Making Gimbap at Nineteen

When was the last time I rolled kimbap?

In the stories my mother tells me over the phone, there is a child whom my present self has almost completely forgotten.

Apparently, the little boy in my mother's memories was remarkably good at taking care of himself. When I was seven or eight, I would go to the supermarket on my own to buy ingredients for the kimbap I would bring on the next day's school field trip. I would also read school notices and visit the stationery store to purchase whatever supplies I needed. Whenever we speak on the phone, my mother recalls that I was "a truly extraordinary child." I can barely remember those days myself, but I suppose I must have had a strong sense of responsibility.

I interpret these memories as an early form of leadership over my own life.

It begins with something as simple as choosing the ingredients I want in my kimbap, buying them, and placing them on the kitchen table. Of course, my mother would be the one to roll the kimbap itself. But the moment I decided what ingredients to use and what kind of kimbap I wanted to make, I was already exercising a kind of leadership.

I understood from an early age that my mother could not always devote much attention to me. So I simply learned how to take care of myself.

Yet why does that younger version of me seem so much more mature than the person I am today?

Perhaps it is because I no longer go to the supermarket with the excitement of an approaching field trip. When was the last time I truly exercised leadership over my own life? Looking back, I realize that I have made very few decisions for myself lately.

For reasons I cannot quite explain, I have spent the past several months in a state of profound lethargy. I have been going through life without much thought, concern, or deliberation. At times, it feels as though I am deliberately avoiding the very questions I ought to confront.

Why am I going to college? What kind of attitude toward life do I want to cultivate? Or, on a more practical level, how should I approach the assignments I have been given?

Even my decision to join the international program was not entirely self-directed. I did not discuss it thoroughly with my parents, nor did I give it much serious thought myself. A decision made without sufficient consideration can hardly be called an example of mature leadership.

The same is true of the schoolwork that overwhelms me now.

When I had more time and peace of mind, I approached each assignment with genuine dedication. I would spend hours searching for a more elegant sentence or examining my arguments for logical gaps. These days, however, I am preoccupied with meeting deadlines and filling the required word count.

As I work through one assignment after another, I am no longer the master of my own thoughts. I have become little more than a machine mechanically processing the tasks placed before me.

Perhaps it is simply because I have no room to breathe.

As we grow older, the responsibilities we must shoulder inevitably multiply. No longer is life a matter of deciding what kind of kimbap to eat or which school supplies to buy. I am approaching an age when the responsibility for my entire life will soon rest in my own hands.

For someone who once had only a single roll of kimbap to hold, that is a rather overwhelming weight.

But when I look back, going to the supermarket alone could hardly have been a trivial responsibility for my younger self. It was no small exercise of leadership.

What makes that child seem extraordinary is not that he made perfect decisions. It is simply that he walked toward the checkout counter with his tiny hands carrying the heavy ingredients for his kimbap.

He exercised a kind of leadership that was mature precisely because it was proportionate to the size of his world.

Perhaps, then, the reason my present responsibilities feel so unbearably heavy is that I have grown, and the weight of my life has grown with me.

In the end, the child preparing for a school field trip and the teenager struggling beneath the weight of academic expectations are the same person. I am simply rolling a different kind of kimbap now.

I am gathering the right ingredients to roll the kimbap that is my life.

I do not know what kind of kimbap it will become, or whether taking that first bite will be a pleasant experience. Perhaps the sides will split open as I roll it. Perhaps my hands will ache from the effort.

But just as I did when I was seven or eight, at nineteen I am still doing my best to roll my own kimbap.

To keep trying to lead my own life, even as I struggle to patch up the seams that have burst along the way.

That, to me, is the best kind of leadership I can offer.

The last time I rolled kimbap was not nearly as long ago as I thought.