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jesshong
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Name: Jessica
Country: United States
State: Tennessee
Birthday: 7/20/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: actively and dillegently seeking after the heart of God; attempting to go to sleep at a reasonable hour in order to wake up for my early morning job; spending time at various area coffee shops to devour the bread of life and drink from the cup of caffine overflowing; honing my craft so i can one day write the songs that will change pop culture
Expertise: obtaining and dispensing obscure pop-culture trivia; telling long-winded stories with dissapointing punch-lines; memorizing the word of God as well as random useless facts and song lyrics; expounding upon the depths of my dorkiness
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/2/2002
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| this week has been -- without question -- the most difficult of my entire life.
on
Sunday December 2nd, 2007, my cousin Mike Hong was in a car accident
that took his life. since then, it's been a whirlwind of confusion,
pain, heartache and indescribable grief. i've been spending every
moment that i can with my family, scrambling to find a way to deal with
this incredible loss and finding that there is no right way. there is
simply no right way to deal with a circumstance that is so incredibly
wrong. Mike was only 28 years old and had all the potential in the
world. but even in that short time, it's clear that he has left a
legacy.
growing up, my cousins and i were all more like brothers
and sisters. every holiday and family gathering was something to look
forward to because it meant time with Mike, James and Nancy [if we were
really lucky, our cousins from new orleans Timmy and Brian would be
there too]. my brother Chris is around the same age as Mike and James
and Nancy is just a couple months younger than me so all of us were
always super close. the best moments of my childhood definitely
involved time spent with my cousins.
as we got older, it
became more difficult to maintain childhood bonds. i know that my
moving across the country made it especially hard but without fail,
every time i came home for a visit, Mike would make time for me. we'd
go to our favorite korean restaurant and catch up on what was going on
in our lives and more importantly, what was going on in our family.
Mike cared deeply about the bonds we all made in childhood and was
always making efforts to make sure those stayed as strong as possible.
his love for his cousins, his parents and especially his little brother
and sister was immeasurable. whether we deserved it or not, he always
had faith in us and always hoped for our very best. he was everyone's
biggest fan. there really is no way to overstate it: he loved us.
hearing
that he was gone was nothing short of surreal. i didn't believe it when
James told me and as i drove to the hospital, i was sure i would get
there and it would all be some kind of mistake. the hardest part of
this mourning process has been trying to imagine life without him. as
stupid as it sounds, there was even a moment as all the cousins were
gathered eating dinner when i almost asked aloud, "where's Mike?" and
though it broke my heart to have to meet with family under such tragic
circumstances, in a way i know it was what Mike wanted all along: for
his family to just be together - to enjoy each other's company and to
love each other the way that he loved us.
i've been overwhelmed
by the support of my friends in the past week. my aunt and uncle have
been surrounded by loved ones and my cousins have all truly come
together to support one another. we've all been showered with sympathy
but i think James said it best at Mike's service: the real people to
feel sorry for are the people who never knew Mike. we were the lucky
ones that got to spend 28 amazing years knowing him, loving him and
being loved by him. there were definitely moments this week, especially
those spent with Mike's girlfriend Arielle, when i questioned the truth
of that old adage 'Tis better to have loved and lost.
i've always heard it in the context of romance as some kind of
consolation to the brokenhearted. but when i looked into its origins it
turns out that it was written by a man who lost his best friend at a
tragically young age. it was written by someone who could probably
relate to all of us who loved and lost Mike. in that light, i see how
true it really is:
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
i love you, Mike and it has been a privilege to be loved by you. | | |
| thanksgiving is the day that most bloggers, myspace bulletiners, and
text messagers all across the land devote their technological musings
to the issue of thankfulness. you can almost hear the collective
tap-tap-tapings of keyboards and cell phone buttons as they all take a
moment to thank all the peeps up in their friend lists, their homies
around the way and the b**tches and h**s in errry area code, ya
hearrrd? word.
now this is all well and good as i'm sure many of
those partaking in this unofficial tradition are in need of motivation
to express their gratefulness. but does a one-time holiday-induced
expression of thankfulness really constitute ACTUAL gratefulness?
especially when some of the authors are the same kids who use these
technological mediums to bitch and moan about the pettiest drama?
[believe me, i include myself among these perpetrators as i have been
guilty of my fair share of stuuuupid bulletining]
i know it's
trite to say so plainly, but we are all so very blessed. we have food
to eat, roofs over our heads, amazing friends and family, not to
mention computers and cell phones through which to wax poetic about all
of it. i've been attempting, sometimes unsuccessfully, to exercise true
gratefulness and its application to my life. it's easy to get caught up
in the minor ups and downs and lose sight of the bigger picture. it's
easy to get mad, sad or pissed about trivial details that only serve to
put the focus on the last place it should be: me.
today and
every day the prayer of my heart is that i learn how to truly love. not
love that is as fleeting the blink of a cursor but love that is
enduringly patient, selflessly kind, secure enough to overcome
jealousy, purely motivated in a way that doesn't necessitate boasting
and not flippantly modest but truly humble. and as difficult as it is to practice, i want to love in way that doesn't keep record of wrongs - even when there are legitimate wrongs to keep record of - but rather keeps record of ennumerable blessings.
even despite my many shortcomings, i hope
that i have been able to show you true love in this way. i know that i
am continually blown away by how much i am loved by you as it is just
further proof of God's incredible love for all of us.
i love you. no for real, i love you. and i am so very thankful for you. | | |
| it has been over a year since my last xanga post.
yikes.
xanga was always my link to my seattle peeps and i'm afraid i've neglected y'all for awhile now. my most sincere apolgies, my friends. t'was nothing personal, i promise.
i've had a love/hate relationship with blogging as of late but i've come to the conclusion that it is somewhat of a necessary evil in my life. whenever i sit down to write i always feel the overwhelming need to be completely honest, however humiliating or arrogant it may seem, and more often than not walk away from the computer leaving nothing more than a blinking cursor in my wake.
but i've decided to blog again and i've chosen blogspot as the blog home du jour. i've yet to garner even a fraction of the readership i got back in my xanga heyday so i may end up rekindling the relationship xanga and i once shared.
in the meantime, if you're down for a semi-regular blog about something and nothing and way too much all at the same time, feel free to pay me a visit: hongdotcom.blogspot.com.
love and hyperlinks,
jessica
p.s. i'm back in seattle now. did i mention that to y'all? i'm not sure if i did. | | |
| so i know we're only three-quarters of the way into year but i think i can confidently declare 2006 the year of change.
i began this year with an amazing trip to brazil and a fresh desire for movement. after much prayer and consideration, i decided that meant moving home to seattle to return to school and family.
a few months later, i packed my bags and boxed up my life but just as soon as i had, another change came. my friends asked me to join their hip-hop/r&b group and after much prayer and consideration, i decided that meant staying in nashville and returning to my original dream of a career in christian music.
now a few months have passed, i've unpacked my bags and almost completely unboxed my life and wouldn't you know it? yet another change. without going into too much unnecessary and at this point irrelevant detail, suffice to say that i am no longer a member of the aforementioned group. there are absolutely no hard feelings [these girls were my friends first, groupmates second] and i have no doubts that this is what's best for me and the girls.
until now, every one of these massive life changes has simply been a change of plans. this time, it's just a change with as of yet, no plans to speak of. although in some ways i'm kinda where i was in december 2005, these nine months have provided me with priceless life lessons and memories that i never planned for but woudn't dream of changing.
so what's next? i have no freakin idea. i do hope that this is the last major bi-monthly life-update for at least a little while and i can go back to blogging in my pseudo-intellectual introspective overly analytical fashion. but for now, that's all i got kids. | | |
| thank you seattle for making my trip home fantastic.
i love you. for realz.
:) | | |
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