some advice

Currently listening to: Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus

‘Cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Yeah, I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Listen to Iron Maiden, baby, with me, ooh

Prompt snagged from: TCMC

In no particular order:

• I wish I hadn’t made fun of my parents’ accents when they spoke English. At the time, I didn’t realize I was internalizing shame that didn’t belong to me. I was embarrassed, not of them, but of how different we were from what I saw on TV or in school lunchrooms. Our house smelled like garlic and sesame oil, and we ate kimchi (김치) and bibimbap (비빔밥) instead of casseroles and tater tot hotdish. I wanted so badly to blend in that I made jokes at their expense—like a bag of dicks with no cultural compass, just trying to pass as “normal.”
• I wish my parents had let me have friends over. I used to lie and say I didn’t want to hang out after school, but the truth was—I just knew the answer would be no. Maybe if I was allowed to be a kid and play, I wouldn’t have grown up feeling so strange, so nerdy, so introverted. Maybe I would have learned how to connect sooner, how to let people in without apologizing for the smell of fish sauce or pungent garlic.
• I wish I had believed in myself more. Not in the performative, overachiever way—but in the quiet, internal kind of belief. The type that whispers, “I’m good enough,” even when I mess up. I spent too many years waiting for someone else to validate me before I allowed myself to try, to speak, to take up space.
• And lastly, I wish I’d spent more time with my dad. He was quieter than my mom, less expressive—but his love was steady, silent, and deeply felt. I didn’t fully see it then, too caught up in my own storm of teen angst and trying to figure out who I was. But now I miss the little things: how he’d quietly fill my gas tank without saying a word, going fishing at various lakes with different baits, teaching me how to drive automatic and manual transmission (stick shift) cars, wash my car while pretending it was no big deal, or slide me a folded bill behind my mom’s back like we were co-conspirators. Our family wasn’t the type to say “I love you.” Emotions weren’t something we talked about, instead we showed it through acts of service, through food, or through unspoken gestures.