Junior year, I joined the board of the Korean Student Association. I was very involved with extracurriculars in high school, and I didn’t realize how much I placed my value in being a leader until I was able to be back in that position. I fully invested myself into KSA and the rest of the board that first semester. It was nice feeling like I had a purpose and role again, but the nature of KSA board and some internal conflicts made it so that it couldn’t be a community. I kept myself too busy to think deeply about my loneliness.

 

In January, I attended a conference for Korean American civic empowerment with the president of KSA. While the conference itself was Social Justice 101, my time there was transformative because of the people I met. I had never met anyone who openly identified as a leftist before, but I somehow ended up spending my weekend with a whole group of them.

 

“Wait, I’m sort of confused about what’s bad about capitalism,” said the KSA president on our uber ride back to the airport. I glanced at the uber driver who was talking on the phone through one earbud.

“Hmm,” I started. I was still also processing all the new ideologies I had heard that weekend. “I think it’s because capitalism can’t exist without hierarchy, and the way our society builds that hierarchy is based on racism, sexism, etcetera. I haven’t really thought about it before,” I replied. It sounded reasonable when I said it out of my own mouth, though.

 

Shortly after that conference, a friend who was distantly connected with LGM invited me to a Facebook group called SAD & ASIAN, an Asian diasporic intersectional feminist group that I lurked a lot in to learn about different identities and understand my privileges. I led a small group in another Asian American conference a few months later, where I attended a workshop about student activism from a leftist lens. I also took a communications class that semester called Whiteness in the Media that gave me a solid foundation of knowledge about systems of oppression. Quite rapidly, I had become very much engaged with social justice more radically than I had known before. Additionally prompted by several rejections for marketing internships, I decided to change my career course to be social justice/advocacy related and received several internship offers. Wanting to address my inner problems, I started attending therapy. I felt challenged, engaged, and validated.

 

At the same time, a happenstance table of eight sophomore to senior girls at an LGM event created a group chat on Facebook. Jamie and Amy are both a part of this group. We named it “Potato Chips” because of a random joke someone made that I can’t actually remember now, but to this day the eight of us consider ourselves part of the Potato Chips.

 

Potato Chips met up almost every day that semester. Many of us hadn’t had such a close-knit group before, so although we knew we came off as exclusive, we were just excited to be there. But I had a very busy schedule and early work hours that prohibited me from joining in on the weekly sleepovers, where they’d share about their pasts, talk about boys, and make memories. Two girls in particular seemed to be at the center of the group, but they were two of the girls I wasn’t as close to as the others were.

 

“I just feel like they only invite me to things through you,” I whined to Jamie often.

“I mean, that’s just because I’m always texting Sam and they probably just assume I’ll ask you since you’re always invited,” she’d respond.

“I don’t know. I feel so weird around them because they’re so, like, girly and I feel like I don’t have much to contribute,” I’d continue.

“I understand. Maybe you could get closer with Eunice--I feel like she’s the least girly of the group.”

 

Later, Jamie would tell me how unappreciated she felt when I talked to her about my feeling left out of Potato Chips. Why couldn’t I be content with her friendship, she’d ask. It didn’t help, though, that through these past two years of different struggles, I had neglected Kanghoon and he no longer trusted me to be a good friend to him. Meanwhile, he and Jamie became very close, so I also cried to her about my regrets of not treating Kanghoon with the care he needed from a friend, not recognizing that I doing the same thing again to her. Instead, I felt hurt when they made plans without me, betrayed when I found out they had a group chat with our other roommate Jess without me. I felt extremely guilty and regretful of taking Jamie for granted, but was also hurt that instead of working it out with me she just found different people to rely on.

 

To make matters worse, long distance was becoming an increasingly heavy burden to my relationship with Josh and with others, and we spent a lot of that semester fighting. Though I felt a lot better about my schoolwork and career pursuits that semester, my relationships were a mess and I couldn’t find peace no matter how many sessions of therapy I went to.

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