With Love, Jieun: Notes to Self

Even your worst days have built this dream.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Thu, 14 May 2026 06:52:53 GMT

April 5, 2026, 5:55 PM, 낙동강의성휴게소

지은아,

You survived two and a half months living in Korea!!!

장하다! 장해! I’m so proud of you. You deserve all of the awards.

You made two big trips outside of 포항.
You went to 파주 to see your family.
You went to 서울 to see your family.
You saw your family.
You saw your family.

Like the incredible 엄마 you are, you took two two-and-a-half train rides with Haejoon by yourself (!!!) from 포항 to 서울 (this was so hard). You took a two-and-a-half-hour train ride with Greg and Haejoon from 서울 to 포항 (this was hard, but not as hard). And you took a three-and-a-half-hour bus with Greg and Haejoon from 서울 to 포항 (this was bananas).

You will never take the 고속버스 for more than an hour with a toddler again.

You wrote seven newsletters!

You wrote a beautiful letter describing what it’s like living in 포항, in Korea, in the spring. You described your morning walks, the flowers blooming in your neighborhood, and the feeling of living in Korea for the first time since you were displaced to America as a child 36 years ago, in the spring of 1990.

You wrote a tender tribute to Phil Cafe and Phil Cafe 사장님. You gave him his flowers. You shared the vulnerable letter you wrote and gave to him before you left New York, thanking him for creating such a safe, welcoming space for Koreans in Brooklyn.

You courageously shared your honest questions and thoughts about forgiveness that you had written last April. You wrote this piece after the abrupt endings of several friendships, during one of the most vulnerable periods of your life — carrying the crippling weight of motherhood and grief.

You courageously shared a list of reminders you had written to yourself in December 2024. It was the end of your first year without 아빠, your first year of grief, your first pregnancy, and your first time becoming a mother.

You wrote a letter to yourself just like this one! You gave yourself all of the awards for all of the things you accomplished, survived, and endured in March, your first month living in Korea.

You wrote a letter of questions without answers. You wrote down all of the things you’re worried about, all of the things you’re scared of, all of the things that bring you anxiety. All of the big questions of life.

You wrote a letter of responses to all of those impossible, unanswerable questions. You reminded yourself that you will find a way.

You have always found a way.

내려놓아도 돼, you can lay them down

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 03:04:26 GMT

You will find a way to move 엄마 to Korea.
You will find a way to go through all of 아빠’s belongings.
You will find a way to go through all of your family’s belongings.
You will find a way to let go of the things you choose to part with
from your 36 years of life in America.

questions without answers, 답이 없는 질문

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:25:24 GMT

2026년 4월 27일 월요일
Monday, April 27, 2026

How will we move 엄마 to Korea?
How will we go through all of 아빠’s belongings?
How will we go through all of our family’s belongings?
How will we let go of the things we choose to part with
from our 36 years of life in America?

You are building a new home, under a new sky.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 01:07:09 GMT

Dear Jieun,

I’m so proud of you.

You survived your first six weeks in Korea! It was a brutal six weeks of learning how to navigate a new country, a new culture, and a new world — your first country, your first culture, your first world. You learned how to navigate being Korean and not Korean at the same time. You learned how to navigate life in Korean — your native language, your first language, your family language, your heart language. Six weeks felt like an eternity. You wanted to give up and go back to America every other day. But with your daily commitment to courage, trying, falling, and getting back up again, you endured and persevered through those hard and lonely days. You made it to the other side.

During your third week in Korea, on March 9, you and Haejoon caught the flu. While you two were suffering through runny noses, coughs, and fevers, the very next day, Greg caught Norovirus and threw up all night long. The virus was so severe that he had to be hospitalized, which meant you had to take care of Haejoon by yourself for two full days. During your third week in Korea, without the support of your family, friends, and community, in an unfamiliar place, you had to take care of Haejoon and navigate the hospital system for Greg, all by yourself.

At the end of the week, we thought we had survived the worst of Norovirus, but then Haejoon caught it on Friday and threw up all weekend. And then at the beginning of the following week, you caught Norovirus and threw up all of your insides. You couldn’t eat for almost a week. You did all of this while taking care of 18-month-old Haejoon. I truly have no idea how the hell you survived that insanity.

The award for surviving Norovirus goes to — Jieun, Haejoon, and Greg!
The award for taking care of your 18-month-old child while being super sick yourselves goes to — Jieun and Greg!
The award for taking care of Greg and translating for him at the hospital goes to — Jieun!
The award for cleaning up so much vomit goes to — Jieun and Greg!
The award for doing so much vomit-y laundry goes to — Greg!
The award for enrolling Haejoon in daycare in Korea goes to — Jieun!
The award for getting a Korean bank account goes to — Greg!
The award for getting an Alien Registration Card goes to — Greg!
The award for figuring out how to buy and set up a Korean phone for Greg goes to — Jieun!
The award for making friends in 포항 goes to — Jieun, Haejoon, and Greg!
The award for registering for your and Haejoon’s Alien Registration Card goes to — Jieun!
The award for surviving your first trip outside of 포항, to 경주 goes to — Jieun, Haejoon, and Greg!
The award for surviving an insane first month in Korea goes to — Jieun, Haejoon, and Greg!

You found the courage to call your family after you got settled in 포항 — you called 이모부, 작은삼촌, and 숙모. This felt so hard for you because you have not had such a continuous, physically close relationship with your family in Korea since you were 19 months old. It was also hard for you to reach out to them because you didn’t want to be a burden on your family. It was also hard for you to reach out to them because you didn’t want to be disappointed or hurt by them if they didn’t show up for you.

You enrolled Haejoon in daycare in Korea! All of the awards go to you for figuring this all out by yourself. You had to walk around 포항 and find daycares, meet with the daycare directors, and decide where and with whom to entrust the care of your precious child. You had to figure all of this out by yourself because Greg doesn’t speak Korean fluently and he couldn’t visit the daycares because his work is more rigid than yours. To enroll your child in daycare, your child needs a bunch of things — diapers, hand towels, a blanket and pillow nap set, clothes, utensils for lunch, personalized name tag stickers to put on all of his personal items, a water bottle, an art smock. You walked around all over 포항, a place you were not familiar with, and gathered all of the materials Haejoon needed to go to daycare.

장하다, 장해.

You wrote and published seven newsletters! You posted on social media 12 times! I have no idea how you did all of this work in the midst of so much chaos and adjustment! You’re incredible!

You wrote about 삼일절 and the history of the Korean Independence Movement. You pulled together a stunning field collection of all the art that inspired you in February. You wrote one of these letters to yourself and listed out all of the things you accomplished in February. You wrote a letter about the immeasurable grief of displacement and reclaiming what has always belonged to you — your family, your language, your history, your land. You wrote about your transglobal voyage, your massive return home, from America to Korea, from Virginia, to 인천, to 포항. You wrote the story behind Letters for 아빠, your first published piece of writing with choa magazine. And you created another field collection of all the art that inspired you in March.

Your writing was featured in two publications — choa magazine and Rootkeepers!

Your piece, Letters for 아빠, had been accepted by choa last spring for their fifth and final volume, 이별, ibyeol. After a year of editing, on March 1, the piece was finally released.

Your writing was also featured in Rootkeepers. The founder of Rootkeepers, Anoopreet Rehncy, was collecting stories of our grandmother’s wisdom, and you submitted two stories about 할머니 — 8th Grade Period and “Our mother never let one drop of water touch our hands.” Stories of 할머니 are now included in this collection of our grandmother’s wisdom.

You weren’t able to record podcast episodes. You weren’t able to record song videos, but you did post one that you had recorded in February back in Virginia. I know you wanted to start recording podcast episodes and song videos this month. It’s okay that you couldn’t.

You are building a new home,
for your new life,
in a new country,
under a new sky.
This alone is more than enough.

I’m so proud of you, 지.
Let’s keep going.

With love,
Jieun

Letters:

Published Pieces:

Letters for 아빠

“I have been writing letters to 아빠 since he died. It was a way for me to talk to him. It was a way for me to feel connected to him. It was a way for me to remember him. It was a way for me to grieve. It was a way for me to keep him alive. It was a way for me to keep myself alive.

These are the letters I wrote to 아빠 in the aftermath of his death. I wrote them in the midst of my first pregnancy with my first child, in the depths of my grief, and in the wake of his departure from this world.”

중2 생리팬티 • Period Underwear, 7th Grade

“My grandmother, my halmoni, my 할머니 — my mother’s mother, my grandmother’s daughter, my great-grandmother’s granddaughter. We lived worlds apart, separated by time, space, land, and sea. For 28 years of our lives, we were separated by the displacement of immigration. To me, she was always more dream than reality, more idea than human, more story than memory…”

“우리 엄마는 우리 손에 물 한방울도 묻지 않게 해줬어.” • “Our mother never let one drop of water touch our hands.”

“My 할머니 had two daughters. My 이모 (aunt, imo), born in 1956, and my 엄마 (mother, umma) born in 1961. Growing up, 엄마 would always tell me with tears in her eyes, ‘우리 엄마는 우리 손에 물 한방울도 묻지 않게 해줬어. My mother never let one drop of water touch our hands.’ 할머니 never let one drop of water touch her daughters’ hands…”

Jieun & Greg:

About the I’m So Proud of You, 지 Series

On May 4, 2025, in reference to grief and suffering, I wrote, “There are no awards for surviving the unsurvivable.” I decided to remedy this by making my own awards. Welcome to my monthly awards ceremony for myself.

At the end of every month, I will collect all of the art I created throughout the month, and I will write a letter to myself, congratulating myself for all of my hard work that nobody wholly knows but me. I will send it to myself, and to all of you. I will have a celebration. I will hold an awards ceremony. I will give myself a treat. I will keep going. <3

I invite you to join me in this ritual of celebrating our little, medium, and big victories. You can do this for personal-life victories, too. I invite you to join me in this ritual of looking at our lives from the sky, so we can pause, remember, reflect, grieve, and celebrate.

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Gentle Reminders from My Past Self

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:01:47 GMT

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Learnings:

The door to love and the door to grief are the same door.
Human beings are incredibly fragile and incredibly resilient.
Women are the bearers of life. They have brought forth every single generation of humanity that has ever existed on earth.
Women deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, honor, and compensation for their massive physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual acts of labor, love, and sacrifice.
We need each other.
I became the patient. I became the parent.
I created, grew, nourished, and protected a new human life. I learned to live without one of the people who gave me life. I learned the fragility of humanity.
To 엄마, she went from two to one. To me, we went from three to two. She lost her 남편. I lost my 아빠. We lost two separate people. We needed to grieve separately before we could grieve together.
When 아빠 died, a part of 엄마 died. But the death of that part affected the whole person of 엄마.
When 아빠 died, a part of me died. But the death of that part affected the whole person of 지은.
We would never be who we were before, as individuals or as a family. We would become a new, different thing.
You have limits. Honor them or they will make you pay for pushing them too far.
I survived the death of my dad. I survived the death of my relationship with my mom. I survived the death of myself. I survived the death of my life without a child. I survived the death of my relationship with Greg as we knew it.
Perfection is a lie. Perfection is an illusion.
Failing is succeeding.
Finished is better than perfect.
Chasing after perfection is like running on a treadmill. I can run as fast as I want, but I will never reach the elusive, imagined goal of perfection. When I get to where I think the perfect result lives, perfection just moves further down the road. The chase will never end, so stop running after it.
Perfection and enough-ness are not the same thing.
I am enough today. I am enough right now.
You can trust yourself.
You don’t need permission. You already have it.
Don’t wait for permission. Start. Just do it. Do the thing. Don’t wait. The moment is now.
Life is short. Do the things you want to do in this one, brief life you have.
Life is meant to be lived. Don’t let the fear of future failures or the millions of unknown possibilities stop you from doing the things you want to do in this one, brief life you have.
In life, you will regret the things you didn’t do, that you desperately yearned to do, the most.

A Note from Jieun: I have a ton of drafts in Substack of things I’ve written that I haven’t published on With Love, Jieun. Some pieces, I forgot to publish. Some pieces, I didn’t finish.And some pieces, I felt too vulnerable to publish them or share them publicly. I’m going to start sharing these pieces with you! I originally wrote this piece about my learnings from 2024, my first year of pregnancy and my first year of grief, on Sunday, December 29, 2024.

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Reclaim what has always belonged to you.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 06:03:48 GMT

To be Korean,
to be an immigrant,
to be a child of immigrants,
to be displaced from your homeland,
to be separated from your family,
to be severed from your culture.

It is all grief.

Yes, humans are resilient.
Yes, humans are adaptive.
Yes, we survived.

But what did it take to get here?
Was it even worth it?

This grief —
when sat with,
when examined,
when explored,
whe…

Reclaim what has always belonged to you.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 06:37:21 GMT

2026년 1월 15일 — 오전 7시 25분 • January 15, 2026 — 7:25 AM

Sarah, a stranger-turned-friend on Instagram, told me that a part of my writing that I didn’t think would make anyone cry, made her cry:

“I don’t know what it means to be American, if I’m living on stolen land, and I’m only here from Korea because I had no other choice.
I identify as Korean, and I identify as diasporic.
I’m a part of a larger community of people who were displaced to America because of economic hardship, political instability, and the lasting impacts of occupation, colonialism, and war in my home country.
I am Korean. I am a part of the diaspora.”

She said, “This part made me cry. Thank you for your thoughts and words, Jieun.”

I responded, “I grieve that this is our shared reality. I celebrate that when we share our stories, we can remember the truth within ourselves and we can remember that we are not alone. I am sending you so much love, Sarah.”

In February, you moved to Korea.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:29:37 GMT

About the I’m So Proud of You, 지 Series

* * *

Dear Jieun,

You did it! We did it! I am so proud of you.

In February, you moved to Korea.

On Friday, February 20, 2026, you gathered your courage, you gathered your bags, you said goodbye to 엄마, you traveled across the world, and you moved your life to Korea. You moved back to the land of your birth, the land of your ancestors, your motherland. A dream that you’ve carried in your heart since you were a little girl finally materialized into your reality. It took a thousand courageous micro-decisions to get here. It took a thousand courageous macro-decisions to get here.

You did this without 아빠.
You did this without 엄마.
You did this with 17-month-old Haejoon.

This single act, these one thousand acts, deserve a thousand awards.

February was chaos.

You found your way back to yourself.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 02:00:48 GMT

Hi friends,

At the end of every month, I will collect all of the art I created throughout the month, and I will write a letter to myself, con…

Calling all artists, calling all humans.

Jieun Ko 고지은 — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 21:43:59 GMT

What do you want to do with your one, precious life? Let this question be your driving force. Your guiding light.
Do not let go of your dreams. Your dreams are too important to give up on. Your dreams are your most prized possessions. Your dreams are your reasons for living.
The only rule is to keep trying. All the other rules are made up. They don’t exist.
Keep trying. Keep going. Don’t give up.
Your morning walks have changed your life. They are a meditation, a mindfulness practice, an exercise, an outdoor activity, a challenge, and a victory. Go outside every day, rain or shine. Take the time to move your body. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward one step at a time. Look at the trees, look at the sky, look at the animals, look at the people. Feel the morning air, feel the ground beneath your feet, take in the scents of the city, listen to the sounds of the day, greet your neighbors. Be a part of the earth.
We are all going to die someday. Live with the urgency and clarity that comes from knowing this reality deep inside your bones.
Don’t let fear paralyze you from living your life. Death is scarier than anything you fear in this life — saying the things you’re too scared to say, doing the things you’re too scared to do, looking dumb, feeling humiliated, feeling exposed.
Courage is walking toward our fears with trembling hands. Courage is proving to yourself that your fears will not kill you. Courage is proving to yourself that you can do things that feel impossible.
You matter. Your existence matters. Your art matters. The things you have to say matter.
I believe in you. I will never stop believing in you.