I Said I Hadn’t Changed in Five Years
Why did I say it so easily?
My Korean lessons rarely go as planned. Sometimes. Okay, often. We start with one vocabulary word and end up trading life stories.
A while ago, a student asked me:
“How is the Seojeong from five years ago different from the Seojeong now?”
I didn’t even think about it.
“She’s the same. Exactly the same.”
My student gave me a look.
“How can you be the same as five years ago?”
Fair point. My work is different now. I eat at different hours. I see different people every day.
The answer kept bothering me long after class was over. Because the me from five years ago would never have said “the same.”
My twenties began with failure.
At twenty, I spent a year at a cram school for students retaking the college entrance exam. Its name roughly translates to “Med School Admissions Hall.” I was there from morning until night. I bet an entire year on one exam.
In Korea, the college entrance exam, the suneung, happens in a single day. Korean, math, and English in the morning. Lunch. Then two science subjects. Scores are ranked in nine grades, and to get into medical school I needed the top grade in every subject. Realistically, if I missed more than ten questions across the whole exam, it was over.
Then, in the middle of the math section, my mind went blank. I couldn’t do simple multiplication.
I turned in a paper that made no sense.
A grade 4 out of 9, probably. I didn’t need to check my answers to know.
All through the English section, I thought about packing my bag and walking out. I stayed in my seat anyway. After lunch, during science, something strange happened. I was completely focused. I got a perfect score. Science was hard that year, and the exam is graded on a curve. So I could still get into a university, at least.
I sobbed as I walked out of the school gate that day. I was surrounded by strangers, and they all passed me quietly. I still remember the air around me.
When my mom asked if I wanted to try one more year, I said I absolutely couldn’t. I cried like a baby, saying I’d never be able to work that hard again.
The friends I’d studied with carefully avoided mentioning the exam around me. And I had to keep finding reasons to say I was fine.
That autumn, the year I turned twenty, was so cold. The winter was colder.
The university I got into that way is where I joined the cheer squad. Twenty-one. The me from five years ago.
I joined because the people dancing on stage looked cool. Drinking was new and exciting. Making friends was so much fun. I liked being around people far more than being alone.
I loved my friends more than I loved myself. Back then, I thought that was a good thing. Looking back, I think I didn’t know how to love myself, so I gave all of that love to them.
I was also strangely afraid of getting older. Whenever I wanted to start something new, I did the math first.
If I start now, when will I be good at it?
If I do this for a few years, how old will I be?
If it doesn’t work out, what about all that time?
I was twenty-one. I had so much time, and I lived like someone who had none. I felt I’d already lost a year. So I did the math before starting anything, afraid of losing another.
Over the next five years, I tried a lot of things.
I studied for the patent attorney exam. I think I still had unfinished business with exams. I wanted to win at one, just once.
Then I started working in broadcasting. It felt like now or never.
I ran a blog and wandered all over Seoul for it, because I loved writing.
Oh, and being a fitting model had been my dream since I was a kid. Unfortunately, I never grew quite tall enough. I applied more than fifty times, from small part-time gigs to big online shops. I’m not exaggerating. I kept applying until someone said yes. I finally got hired, and before I knew it, I’d been working at that shop for over two years.
I wanted to try acting too, so I sent more than a hundred emails. That’s how I ended up in a promotional video for a city, playing the main character’s friend. Not the lead. But this time, I was acting in front of a camera.
Fifty applications. A hundred emails.
From the same person who cried at twenty that she could never do it again.
When I think about how that happened, it goes back to what I learned that autumn. Failing isn’t the end. The hand that turned in my math paper after I blanked, still clutching the pencil, was the same hand that got a perfect score in science.
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And at the school I walked into crying, I met more people who matter to me than I can count.
Of course, some things haven’t worked out yet. Auditions, for one. When the list of who passed goes up, I read the page without my name on it again and again. I’m out of breath until I reach the bottom.
Maybe, right now, as I write this, I’m one try away.
Through five years of trying and being rejected, failing and giving up, the hardest thing was learning to truly love myself.
At first, it was about how I looked. If only I were a little thinner, a little prettier. I regretted everything I ate the moment I ate it.
But something else was harder. Telling myself “You’re okay” on the days I failed.
When someone else fails, I comfort them without thinking. It’s not your fault. You just got unlucky. But I couldn’t say the same thing to myself. Every time I failed, the first person to blame me was me.
So I worked really hard at liking myself. Whenever I came across a way to love yourself, I wrote it down. I studied it the way I used to study for exams.
The one that worked best was standing in front of the mirror before bed and giving myself compliments. Five, no matter what.
One night, I complimented my toenails for growing so well.
I was very sleepy.
It took five years. It still doesn’t work every day. But now, on the days I fail, I can tell myself it’s okay.
And then something strange happened. I started to see other people more clearly.
The way someone lets a word slip. The circumstances only they are living in. The small ways they’re different from me.
At twenty-one, I loved my friends so much, and I still didn’t notice these things. All my energy went into hating myself. I loved being around my friends, but I had no room left to look closely at what each of them was going through.
Once I could look at myself a little more kindly, I could finally see other people. That’s what loving someone else turned out to mean for me.
I’ve even become a little calmer about the age I used to fear so much. Not completely.
But there’s one thing I haven’t gotten any better at in five years.
Saying goodbye.
After my dog died, I promised myself I’d never have another dog.
After a breakup, I promised myself I’d never date again.
The more good times there were, the harder the ending was.
Now that I’ve written it down, the words sound familiar. At twenty, crying in front of my mom when she asked if I’d try one more year, I said the same thing. Never again.
What scares me is giving everything and losing it. To an exam, to a dog, to a person.
At work, I’ve gotten a little past that. Fifty rejections, and I still sent the fifty-first application. But when it comes to love, I’m still twenty, standing outside that school gate.
Even when someone good comes along, these are my first thoughts:
What if we get close and then break up?
What if more good memories just mean it’ll hurt more later?
People say a relationship ends one of two ways. A breakup or a wedding. I’m not confident about either. Marriage feels too big, and I hate breakups. And I can’t marry everyone I date.
So love is still a problem I haven’t solved.
Back to the question.
In five years, I’ve become less afraid of starting things. I’ve learned to tell myself it’s okay when I fail, and because of that, I see other people better. I’m still bad at goodbyes.
Some things haven’t changed. I still love people. I still want to do too many things. I still think too much. So saying “the same” wasn’t a lie.
But the me from five years ago would have answered that question excitedly and told my student everything. Even the parts no one asked about. Back then, showing people who I was wasn’t hard.
This time, I ended it with one word. “Same.”
In five years, starting things got easier. Showing myself got a little harder.
I don’t think that’s all bad. I just don’t want to hand myself out so easily anymore. I know now what it’s like to show everything and get hurt.
So “the same” was the answer that best showed how much I’ve changed.
The funny thing is, I told my student “the same,” and then I came here, where strangers read, and wrote all of this.
Somehow, it feels okay to do that here.
