Life went chaos when I was in 8th grade and had returned from a long 4 year life in China, and the irony I suffered from how I wanted someone to realize this confusion and the struggle to tell no one about this confusion was pretty real. 

The struggle to get good grades in school was obvious(well, it’s South Korea), as grades determined social status, and the only way to gain social status was to show signs of potential- potential that I would go to a better high school. Getting over with teachers weren’t a challenging thing, as showing potentials were easier than raising up my grades- but the students knew. The students knew that potentials mean nothing, only the results are the true potential. The results were basically grades and the amount of friends. And my decision to stay quiet, just to see whatever was Korean middle school supposed to be was a mistake. For the rest of the year, I saw and felt that distinct bullying and the school ‘cast system’ was almost the same- except the latter was not illegal. It was both people using others to make them do things that would only benefit themselves.

The only hope was to get to a better high school and start a better life- which I noticed after weeks later the interview that they didn’t want me either. And some people call this decision of mine pathetic, some people may respond to this with sympathy, but overall, my final decision was that whatever people call ‘bad decisions’ can actually become a choice when living itself becomes a bad decision. I started to look for buildings that leave their rooftops open- which I found one, and was just waiting for the right timing to jump from it.

The reason why I didn’t carry out this big plan was because of my mother, whom I saw for the first time crying when I declared out loud that my life wouldn’t continue so long. Although I still don’t know the exact things she said to my mother, I know that my mother was forced to be a Catholic by my grandmother years before I was born.

“If you don’t believe in God, your child will-” And my mother never told me further, as it left her suffering in nightmares for days and she thought it was too much for me to hear.

“I don’t care about your grades- all I want is you to stay happy.” My mother once said when I told her I’d rather be dead, and I noticed how important I could be to somebody, if only I stayed. For once, my life found some kind of purpose to itself- and it was a life for just one person.

So I declared to myself that I ever get a religion- it’ll never be thanks to my grandmother. And so I kept my word- as I turned my back away from my grandmother forever, until the cancer she had worsened and she passed away.

I watched the body lying with her mouth either smiling or looking as if it's smiling because of the hardened muscles in front of my eyes as my mother wept next to me, as she told me later on that my grandmother died a painful death.

“A single tear dropped, as she passed away.” Was my mother’s words for she had been in the scene of grandmother’s death. “And when I saw her body, I couldn’t help but let go of all the things she had done to me for the past years.”

Although I turned back to living for myself after finding out my goals in life, I am still left confused for whether I should forgive grandmother for whatever she did to my mother, and if I ever had the power to forgive or curse her in the first place.