Millennial's Monologue: Secret Dramas in Our Hearts & Souls

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When Boeing 747-400 landed at the Inchon airport, I felt like a fugitive on the run.  It's 3:15AM and there is nobody waiting for me.  It's pitch black outside, I have two rolling suitcases, and I need to figure out where I'm going to spend the night.  

“Oh. . . shit.”  It's all I can say to myself, as I look at the long line of orange cabs by Terminal D.   

I didn’t tell my parents that I got suspended two days ago for plagiarizing a final term paper in my government seminar.  I didn’t tell my friends that my student visa got terminated, leaving me no choice but to leave America and return to my home country, Korea.  I literally just packed my stuff and took off without planning anything out.    

Before this incident, I was that annoying girl who seemed to have it all—good grades, fashionable wardrobe, loving parents, and a promising future.  I emphasize the word, "seemed," because despite my background and accomplishments, I'm the most pathetic, miserable girl I know.  In addition to all my secret anxiety issues and insecurity issues, I now have this scarlet letter “A” for academic dishonesty sown into my bosom.  

Long before a hurricane hit and blew off the rooftop of my safe haven, there were so many troubling signs.  I'd been complaining far too often that classes felt like high-class prison and professors seemed like ivory tower philosophers.   At night, I felt an irrepressible urge to scream at the top of my lungs, "I don't give a damn about any of this crap!!!!!!!"  No matter how hard I tried to coax myself into working harder, I simply couldn't find the motivation.  I missed more deadlines, as I kept eating double-decker cheese burgers and instant ramen.  My room was messier than a pigpen.

But everyone assumed that I was going through some "phase” or "slump"; I would soon regain my killer work ethic and the will to excel.  Nope.  A crisis was raging inside me that was a lot more confusing, personal, and deeper than ever.  It all began with a growing realization that despite all my gold medals, there was no coherent narrative about how all these pieces fit together to create a meaningful life.  When I looked inside myself, what I found was a bottomless pit of emptiness and narcissism.  I realized that I’d thus far been experiencing life from a purely self-serving point of view (Am I prettier than her? Am I smarter than him?) and I had absolutely no idea what set of values I wanted to live out in my life, what I wanted to be known for, to myself and to the world.  

Finding the desire to grow out of a self-absorbed existence sounds like a positive step forward, but when it actually happened, I felt totally overwhelmed.  I felt paralyzed because I had come to despise the exact mindset that had been propelling me to work so hard and brought me to where I am today—an egotistical fear of being branded subpar and a desire to outshine others.

Suspension.  Now that my worst fear had already been realized, I strangely feel relieved.  More than anything else, what I desperately need right now is freedom itself.  Freedom to be alone and seek clarity with myself.  Freedom to be sad and angry.  Freedom to leave behind the world as I knew it and wander around.