nine is old enough to ask you what you want to be when you grow up. on a late september afternoon, your mothers asks you just that: what do you want to be when you grow up? you know immediately what you donât want to be: like your parents. nine is old enough to watch your parents seemingly waste their life away, staring at glowing computer screens until dawn and then bitch about it the next evening at the dinner table. you play coy, try to counter one question with another and hope your mother will forget all about this quasi-interrogation.
but she stares at you expectantly and you shrivel under her gaze. at nine, you already know that there is a right and wrong answer to everything they ask. but at nine, youâre not exactly capable of effective decision-making.
so, you say: âi want to be like yoona.â yoona as in im yoona of girlsâ generation. a group of air-headed girls with nothing to contribute to society, according to your father. your motherâs lip curls in thinly veiled disgust, and you already know that was the wrong answer. she nods and swivels back in her big office chair, already clinking away at her keyboard. you hope that will be the last of that. instead, later that night, they both ambush you before you make it to your bedroom. they pull you into their office, a sign of a lengthly talk ahead, and explain in their smallest words why that would be a total waste of your future. donât you want to be like mommy, or daddy? donât you want to be respected?
as a result of the absolute shit career counseling session, they stack up your schedule so you donât even have time to think, much less obsess over a group of auto-tuned air-heads. itâs english lessons every morning before school, advanced classes in subjects you used to breeze through, and three-hour skating lessons everyday after school. you lose your mind when youâre almost eleven, running away from home only to be found sobbing at a bus stop ten minutes from your house an hour later. your mother pulls you into her lap and lets you cry, youâll understand when youâre older, she says in between pats, youâll see it was for the best.
when you turn eleven, yuna kim wins gold at the world championships. you easily skate circles around the other kids at your skating lessons, your coach had spent years trying to convince your parents to start signing you up international competitions after you had earned gold in everything south korea had to offer. but your parents had never really seen a future in ice skating, not the way they saw one in academia or maybe even law. yuna kimâs gold is what finishes convincing them.
you wear flashier outfits, learn harder routines, and keep winning. your parents are starry-eyed with your continuing success, though there was really no room for anything but such. you want to hate it, you want to hate it so badly. but you canât. you donât love ice skating but you love the thundering applause after a flawless routine; the cable news interviews; the early mornings spent in international terminals. youâre fourteen and hooked on the possibility of fame.
you learn to like ice skating. you may not love it, but at sixteen it becomes your full time career. kim yuna retires that year and suddenly, even more eyes are on you. the second yuna kim, they call you. you hate the name but love the attention that comes with it. but isnât it a bit much, at sixteen? you donât seem to think so. they want you to guest on this variety show and model exclusively for that brand. all of south korea loves you, junghwa. the next yuna kim, how could they not.
you get an inkling that this may be a nightmare at seventeen, âthisâ being living eternally in yuna kimâs shadow. what once came so easily, now brands you second. itâs always second after yuna kim. sheâs been retired for a year already and itâs like sheâs still there competing against you. you train harder and for longer. your coach grows visibly worried but your parents donât see anything wrong with it. how do they expect you to get better, right, they say over dinner one evening. you look at your exactly one-hundred gram chicken breast and exactly one cup of steamed broccoli (239 and 31 calories, respectively), and agree. how do they expect you to get better if you donât train enough?
you go crazy at twenty-one years old.
the 2018 olympic gold is yours. everyone is happy, everyone is overjoyed. all of south korea celebrates. itâs a whirlwind after that, the variety show guest appearances, the sponsorship deals in the millions, the bona-fide celebrity status. everyone is talking about you; what you wear, what you eat, where you go, and who you see. itâs fun, itâs thrilling. but celebrities hardly talk about not being able to eat a meal in peace when in public, that their phones are constantly blowing up with messages from numbers they donât know, that getting followed to the gates of her neighborhood is a thing and suddenly her address is being plastered all over the internet.
luckily, your meltdown happens in the semi-privacy of your own bedroom.
your social media feed is tailored to your interests, so, naturally, it revolves around you. tweets asking why you havenât posted, online tabloid articles speculation about your sudden online disappearance. you literally post everyday, they claim, so, where are you?
the ghosting act comes to a swift end when your manager (not your coach, your manager: for all things related to being a celebrity) asks you to post something, anything. if only to just quell the online anxiety of your two-week long, unannounced hiatus. now you start to realize how terrifying this all is.
finally, at twenty-two, youâre bitter.
scratch that, you canât feel bitter if youâre emotionally void. god, you always were a bit dramatic. youâre officially over the fame. it was fun while it was new, and now that itâs not, itâs exhausting. but, actually, thatâs not the complete truth, is it? youâre tired, but you never tire of it. the attention, the globe-trotting, the million-dollar sponsored outfits you wear to fashion shows that donât quite peak your interest.
make up your mind, will you?
sugurugetos
stormborns
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
