The Final Overview

I started as this: abandoned, then an orphan, then adopted. Assimilated. From there I was no longer the child I started as, my voice going from Korean to no Korean at all. But the trade was real. I went from surrounded by my people to being part of new ones. I went from not feeling lost to feeling something I'd never had before, uncertainty, fear, a little anger. I adapted anyway, and part of me became happy. Hopeful. A seed formed and I became a daydreamer, chasing something I still can't define, except that it's this strange insecurity that I'll never quite find it, but I will always try, a place to call home and a woman I can call the one.

 

After I left my parents' house, there were years I pretended. Successful, perfect, happy, strong, someone who actually knew what he was doing. I was, and still am, very good at being a pretender.

 

I've been a babysitter, a grocery bagger, a farmhand, a cook, a server, a bartender for exactly two days, a mortgage broker, a wholesale finance rep, a tech entrepreneur, a fashion designer, a VP of a 3D manufacturing company, a VP of a health clinic, a custom suit maker for senators and collegiate athletes, and now, at forty-six year old man who once refused to get a phone, refused to use google and preferred (still does) call people versus text, who now makes TikTok's as a full fledged creator. Woven through all of it are the businesses that never became anything, and the odd jobs I took just to get by.

 

In my spare time,I have tried to be a good dog dad. A good friend. A good son. A good entrepreneur. A good ex, if that makes sense. A good success story. A good inspiration. A good boyfriend. A good man.

I've failed at most of those. Maybe all of them.

 

 

I've been foreclosed on. Bankrupt. Broke. Evicted. Repossessed. A burden. A couch surfer. Homeless, the on-the-streets kind. Hunted. Harassed, and pushed to the place where numbness tells you it's okay to take your own life. I've been heartbroken from loving too much, and loved so little I was left standing there when I needed someone most. I have a fear of abandonment that shows up now as content creation, and I fight anxiety and mental health in ways I can't always name, and I carry the very unglamorous worry of how to pay for a better life when I can barely afford the one I've got. 

 

And somehow, in spite of all of it, I remain hopeful. I genuinely don't know how.

 

---ok so if this section feels out of place, it is a late addition, and I have no clue how I forgot this -- I am a HUGE DOG LOVER. I love all animals, I mean I save worms from drowning, but dogs and me got a thing. I have rescued four in my life, Lefty, Patton, Hyphen and my current, Seven. Each came to me during pivotal moments, but two will forever stand out. Hyphen, whom I had to put down and it was through that pain I learned how to forgive myself and Seven, she literally has saved me over and over and over again - we're a bit codependent upon each other having survived an accident that should have killed us both and then instead of resting we had to go through some SHIT over the next year, but you know, I don't mind it. She's earned everything from me, including my willingness to be dependent upon her.

 

I've traveled to every distant planet in my own head, and in real life I've made it through nearly every U.S. state, Canada, Mexico, the Virgin Islands, and now pieces of Europe. In fact, I am Korean and an American. Who spent his years up until five in South Korea, then five through 18 in Iowa.  At 18 - 22 in Nebraska. And after in his 20s and part of his 30s Seattle, his 30s in Chicago, New York, LA and almost everywhere in the US. At 40 back to Chicago, until 44 Des Moines Iowa for a stint, the road in an RV for a few months til now, 46 almost 47 in Europe on his visa. So,  I guess this makes me a European in training?

 

I came into this world as Jang InSoo. I became Andrew William Morrison when I got my citizenship, and later Drew Morrison, the fearless, driven version of me who decided life was more than a sentence, until it felt exactly like one. In 2017 I legally changed my name to Andrew Jang, because that was the moment I needed to rebuild, and I needed a name that gave me a fighting chance. So I did the most important thing I've ever done for myself: I re-adopted my own last name back, so I could feel whole for the first time. As far as I know, those are the only names I've ever had. Though I've always thought Dreyjon sounded cool, so who knows.

 

What I never was, but was called, is a scammer, a fraud, a thief, a fugitive, a criminal. I was never those words. But I became the shadow those words cast. And that shadow was dark. Fucking dark.

 

I am a fighter. A stubborn prick. Loyal past the point that's healthy for me, when I say ride or die, I mean it, I've never once said ride and maybe. I'll admit I've lied, at certain points in my life, faster than most people admit anything, because the truth is the only thing I've got left that's fully mine. I'm an asshole when the moment calls for it, and sometimes when it doesn't. I'm also the guy who'll ignore every red flag in the world just to help someone anyway because I know what it's like to fight alone, sometimes because you want to. And other times because there is no other choice. I hate being alone, but also have come to love it, but that is what I fight against in a weird way. 

 

I still dream like a kid raised on Christmas specials, MacGyver and Star Trek reruns, because somewhere in me that kid never got to finish being one. I want the small, ridiculous things on purpose. A Hallmark Christmas movie, and not just watching one, being in one, playing the guy who owns the little café on Main Street that gives free coffee to anyone who walks in with a dog. And if dreams really do come true, it would mean everything to do a scene with the actors I grew up on --- LeVar Burton, Kelsey Grammar, Morgan Freeman, Michael Keaton, Forrest Whittaker, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and I know people dislike her, but Whoopi Goldberg.

 

I am a party animal in memory and partied harder and longer than I should have, chasing a feeling that was never going to stay. Cocaine. MDMA. Ecstasy. Glass once (hated it). Acid once( really hated it) And even though I told myself it wasn't I free based, which is just crack. ---the odd thing, I am scared to death of weed. Hey, that egg frying commercial really stuck with me.

 

I am a three-time suicide survivor, with two of those times when I was homeless the first time------there are still memories from that time that scare me and I am unsure if I can ever truly heal from it, but I am not certain I want too either and thats tragic. Speaking of, I walked away from a wreck that should have killed me without a single broken bone, and I still don't know why that haunts me.

 

In total I feel like I have lived a billion lives. Because of that I really do not know if I can answer who I am. I can only tell you where I came from, who I once was and how I got here. 

 

Check back later and see if I've figured it out, or if I'm still searching. Either way, I'll be the one watching Christmas in July, eating pizza, with Seven at my feet, deciding: 

 

Am I running from life, or running to it.........