Half-Living to the Fullest
Love Letter #15: Lessons on breaking in two and wanting to do it all. Plus: reflections on Korean couture and what I've been consuming lately.
A Love Letter To is my monthly series where I share essays on culture, style and introspection, along with snippets of what I’ve been loving and fixationg on in the past month.
Hello! I’ve recently gotten an influx of some subscribers — welcome and thank you for being here. If you’ve been here for a little while, I’m playing around with a new section called “About Town” where I share things I’m experiencing in the real world (art, food, etc.) It may not be a monthly occurance but I wanted to play with it this month. Thank you fo reading!!!!!!!
June, 2024. Reflections and ruminations.
I’ve always wanted to find a way to break in two. I never wanted to do just one thing. This started from the day I rejected the saying “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Why the hell not?
I also felt that same pang the day I was told — and expected — to pick just one college major. And it happened again when my journalism professor told me that to be successful in the industry, you need to pick one beat, one topic you can become an expert in.
What has been my obsession my whole life of finding ways to do it all? There’s a word for this that will make me sound like an asshole: multi-hyphenated creative. A title that is held with pride, but with a whisper of self-doubt: If I do a bunch of different things, will I ever fully succeed in them?
In her newest memoir, “Splinters,” Leslie Jamison explores the idea of being in two places at once as she navigates being newly single, newly a mother, while teaching and writing at the same time. She paints a picture of her hosting a seminar with her students at her home while letting her baby girl sit on the floor next to them. At first, you think she has succeeded in doing it all. But then she poses:
“But I never felt doubled. I felt more like half a mother and half a teacher, constantly reaching for each identity as if it were a dangling toy — mother, teacher, mother, teacher — until the elastic tether of other self snapped me away again.”
Her words made me realize the true tragedy of it all. That I actually have, at times, succeeded in splitting myself in two. But at what cost? As she said, it didn’t make me feel like I had made two of myself to be able to do it all; it just felt like something cracked. Every superpower comes at a cost, most stories say. I’ve done so much but at the cost of something that I’m worried I can’t get back.
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I’m turning an odd age this year — an odd number, odd feeling. 29: It’s not divisible by two. So it feels like something has to give, now.
I remember learning about half-lives in science class and never fully understanding it. But the writer in me couldn’t help but think about the term in a poetic in a way. A life split in half. A molecular tragedy. In medicine and science, it’s defined as:
“Half-life is the time it takes for a quantity to decrease to half of its initial value. It's a constant characteristic of exponential decay…”
I’m not sure if matters of the soul can be measured in scientific terms like this, but I think it makes senses in a way. How long until the decay comes through?
Maybe I’m not at that point yet, but I do feel like something has fallen away in the process. All this time, I thought I was following the age-old advice: “Live life to the fullest”. I thought that by putting my hands in as many things as possible, I was doing just that. But I think I took that advice the wrong way.
While making these attempts to divide myself in two, I’ve lost the ability to leave breathing room for myself. I don’t know how to give myself permission to choose one thing and be satisfied. The optimist in me says I can get it back of course, but it’s going to take a level of unlearning. A lot of this will involve reintroducing myself to the word “No”.
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Here’s the other thing about slicing yourself in two. You only enjoy things half as much. You deprive yourself in that way, by trying to be in two places at once. By trying to duplicate or multiply your being, you cut your pleasure in half. And maybe that’s what finally made me realize that enough was enough. Not because I should be worried bout the quality of what I’m putting out necessarily — although that’s part of it. It’s rather about the quality of my enjoyment of it.
Whatever I choose, I want to be in it fully — or at least as fully as possible. for each piece of writing to feel as good as it could. For each plate of spaghetti or tomato salad to taste as fresh as it can. For every conversation I have with a person to feel as present as possible. To borrow a term from Leslie’s memoir, I can’t keep giving the people around me only splinters of myself.
Maybe my need for doing so much is also a sign of a scarcity mindset. I need to do more, be more people, because who I am isn’t enough. Oof! Less and less, I’ve been trying to stretch myself into this impossible space. It doesn’t feel as glamorous or a sign of youthful ambition as it did in my early 20s.
Instead, I’ve allowed myself to look inward and sit in the abundance of my life. Many of the dreams I put on pedestals for many years seem blurry and far away. Not gone, but just different. A different perspective. A different version is showing its face instead.
I’ve realized that a life that is half-lived in an attempt to make myself appear in two places at once, isn’t a life lived well. So I feel like I’m letting go, finally. But which self I’m letting go of, I don’t quite know yet.
What I’ve been doing, seeing, tasting.
As someone who can’t ignore the patterns I see in life, I love exhibits that have an unintentional conversation happening between each piece of work. That’s how I felt when I viewed the newest fashion exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution. The exhibit showcased generations of Korean designers — all with their distinct style, shapes and messaging.
The exhibit spanned in years and materials; starting with ancient kimonos from 1600s made of mulberry silk and ending with a jacket made of teddy recycled teddy bears from just a couple years ago.
One of my favorite pieces was this multilayered outfit called the “Seven Layered Dress” by designer Lee Jean Youn from a 2011 collection. On the runway, the model removes the layers to symbolize the shedding of constraints of womanhood. This is what I adore about fashion as art — you need to see the piece move to get the full effect (the museum provides a video of it to give you the full picture!)
Speaking of movement, another one of my favorites by Youn were these black and white gowns that inspired by traditional Korean calligarphy. Even more so, these illustrate a sort of conversation happening between each garment — like notes being passed down from one another.
“Like cursive calligraphic scripts, each design element of these dresses flows together into continuos swift movement”
Another favorite was a dress by Lie Sang Bong, a bit more understated of a design that blooms as you look at it. A friend of the artist said: “The source of of Lie Sang Bong’s spirit is a circle.” Indeed, as you look closer, you can see it. Made of different petal-like pieces, the dress swirls outward until it makes a soft, organic shape that invites comfort — while still dawning a mini-dress silhoutte that feels like it’s ready to jump off the mannequin and dance.
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And then there were these incredible pieces by designer Lee Jean Youn that meet you at the end of the exhibit and give you pause the most. The dresses feature intricated quilted embroidery of Korean royal palaces. Using hybrid silk and mulberry paper, the dresses have such an angelic delicacy to them that feels like they could float away at a moment’s notice.
The most interesting part was how all the pieces spoke in unision with each other despite being part of different generations and ethos of design. Some leaned into tradition, while others played with the expectations of it.
At the same time, many of the artists pulled from the same dictionary — like mulberry silk, a fabric that was seen in the earliest designers’ works to the ones from recent years. In a way, they show that time is always moving, always changing the context of life around us — but still repeating itself in an intricate loop at the same time.
The exhibit is live now at the Cleveland Museum of Art through October 13, 2024.
What I’ve been playing, reading saving, loving.
I can already tell that ’s Substack, Color Stories is going to be a favorite. Kelleher has such a way of deep diving into the topic of colors in history that I feel transfixed and wanting more. My recent favorite is this deep dive into the color gray.
This song released by my friend but also amazing Cleveland-based artist, Jeffrey Cruz feels like a must-listen for the summer. It feels like laying in the grass and letting time pass like a cloud.
I recently finished by *first* physical book of the year: Big Swiss by Jean Beagin is a messy, sticky novel that had my head buzzing by the end of it (pun intended, if you know you know). It’s a perfect summer read if you want something a little weird.
I’m currently in a deep dive of listening to Leonard Cohen’s entire discography. Along with that, I’ve become obsessed with finding photos of the artist in his life, such as this one that shows him in a cluttered kitchen.
As always, thanks for reading and being here!
Yours, Arbela. 💌