A Longing for the Mundane

Holidays in my family have never been colored by the chaos of kids running barefoot through the kitchen or the murmur of adults gossiping over beer and sunflower seeds at the dining table. They have always been in fours, threes or twos.

Fours in elementary school. Threes when my sister went off to college. Twos when my mom moved from Texas for a job in Florida.

One Thanksgiving during middle school, we even scrapped the laborious roasting of duck or turkey (depending on how “American” we were feeling that year) and made instant Nongshim Shin Ramyun instead. Hours of stuffing, basting and baking reduced to five minutes in the microwave.

I have a longing for tradition. The annual reunion to bicker and divulge the secrets of the year. An excuse to wipe the fine coat of dust off the formal dining room table. A reason to come home to each other.

To host a dinner party is the most ordinary item on my bucket list. I have a longing for the mundane. For the ordinariness that used to be passing friends on your way to class. Of knowing you would see them soon.

My dad has always questioned why I need or want friends. “Trust only exists between family,” he says. Family was always the center of my upbringing. At 20 years old, my mom still feels the need to remind me not to post private information on Facebook. What happens within family, stays within family.

But I know the beauty of sharing and friendship. And so did my dad. He would rattle off stories of playing soccer with his friends in high school, kicking around in the dust until the shadows forced them home. His friends called him “Big Brother” because he was always looking after others. My dad was the kind of person that let his friend shower at his home so that their strict parents wouldn’t find out their son was playing soccer instead of studying.

But subconsciously, I had adopted my family’s mindset that you should never rely on others. I grew up with the idea that to be strong, I should shy away from needs. I learned to exit the room when I cried, turning the faucet on full blast until I could come back stoic.

After reading a chapter of Femophobia: How Women Have Become Men by Tovi Browning, I realized that my skewed idea of independence was in reality, a type of denial. A fear of vulnerability.

To say, “I don’t need anyone!” is to say “I have been hurt before and I am scared of being hurt again!”

So yes, somehow hosting a dinner party is something I am afraid of. Enough to put it on a list people write when they need something tangible to push them to do something they’re scared of or make excuses for. It is why I am scared of birthdays and messaging people first or why I stopped watching Jane the Virgin halfway through the first season because it showed me something I wanted so dearly.

To invite all the people you love into a room is to sit there five minutes before wondering if anyone will show up.

As the pandemic has placed me farther away from people more than ever, I am learning to understand that true strength lies in realizing that to need and to want are essential aspects of what it means to be human.

I’m going to have my dinner party. Bring out the fancy tablecloth set aside for special occasions and say, “I can’t wait for the day you come back home.”