Rest & Respite

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Sometimes I forget I know how to breathe.

I’m sure you’ve heard more about me than you bargained for already. You know I work several jobs—including being a business owner of two small companies—and I try to balance my work with my love. I make time for the people I care about and extend olive branches like an evergrowing tree. But at the end of the day, when my head hits the pillow and the darkness obscures my sight, I feel it.

My heart is worn.

And I don’t know how to fix it.

I was in the middle of work when I came across this title. The orange bricks of its storefront against the pastel pinks of falling cherry blossom petals caught my eye as I processed a cashout on my bookshop for The Pouring Pages. I clicked on it and read the synopsis, then I took a screenshot for all my friends.

I was like the town crier that day: look at this book. It’s about a girl who quits her job and restarts her life, starting with opening her very own bookstore.

They called it targeted. They said my computer must’ve been listening in. They said that between the podcast recording sessions, book editing sprints, marketing emails for my day job, and organizing events for my bookstore, Google Chrome took notes and found me the perfect book to place myself in. Doesn’t it sound familiar? 

So I bought it. And I read it. And I talk a lot about the healing power of books, how pages hold power to hold a light against the darkest parts of yourself and show you there aren’t monsters in your shadows. But this one held me the way my best friend hugs me after years apart. This one put a blanket over my shoulders and gave me a cup of coffee to rest with. This one didn’t shed light against the shadows, but instead the cracks already shining in the light: the parts of myself I claimed to love because nobody can use it against you if you wear it on your sleeve. Not even yourself.

Or so I thought.

So, if you wanna read it with me, and you should, I present to you, the ultimate Now What? Book. So, you don’t know where to go in your life, now what?

This post is sponsored by: The Pouring Pages

Here to fulfill all your bookish needs, check out the website to get your books, or even to try out one of the cocktail recipes that pair with them.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop Audiobook on Libro.fm

His mood was like a rollercoaster: one moment depressed, then overflowing with optimism. He started talking to himself.

We follow a few characters throughout the book, but there are really two central ones we stick with the most: Yeongju and Minjun. Yeongju was the woman who did everything right until she didn’t. She went to school, got a respectable job, married a decent man, and it was enough until it wasn’t. Symptoms of burnout crept in like a cold breeze through cracked doors: suddenly she didn’t want to go into work anymore, and she couldn’t remember the last time she took a vacation without checking her email. So, she stopped. She quit her job, got a divorce from a man who couldn’t quite understand her, moved and opened a bookshop. Minju was similar. He went to a good school, got great grades, but couldn’t get the job. The idea that everything he did in life was to get to an unattainable goalpost hit him hard, and that’s how he began working as a barista for the Hyunam-dong bookshop.

On Now What?, we have a few episodes about what to do after college, after moving, after getting a job, after losing a job—all of these liminal moments where you have to make a choice about what to do next. 

It’s a part of life nobody really talks about: the in-betweens. It’s filled with uncertainty with little clarity and only the whisper of a path forward. You have to decide what to do next, and that’s the scariest part. When you’ve lived most your life with school, with a clear What To Do, those first few moments of freedom can suffocate you.

That’s the thing about freedom: nobody tells you that it hurts.

Growing up, I was always given high expectations. Good grades weren’t celebrated, they were expected. School wasn’t meant to be something you necessarily loved, but a means to an end. If you went to school and got good grades, you had to go to a good college. You go to a good college, graduate, and get a good job after. When I graduated, my mom was confused about why it was so hard to get a job. At the time, the WGA and SAG strikes were happening, which made it even more difficult.

I interned, unpaid. I did whatever part-time job I could, and all my hobbies turned into work. I kept running, not knowing what I was running to, only that I knew I had to get somewhere. I ran even when I couldn’t afford to eat everyday. When $3 chips replaced breakfast, lunch, and dinner because I couldn’t afford groceries, my wheelchair took me everywhere because I didn’t have the energy to fuel my muscles for a walk.

When I didn’t have work and no money to go out, I stayed inside and read. My salvation against cold winters was my phone flashlight and a blanket next to my radiator because I didn’t want to spend money on the electricity to flicker my lights on. To save me from the thoughts of my own perceived incompetence (because surely, there had to be something wrong with me for me to stray so far from the path I thought I had), I read a book. When I couldn’t talk to friends, I spoke to myself and my dog. We kept each other warm.

When you have thoughts, just hold on to them, see where they take you, and as time passes, you’ll find out if you were right. Never decide right at the start if something is right or wrong.

Yeongju only started the bookstore when she did because it was all she could think about. She didn’t think of it as a long-term thing; in fact, when she hired Minjun, she began his contract stating she wouldn’t know if it would last more than two years. Managing the bookstore was about how to keep it afloat, about helping it find a place, and nothing more. Of course, this mindset shifts as the two years pass. The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop begins hosting events, building a community of regulars, where customers are more like friends. Everyone from the woman knitting in one of the cafe seats to the unhappily married coffee roaster have come with their own stories, disappointments, and now what’s.

Minjun’s arc is more about deconstructing the idea of life he had and reconciling it with what it actually is. When he started working at the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, he was used to casual jobs. He was starting to think maybe that was enough: sleep, yoga, work, rinse and repeat. Maybe it was okay if he went from one casual job to another, and not necessarily traverse the traditional route he’d originally planned. But when that coffee roaster starts teaching him what goes into the beans he roasts every day, he starts to find contentment in being the best he can be for himself. That it was enough to be his best, instead of the world’s.

I talk about my dead mom a lot. I’m aware of this, but it’s only because it changed me so much. I almost don’t recognize who I was before that loss: the girl who was so determined to make it the way I was supposed to, clinging onto the idea of what she should be even when it didn’t feed her. The red “BE POSITIVE” sweater she and I bought together, the same one I wore when I got the news she might not even make it a few days, much less the time it would take for me to book a ticket and make it home. The person I am now had to let go of it.

The rules changed, so I had to, too.

I pivoted to teaching kids, and remembering what it was like when I was one. Then, when it didn’t work for me, I shifted. I remembered the phone calls I had with my mom, when she said she hated working in a company for somebody else. She said her biggest regret was not doing her own thing.

Imagine that: a girl who’s been trying so hard to be like mom, while her mom all the while was wishing she could be more like the girl she raised.

So, I took it to heart and began dreaming of The Pouring Pages. When I quit my job, needing more time to take this idea more seriously, I bet on myself and my lineage. My mom was an incredibly intelligent woman: if I had even half of that, I could figure this out.

Now, I relate a lot more to Yeongju. I wake up and I wonder what the next step is. How do I keep feeding this fire? And what do I want to come out of it? How will I know when my bookstore’s found its place?

There’s meaning in the act of trying (it’s important to ascribe meaning to things!). If the process is enjoyable (albeit difficult!), results shouldn’t be the focus.

It’s okay to not know where things go.

It’s one of the magic of the in-between moments. The water is murky and everybody’s lost the map, but you get through it. You do it without a compass half the time, and you’ve thrown away the plan that led you astray, and for the first time in many of our lives, we’re forced to look at ourselves and as what we want to do, and not what we should.

Success will follow, so long as you stay honest to yourself and the people around you.

Just a page before the quote I pulled above, Minjun is talking to Yeongju about dreams and their place in his life: should life be spent chasing dreams? What if those dreams make you unhappy? What if you’re so busy chasing a dream that life passes by you without you realizing it? And so, Minjun resolves for a more realistic goal: to enjoy living.

Yeongju is on a different page. To her, dreams aren’t devoid of pleasure. You can have a life and chase a dream at the same time, as long as you have the courage to admit that no dream lasts forever and you shouldn’t cling to them. Life is extremely fluid, and it will unfold the way it wants, inconsiderate of whatever plan you have for yourself. She proposes that you can chase your dreams, as long as you give yourself the flexibility to change your mind about what that dream is too.

Eventually, she and Minjun meet in the middle. You can cruise alongside what life has to offer, live it chasing dreams, and let it lead you to the life that’s best suited for you. And whether or not it’s what you originally set out to do, you have to enjoy it as much as you can.

I came to New York City to be an actress, and while I haven’t given up on that dream, I’ve definitely paused it. I will still jump at my chance to hop on a stage or in front of a camera, but I can’t wait by my inbox for my agent to let me know I’ve made it. The thing about acting, too, is that it needs you to have a full life. It’s harder to act when you have no reference to go on. So, while I came to New York City to be an actress, I am a bookstore owner. Because my dream is and always has been to tell stories, to breathe and share them with friends, to collect them like a dragon and its hoard. It’s okay if my original vision hasn’t come true yet; I’m still doing what I love and enjoying the life I have with the people I have in it.

Because it’s our first life, worries are aplenty, and anxiety, too. Because it’s our first life, it’s precious. Because it’s our first life, nobody knows what’ll happen even in five minutes.

The Korean character for hyu in Hyunam-dong Bookshop means rest. The bookshop becomes a safe place for Yeongju, Minjun, and everybody who visits, where all of the uncertainties can fade for a moment. 

It’s essential to be able to take a step back and get lost in a book when you’re in the liminal space of Now What. The same can be said for many hobbies you enjoy, sure, but I’m partial to words within a page. I’ve found they offer me a safe place to reflect and look back at my own journey in conjunction with a character’s. It feels less daunting.

I mean, if Aelin can deal with the loss of her parents, kingdom, and friends and still win the war, I can deal with losing my mom and opening a bookstore, right?

Reading Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop has helped me feel less alone. When I think of it, I think of my own bookshop, and I’d been wondering how I want it to feel too.

And now I know.

I want The Pouring Pages to be what the Hyunam-Dong was to Yeongji and Minjun: a place for in-between lives and second breaths. It’s the feeling of held hands, hugs, and understanding glances.

We all have our own journeys—our lost maps and discarded compasses. For all of you, I hope you hear me when I say this: You are not lost.

You’re just in the in-between.

You will make your way through this. Your story isn’t ending; you’re simply just turning the page, and it’s okay to take your time doing it. We are all just stories in the midst of unfolding.

And what a beautiful thing that is.