breathing room

after years of silence, playing catch-up with old friends can get a little strange and awkward. even more so when one has gone through some major life events... and the other has not. during one such conversation, when i was asked if i was seeing anyone, i gave my usual answer. to which the response was, "some people are meant to be single, some people are meant to be married."

i'm not sure if that was meant as kindly consolation, but i immediately took umbrage at the statement. what, exactly, did that mean? i'm meant to be single forever? perhaps people should send cards...like, (sympathetic) "so sorry you're still single." or (celebratory) "happy 30th year of being single!"

i didn't feel like talking much after that. my singleness, little apartment and dinners for one were bearing down on me suddenly; a heavy, burdensome awareness in the face of such abundant and meaningful fulfillment. i wondered if i should be less satisfied with where i was, my degree in ms, not mrs, the hardscrabble foothold i had worked so hard to gain, all in a city where anything and everything happens.

forgive me. i've been a little testy lately (ok, a lot testy. and it's been like months, completely jaded new yorker that i've somehow turned into), and especially on this subject. after a weekend in cali, getting grilled by aunts, uncles, cousins and sanctimonious korean mothers (whose daughters have been safely taken off their hands, phew!), i've pretty much exhausted all pretense of patience for inquiries as to why i haven't rushed to the altar (and at this point, yes, i realize it's more like a slow, painful crawl...my newfound obsession with my eye wrinkles attests to that).

my mother shows me pictures of the latest phd researcher (this time, in physics), and asks what i think. "he's a tool," i say, trying not to laugh. "what's a tool?" my mother wants to know. "i'm not telling." in truth, i don't really know. just that it fits him to a t, with his carefully parted hair and trying-too-hard sideburns and suit.

my parents are smaller, frailer, birdlike. they seem to have shrunk overnight in their clothing. i want to be good to them while i'm there, but they get started on the whole marriage thing on the drive from the airport and drive me crazy all weekend long. my mother especially does not give it a rest. we sit on either side of her, my brother and i. as we wait for my cousin, the bride, to walk down the aisle, she whispers, "what do you think of the wedding singer?" and to my brother, "her. the one in the black and white dress [the wedding coordinator]. she went to ucla." my brother smiles sardonically and waves her away.

i find it harder to communicate with them, which worries me. in their new world of ping pong and golf, they barely speak english anymore. and as my korean disintegrated into nothingness the minute i began learning my abcs, the gap between us seems to grow wider with each year. every once in a while, i am motivated to download podcasts or watch 20 minutes of a dvd that i can't understand. i feel lost, tongue-tied in a language that i should know, did know at some point long ago ("you can't even speak your own language?" a high school teacher said to me once). but then i see it from my dad's point of view, how he's been here for nearly 40 years and still struggles to understand when we speak too quickly. i talk about going to korea and spending a month or two there, the same way i talk about leaving new york. it'll happen... someday. i don't know though. maybe this is just my way of escaping the fact that i still haven't settled down, that some days, most days, i feel as rootless and restless as ever.