em and i were born two days under two years apart. perhaps that’s why strangers think we look alike, and family thinks we behave alike.
we got along famously from the first time we met: two chatterbox little girls with equal overdoses of attitude and voice power. time seemed to calm the attitude, but not the voice. my aunt, em's mother, still would come into the room around bedtime, and tell us to keep our shrill, unintelligible barking down, lest the neighbors think our house harbored some torture chamber.
time, though despite much time apart, seemed to transform our personalities in similar ways:
1. upon initial meetings, she would always be cold, and i aloof, the reasoning being: we'll let you know if we like you.
2. neither of us outgrew the childhood habit of squeezing the living daylights out of everything cute.
3. an obsession with searching, documenting, and tantalizing others with, tasty food.
4. a penchant for hoarding all stationery and paper products, from napkins to gift bags to imported handmade paper. our ultimate candy store was the paper stalls in seoul's namdaemun market.
my uncle, em's dad, would often think it odd that we would come home late together as our schedules were equally sporadic. as if we telepathically communicated when and where to get off the subway to meet up and come home. but em's mom's answer would always be a simple multiple choice:
a) we met somewhere for food
b) we met somewhere for karaoke
c) we met somewhere to buy stationery
she would usually be on-the-nose, but em's dad wouldn't be completely wrong either.
while everyone else around us is rushing to get married off and having children, all the while griping about how they hate the jobs they need to pay for everything, we're still strolling through, sipping pudding milk teas. we are willing grown-ups, just not willing to run head first into growing up - because is it really that odd to want to hold onto wonder, marvel, and simplicity for just a little while longer?
