Stay Soft, Stay Open

This episode is about why I want to change this podcast name from Gajok to I Love You, I'm Sorry. It's also about why I named it Gajok in the first place, and the evolution of the podcast since I started recording it in 2021.

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This episode is about how the end of the year comes with a report card, the capitalistic pressures of the holidays, and the importance of thinking about why we do what we do, instead of just blindly doing what everyone else is doing. It's about how corporations benefit off of people's insecurities by making us feel like we're not enough — not cool enough, not rich enough, not successful enough, etc. "If you buy this bag, you'll be cool! If you buy these shoes, you'll be enough!" I'm enough. You're enough. We're enough.

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This episode is about how much I value consistency in relationships.

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This episode is about my morning walks. It's about finding new paths when we can't walk the old paths anymore.

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This episode is about the pressure society subliminally puts on parents to be perfect and in love with parenthood at all times, and how that unrealistic pressure keeps us silent and isolated.

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This episode is about the difficulty of starting after stopping, and how our present self is built on the courage, the hope, and the choices of our past self. I'm here because of last-year Jieun's courage, hope, and the choices she made from a place of courage and hope.

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This episode is about the anticipatory grief and anxiety that comes with September and 아빠's one-year death anniversary, the challenges that come with carrying death and life together during my first year of grief and my first pregnancy, and how surreal it feels to live in the reality that my dad has been dead for an entire year. It's also about the difficulties of surviving September and how the thought of giving birth feels like being an astronaut blasting off into space.

This episode was recorded on September 11, 2024, and it is being released on December 2, 2024.

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This episode is about my mom's visit to New York over Labor Day weekend during the final weeks of my pregnancy.

This episode was recorded on August 30, 2024, and it is being released on December 2, 2024. I was too pregnant to upload it on time!

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This episode is about the power and value of kindness, and how much human goodness I've seen during my pregnancy in the people around me — my neighbors, the hospital staff, the employees at Chipotle. It's also about my 37-week ultrasound appointment and my predictions of what giving birth will be like.

This episode was recorded on August 29, 2024, and it is being released on December 2, 2024. I was too pregnant to upload it on time!

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This episode is about a dream I had at the end of my pregnancy about a baby hawk flying into my childhood home, and the peace and comfort I felt from knowing that this dream was a sign from 아빠 — that he's with me and he's sending our child. It's also about third-trimester nausea, my fraught relationship with God in grief, and the surreal, impending arrival of our first child.

This episode was recorded on August 28, 2024, and it is being released on December 2, 2024. I was too pregnant to upload it on time!

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