Some flights take you home. Others take you back.
This is a story about a Korean girl who had almost nothing—not even a loving family—but survived anyway.
It begins in a steel-mill town in Pohang, Korea, in the 1980s, where life was harsh, money was thin, and the town itself carried its own quiet cruelties. All she ever wanted was simple: to attend college, build a career unlike her mother's, marry a kind man, and create the family she never had.
This serialized memoir follows one woman's journey from childhood domestic violence in 1980s Korea to building a new life in America. Through alternating episodes—childhood memories from a steel-mill town with its own caste system, and present-day reflections with her husband and daughters—it chronicles surviving an abusive household, escaping through marriage and divorce, and ultimately breaking generational cycles.
I write this from lived experience—pieces of a life that once felt too heavy to tell aloud. Here, I can finally breathe. If you're here, welcome.
🎞️Featured Episodes
Episode 1 : Return Flight
Returning to Korea After Twenty Years
Yuri returns to Korea for her brother’s sudden wedding, expecting a simple visit. But the moment she sees her parents at the airport, her body tenses. This episode reveals what unfolds when you go home hoping things have changed. But Yuri realizes they never do.
Episode 2: Always Like This
Everything I Tried to Forget
Twenty-four hours after landing in Korea, Yuri is booking a hotel to escape her own family. Between the disrupted sleep, her parents' early morning fight, and being called names in a fancy department store, she remembers something she'd spent two decades trying to forget.
📝Musings
I wanted to spill the small truths of everyday life — the things I'm thinking about, struggling with, learning from, or surviving. Just little snapshots of my mind as I move through the day. Nothing polished. Nothing filtered. Just honest thoughts from a life in progress. I hope you find a comrade in me.
Musing 1: The Body Keeps the Score
Why I’m Writing This Story
Some stories don't settle into the past—they keep breaking into the present, demanding to be told.
Musing 2: The Boyfriend, the Bunny House, and the Bird Poop.
When Your Daughter’s Boyfriend Comes Over
My daughter's boyfriend was coming over, and suddenly our messy split-level needed to become presentable.
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