What Had Been Hoding Me Back (2) ?

What Had Been Holding Me Back?

By Young B. Lee

Whenever I think of literature, a scene from long ago comes to mind: a beautiful pavilion perched on a mountainside, surrounded by lush green hills and clear streams. There, Korean scholars dressed in flowing white robes and traditional black hats compose poetry and recite sijo, the lyrical verses of old Korea.

I first learned to read and write Korean in the fifth grade, following Korea's liberation from Japanese rule. I was fascinated by the beauty of the language. I read poems, copied them by hand, and memorized them with such delight that those memories remain vivid even today. Yet the path my life eventually took led me elsewhere. I studied mathematics and physics as an undergraduate and pursued psychology in graduate school.

Although I spent my professional life as a psychologist, I carried a quiet dream within me: to study literature seriously and to write freely, following wherever my imagination might lead. But in those days, writing seemed as distant as a mountain on the horizon—beautiful to contemplate, yet far beyond my reach. Perhaps it was little more than an impossible dream.

Then, some forty years ago, an opportunity presented itself when I began teaching at a university. I thought, This is my chance. I formally enrolled as an auditing student in the university's English literature department. Suddenly, the instructor became a student, and a middle-aged man found himself sitting in a classroom among young people.

The university buildings were modern and impressive, but outside the classroom window stood a solitary pine tree with a gracefully bent trunk. Surrounded by concrete buildings, it reminded me of the mountain pavilions I had imagined as a child. It was the kind of tree I had often seen along Korea's seashores, on its mountain slopes, and beside old pavilions.

American pines grow tall and straight toward the sky, providing fine timber. But the crooked pines of Korea inspire poets to write verses and painters to take up their brushes. Looking at that bent pine tree, I felt once again the fragrance of literature I had almost forgotten—and, with it, a quiet longing for my homeland.

My classmates were all young enough to be my sons, and I was the only older student in the room. With only about fifteen students in the class, we soon became acquainted. What began with a little awkwardness turned into a delightful experience.

Then one day, something unexpected happened.

As we waited for the classroom door to open, a beautiful young woman approached me, calling out cheerfully, "Dr. Lee!"

To my surprise, it was Cathy, my son's former girlfriend.

I was delighted to see her again, but our reunion had an unintended consequence: my secret was out.

Until then, my classmates had apparently regarded me as just an ordinary, somewhat shabby neighborhood gentleman. Now they discovered that I held a doctorate in psychology and was teaching statistics in the mathematics department.

They looked a little bewildered, but I simply laughed and said, "We're all classmates here—and friends."

During those days, I read Anton Chekhov's The Lady with the Dog, a masterpiece by the great nineteenth-century Russian writer, and studied The Story of an Hour by the American author Kate Chopin.

Auditing a course or two certainly did not make me a literary scholar. Yet those classes opened a new world to me. I began to understand something of the art of creative writing and experienced firsthand the deep pleasure that literature could bring. Even now, those memories return with remarkable freshness.

After moving to Laguna Woods, I found myself at last free from the demands of professional life. My long-suppressed desire to study writing seriously began to awaken once more. Yet while I was settling into my new surroundings, the years quietly slipped by, and before I knew it, I had passed my ninetieth birthday.

When I was younger, I believed that writing required one essential condition: time.

Someday, when I have enough time, I will write, I told myself.

And so I waited.

Forty years passed.

Now my body is older. My hearing is no longer what it once was, and my memory sometimes fails me. Time, which once seemed so abundant, has become a precious and diminishing gift.

And yet, strangely enough, it is now, at this late stage of life, that I have taken up my pen again.

What, then, had truly been holding me back all those years?

Was it the passage of time? The circumstances of my life? Or was it something within me—a voice that kept whispering, Not yet. You are not ready, denying myself permission to live as a writer?

Through writing, I have begun to understand something I had not fully recognized before.

Writing is not merely the art of arranging words into beautiful sentences. It is a journey of self-discovery, a process through which we come to know ourselves more deeply and, perhaps, grow into better human beings.

I had always believed that I had lived a diligent and meaningful life. Yet as I began to examine myself through writing, I discovered that small prejudices still lingered within me, along with impatience, shortcomings, and old hurts I had never quite forgiven.

I have come to believe that good writing is not a matter of decorating our thoughts with elegant phrases. It requires the courage to confront even those parts of ourselves we would rather leave unseen.

If writing can help me become a little more generous, a little more patient, and a little more willing to forgive, perhaps that is the real reason I have returned to my pen at this advanced age.

Of course, I sometimes regret that I did not pursue greater dreams or take fuller command of the direction of my life. There were years when I allowed myself to be carried along by the current of circumstances rather than choosing my own course.

But I no longer wish to believe that it is too late.

At last, I have opened the door within myself that had remained closed for so many years.

And today, I take another step forward—quietly, but with a firm and determined heart.