A Girl with a Goal

“Life Goals.”

These are the only two words written on the first page of Kelly’s journal.  They’re written at the top, and the rest of the page is completely blank.  I laughed when I saw it.  It amused me to think that this Kelly person sat down, determined to make a list, wrote “Life Goals,” thought about it for a little while, and then decided that she had nothing.  The only thing that would be cooler would be if she wrote the word “none” on the page.  Life Goals: None.  I also liked that she never went back to it.  There was one brief moment when she wanted to make her list, but that passed and she wasn’t interested in silly things like life goals anymore.  At the very least, she could’ve made a goal to make a better list.

The journal belonged to Kelly, who I don’t know and have never met.   I found it the first day I moved into my apartment in Korea.  It was in a drawer under the television.  Despite being the type of person who has no life goals, Kelly kept the apartment up pretty well.  She was very thoughtful and left me a lot of other stuff besides her journal.  I inherited loads of body wash, a yoga mat, two jump ropes, a deck of Indiana Jones Playing Cards, and an extra toilet seat with cartoon bears all over it.  I’m hoping these things were left on purpose.  I wouldn’t want Kelly searching through her possessions upon getting back home and frantically crying, “Where the hell’s my teddy bear toilet seat?!?”

A few pages into her journal, I found a rough draft of Kelly’s resignation letter.  Reading it, I learned that Kelly broke her contract in Korea and went home early.  The letter, written to her principal, says that this was because “a sudden and very urgent problem has arisen.”  It goes on to say, “It was an extremely heartbreaking decision to make {to break the contract}, but at the present I need to be home with my family.”  The letter is pretty vague, but things became much clearer when I read the next pages of Kelly’s journal.

Of course, I had no right to read Kelly’s journal.  It was a nosey thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.    It was too enthralling – especially the letter she had written to someone named “Baha.”  It reads:

“Dear Baha…I’ll probably be sitting next to you when you read this letter…I came back for you, for me, for love.  I come knowing that we may never happen…I want you to know that…I’ll give up most things for you, that’s what you are to me…I made a mistake…Why did I do it?  I have no excuses.  I was weak and selfish.  I was scared…I’m beyond sorry for hurting you…Whatever happens, I love you…I’ll never forget you.  You’re the great love of my life.  Whatever happens, I’m lucky to have had you once.”

The full letter is much longer, and I couldn’t help but be moved by what Kelly wrote.  There really wasn’t a “sudden and very urgent problem” like she told her principal.  No, there was a boy.  There was love, and Kelly (whoever she is) went where her heart wanted her to go.  Thinking about what she wrote, I found myself talking to Baha (whoever he is) in my head – “Take her back, stupid Baha!  She’s sorry!  The girl loves you!  Don’t you understand that?!”

And then I realized that I was reading something written by a stranger, to a stranger.  I knew nothing.  All I had was one letter written by a heartbroken girl.  I couldn’t read the letter and feel the same things Baha would, because he had all the scope and complexity and context that surrounded it.  I thought about love songs and poems in books.  It’s easy for strangers to be moved by the love someone feels towards someone else.  But we never know the reaction of the person the song is written for.  Maybe that person changes the radio station, and maybe Baha throws down the letter.  It’s heartbreaking, in a way, to think that all those songs and poems and things like Kelly’s letter – the things written about love – can move a stranger much more than the person they were intended for. 

In the real world, Kelly didn’t want to write a letter that the guy who moved into her apartment would read and find touching.  She simply wanted to be loved back.  That was her one life goal.  The one she probably meant to write on that blank page, but for whatever reason couldn’t.

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