Yolk

by Mary H.K. Choi

I know that attending college is like praying to God. It’s not that you believe in it; you do it just in case. Because other people are.

She said that there was more than one type of perfectionist. And that I qualified because the kind of perfectionist I was, was the kind that abandoned everything if I wasn’t good enough at it. And that’s why I couldn’t finish tasks.

Mom thinks anxiety is about as insufferably first world as it gets. Like lactose intolerance. She thinks it’s an idle mind searching for things to bitch about at the lack of famine or war. If you’ve got a full belly, you’ve lost your right to bellyache.

Maya Angelou quote how people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. For a few hours, I felt my mother’s love for me in a deep and profound way, and then she was gone.

Mom’s love language is to scrutinize and criticize all the physical attributes that you’re most sensitive about.

You know how it is, church-folk are all up in your business until that shit actually gets dark. Then, they just think you’re contagious.”

“Fan death” is a pervasive Korean superstition that if you fall asleep with a fan running without opening a window or door for ventilation, you’ll suffocate. It makes no sense logically or scientifically, but there’s no convincing Mom. Or me, evidently.

“Amal fucking Clooney back there?” June snorts. “Of course that’s his girlfriend. Staying together while she’s in the Peace Corps? That’s a sunk-cost move. That’s at least two years deep. Plus, you don’t go to Trader Joe’s unless you’re in it. It’s grocery IKEA. Everybody knows that. You have to be prepared to fight. That’s long relationship territory. Like, we’re talking picking people up from the airport. That’s not even healthy. That’s codependent. You shouldn’t ever go to Trader Joe’s with anyone you plan on having regular sex with. That’s what the Whole Foods hot bar is for.”

New York is just a place. It’s the people who will become a home for you.”