Gajok • 가‪족‬ Jieun and Greg

I'm still feeling the residual grief of Father's Day. I think I'm also feeling the anticipatory grief of the nine-month anniversary of 아빠's death, and his 64th birthday. The grief never goes away, but I feel like it has scabbed over, over the last nine months. And as these special days come up, the scab gets ripped off, and I start bleeding again. I'm not bleeding like I did last September, but I'm still bleeding, and I'm still in pain.

In this episode, I read the second half of my Substack newsletter, "Stories of Appa: Part 1."

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Writing has always been my friend. Since I was a little girl, writing has been my way of making sense of the clutter of thoughts and feelings in my head. It's been my way of making sense of myself, my life, and the world. Writing is a lot like cleaning your apartment — your brain can get cluttered, and writing helps to get all of the thoughts and feelings out so you can see them, clean them up, organize them, rearrange them, and throw certain things away.

In this episode, I read the first part of the Father's Day newsletter I sent out on Substack on Sunday, which was Father's Day.

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Complex-PTSD and grief are hard things to carry at the same time. When I'm feeling high levels of anxiety and fear, or when I'm feeling triggered, getting out of my mind and into my body is the best thing I can do for myself. Doing small, routine things that I don't have to think too much about helps me slowly make my way out of my overwhelming feelings. Lying in the grass, looking up at the sky, and watching the world go by is incredibly healing.

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Grief lingers. It's sticky. Extra grief-heavy weeks can leave me feeling drained. I know that, even after Father's Day is over, the grief of it will stay with me for the following day, and probably a few days after that. How much sleep I get also heavily dictates where my mental and emotional state is, even if I'm not grieving, but in grief, sleep has a much greater effect on my mental state.

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We recorded our sixth song of the year! And we freaking recorded so early! Today is 16 days before the end of the month! This was the best recording session that we've had so far. I love recording on a Friday. I love recording during the second week of the month. I'm really proud of us for successfully doing this recording, despite the week being difficult for us. And I'm proud of us for recording six songs this year — arguably the most difficult year of my life.

Sidenote: Greg is in this episode eating the weirdest freaking dinner.

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I'm a part of this really cool project, created by St. Clair Detrick-Jules, where immigrants from all over the world share an object that they came to the U.S. with when they immigrated. For my object, I chose my mom's wedding rings. In Korea, at least in my parents' generation and before that, it was customary to give your wife two wedding rings that she would wear together on the same finger. I did some research that I will share on tomorrow's episode! But these rings are precious to me because they became my wedding rings. And 아빠's wedding ring became Greg's. 아빠's cancer, Greg's and my wedding, the pandemic, these rings, and a jewelry store 아저씨 in 한아름, all come together to make a very unique and memorable story about these rings.

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