality i feel like they do because i don't have anything else to define me or my life by at the moment. life is the way you see it, but i feel like my lenses are a much darker tint than i'd like them to be. i used to blame this on things that happened in my childhood, and as i got older i chose not to do so, but i just can't see any other reason why things are like this. i feel damaged. i'm void of emotion. i want to cry. i want to laugh wildly until i feel pain in my stomach. i want to feel something other than this. i want to love someone. i want someone to love me. all my issues with dating and relationships stem back to this, and i know until i conquer all this, i won't have the capability of being in a loving relationship with someone. it sure would be nice to have someone to spoon with right now, i'd give anything for that. and not just with anyone, but someone i truly care about. for certain reasons, i grew up always feeling afraid and like i was not good enough, that, who i am as a person is not the way i'm supposed to be and learning how to cope with that is still an everday battle. i have an addictive personality and subconsciously self-medicate my pain, and have been doing so my whole life, but i just can't do that anymore. food, drugs and alcohol are all things i grapple with, and i need to find something more healthy to be addicted/pre-occupied with. but fuck man, it's not easy to do that. but i'm going to get it done. i will accomplish and overcome all that somehow. i refuse. yes, i refuse to go down that dark path again---i want to move forward with my life.

my spirit will be okay, someday, somehow---it just has to be. i know it. i am nothing without hope. until that day, i will strive to do my best to achieve that.