becoming fifty-five

a surprise

perhaps tinged

with excitement and foreboding

spending 9 months surviving

on what?

kimchi and beondegi (번데기) and / or

seaweed soup (미역국) and pork stew (돼지국밥)

all of which I won’t taste again until years later when they seem

too intense and foreign instead of

familiar and nostalgic

yet possibly the ingredients of my bone and muscle

— 9 months after the arrival —

a heartbreak

a severe sever that cleaves reality

the very bacteria lining the gut, the folds of skin that matched my own,

language with characters that I would not learn until decades and decades later

abandoned — relinquished — lost

THEN

a discovery — a selection — a disorienting new home

new voices and blankets and a rocking chair

a lap that grew crowded before and even after a sister is born

the sister who would become the one with blonde hair celebrity

in the continent of our birth

whose hair would turn brown but I wouldn’t notice until

she creates a middle-aged brunette bitmoji of herself when that was popular
my own black hair silvering a bit, but I keep my hair black
in a bitmoji that I insert into texts long after it is popular

although in years, I am the eonni (older sister) — yet, in arrival to the family, I am the yeodongsaeng (younger sister) adopted after my sister was already forming in our mother

instinctually, I engender maternal instincts even in friendships and among colleagues. height? slight bone structure? an imposter syndrome skeptical of intrinsic value?

on paths, I often follow. yet in restaurants, I am both accommodating and sure of what I like. savory not sweet — echoes of the past?

a desire to be a lawyer inspired by Nancy Drew, I scoffed at becoming a teacher. until a cubicle on the way to the mailroom, middle management, a commute from NJ Transit to the PATH to 18th Street in the Chelsea District for two years began to fray

our division in the company, a conduit between data processors in the Philippines (where I learned the official language is Tagalog—not pronounced the way you first think as an American) and New York advertisers

much much later, I would work as an international teacher at a school owned by a company featured in a National Geographic documentary about the Sumatran Tigers—and not in a good way — one of the wealthiest companies stripping the rainforest to harvest paper and palm oil

in between, I would work at a non-profit providing disaster relief AND

I would become a Teach for America alumnus after inevitably entering education as a 5th grade teacher at PS 27 and later as an elementary teacher at Roosevelt and Lincoln Elementary elsewhere

all in an effort to give back

more heartbreak at both 20 and 40 — but from each experience, insight

a raw messy realization that control is not guaranteed

surprised recently to discover, that there’s a growing expectation of mentorship when in the presence of younger colleagues and new acquaintances — anticipation of a seasoned aura when tragedy appears

at fifty-five — a palindrome year —

I await the start of a new job, a BTS concert and eleven years until sixty-six (which hints at the fiendish mark of the beast and yet, if all goes to plan, possibly the first full year of retirement)

NOTE: Inspired by Becoming Seventy by Joy Harjo and the August Poetry Prompt Calendar