things I hope I could tell you

My teacher stumbled upon a word and decided to teach about it in school. "Jeong" she said, "is the most difficult concept of love that I had to explain. It's directed to all living things as well as non-living creatures. It's unselfish, you cannot calculate its worth because it's not rational. You cannot expect something in return." I thought it was always the pain we were getting over— the pain that comes from an absence, from a tremendous need for seeing their face, the pain that has always been there and will always be there like stars in the night. My first letter to my Mother is still in her cupboard. Sometimes, my hands reach the cellphone and I almost type 'I miss you'. But I told her the last time that I was going to be dead to her and it has been five years since I have heard her voice. Sometimes, she comes in my dreams and sings a beautiful lullaby and sometimes, she apologizes for breaking my heart. But the truth is that I'd take her back even without her apologies because since I have left her, I have been hungry constantly. I eat a lot but nothing fills me anymore. I search the symptoms for a disease sometimes, and other times, I search for warmth. My best friend was a guy I'd tag in every video, every meme I ever liked. He would call me and laugh and we'd talk about it all. We would exchange an inside joke without even saying anything to each other, and he'd look at me and I'd know what he's thinking about. There are times when you become so close to people that you are almost transparent to them. They see you and you know that you are known. He'd listen to me even when he looked as exhausted as a zombie. I'd tell him to sleep but he would follow me and tell me that it's okay to let it out. And I would never do that, but he would still always sit in silence waiting for me to burst in tears. When he left, he told me that it's nice to be needed and he never felt that with me. I wish I told him that his face was the only reason why I never cried. It was because I could never bear to see him looking helpless. What gave me strength was his smile. I could cry on my own, but I can't smile and be okay. That's something I needed him for. I should have told him that people love you in ways that you are incapable of understanding at times, and I think that's why they say that to be understood is even a better feeling than to be loved. "You help an old lady whether you know her or not, and a restaurant owner never puts pea in your food because they know how much you dislike it. You don't even have to ask, but your landlady prepares dinner for you on Sundays and asks you about your school like a parent. Your cousin cried when they had to leave your home after you've been together all summer, and you saw a person and you immediately wanted to know them and be their friend, and a woman loves her ex-husband even when they are divorced because there's some love that stays. It may not be romantic, but they are tied together even if they hate each other because there's jeong." It's weird to think that I have spent my birthdays with people I don't see anymore, and there are people whom I knew better than anyone in their life but I don't know anything about them anymore. My sister says I swear the way my ex did and I always seem to laugh when I think about him. I swear in my mind and hear his voice. I think I loved him so much that he still exists in every nook and corner of my very heart. I think we can never completely lose anyone, because when we love we decide to carry a part of them with us always. Whether we want it or not. "And then there's miun jeong which is basically how friends miss each other even when they let go of each other. Sometimes, it's a feeling about someone or something when you've spent a long time together. I think you have a certain softness, some kind of warmth for people even when you lose them. That's jeong," he concluded. And I realized how much I remember being loved by people and loving them. I realized that I almost forgot everything else about them, but I can't forget their little things because at that moment, I loved them so much that I wanted to remember everything everything even when it was hurting, even when it ached. Maybe, I have got it all wrong. Maybe, we weren't getting over the pain after all. Maybe, what we are getting over is love....