1/29/2026

I don’t want to be here. 2300 Valley St #305. It’s a really nice place. Probably the nicest place i have ever lived and I still cannot stand it here sometimes. Maybe its the fact I always feel like I can’t go anywwhere here, or that i have too much stuff to do, or that im bound here by responsibility and commitments.

I can’t stand it here. this apartment, this city, state, or in the state that I’m in. I literally feel like nowhere is home because I honestly can’t have peace of mind anywhere i go or sleep my weary head at night. I wake up, i do my things and instantly from the moment i wake up anywhere i am at, i hardly ever find peace or support for my days, but often times its frustrated groans, or wake up erik whenever i am away from either all the things i have to do or people telling me that i need to be up for the day. I’m tired. I have had it with nobody - even my own wife will not greet me in the morning 9 times out of 10 but instead i have to worry of how i woke her up during the evening or whatever else did. All i ever wanted was to be in a environment that I felt safe at. Honestly in a wholeness, that has never truly existed - yes, moments and glimpses have, but as soon as i make a mistake, fail to do something, don’t do my part, or act/behave a certain way, that “safety” that I have been told is so ciritical towards my mental health or whatever bullshit this whole things is gone.

I am so irreversibly made known of all my shortcomings, all the time. from little things like snoring or turning in my sleep in which i have become so aware i habitually wake up every 2 or 3 hours because there are no sheets and im shivering in my own bed, i feel like i cannot pull back covers or sheets because of wwaking meghan. i cannot take wrong turns, i cannot accidentally break things. I cannot fuck up and smoke too much or at a wrong time, i get yelled at work for being messy or disorganized. No one really bothers to help me with any of this at a actual level. It’s always why did you take the wrong turn or why are there towels on the floor, or why is this or that still undone?

This all happens while i silently clean up after people, or trying my best to covertly get out of the bed so i can buy groceries to cook dinner, or having to sacrifice my time to take care of things for marriage/work/pet duties and ultimately leaving me with ever growing amount of pressure and actual work to do. I truly feel like i get ZERO help. I honestly want to scream and cry about how i always feel like i cant count on anybody to make lighter of my life. mentally, physically, emotionally, monetarily, career-wise, all of it.

I feel incredibly dismissive and like a bitch. Every time i think about things like this im made to tune out from those “negative perspectives” and focus on all the good/whatever someone does for me in ways that I don’t necessarily care about as it pertains to me.

Yesterday I got into an emotional conversation with meghan becasue she had mentioned that she wanted to cut down on smoking and so she asked me to not smoke around her and to be frank - the expectations were incredibly loose. She said she’s been smoking a lot to help with business and it’s creating mental and physical strains for her and wants to take a break. This is completely fine. I actually didnt really want to. I’m tired. If she can just smoking to cope with busy and what not - does she not thing I’m busy? That I’m never home and she doesnt even understand what its like to not be able to come home after a long day of work? I honestly cannot stand the constant hypocrisy of being told X or Y, but I still don’t even feel 100% confident about telling her something outside of what she wants to hear/do, I say this because she’ll tell me to just say it or communicate, but I’m genuinely sick of her not putting in her owwn weight in how we communicate but always want things done her way. I have time and time and time again told her to please start putting events on the calendar, months ago when i was busy. still not done. I asked her to take some time to drive over to hollywood to pick something up for me. not done. I have asked so many times for her to do something/change this or that to help me. She says ok, and doesnt do it. I asked her to stop leaving clothes and socks outside on the floor. today i found 4 socks, pants 2 underwear and a towel loosely thrown on the floor for me to pick up.

All this that I let pass and smile through because love and commitment and marriage, but honestly where is my grace??? I obviously fucked up and that’s fine, but i probably spent about an hour and a half being made known how failing to not smoke well before she was home led to me labeled as: Doesnt value what meghan says, doesn’t listen, said inflammatory things, cant stay sober because its so hard to be around her - and other things that kept chipping away at who i am and what i do. Yesterday she told me I Cant do anything for her. I spent all day cleaning, walking the dog and cooking. I played about 4 games of league and smoke because I have 5 days left until i wont be home for another week or so?

Does anybody actually care about me? Does anybody actually give a singular fuck? like im tired of feeling like everybody elses issues are so much bigger than mine while forced to care about them. I simply cant. I am growing more resentful each day, not even by design. I spent an extremely fucked up weekend being stuck and having to deal with last minute changes because of weather and try to ship the car on time. I came back and i still did things to make my environment and cohabitation better. I cooked when i was tired. I clean when my back is breaking. Instead of receiving gratitude for what i thought were decent jobs I got yelled at for 2 hrs this week in the midst of me trying to resolve the situation. Im honestly devastated. I broke down and cried several times last night. I was told that I am throwing a “sob fest”.

Imagine if i ever said that to meghan. I cannot see this as anythign besides double standards given the fact that I have been passive with my feelings all this time and i have give “you first you first” mentality with this relationship. I honestly feel sick. absoultely disgusted. Everytime Meghan gets upset, i truly CANNOT express any type of frustration i have or maybe receiving from her. It’s exhausting. I remember saying i want to resolve this with love and with forward progress last night and I received that apologies were not enough, the night was ruined, and that it was all my fault. I can’t do this and something needs to change right now. I unequivocally do not feel like equal partners, AT ALL in this relationship. I still to today feel like my feelings won’t ever be anything more than an accessory to carry when every single constellation in the sky is perfectly in line. outside of that, my physical wellbeing, my emotional sanctity, and how i feel when opposed to what meghan sees or believes fit is pure trash in this relationship. it should not be this way. I have been thinking all week how i can be better and more healthier physically.

8/8/21

It is currently 1:01 AM.

I have so much work to do— I now have to finish editing Grace’s wedding pictures, I hope I am not too late, and that I won’t be distracted too long.

Since I last wrote, a lot has changed. I got fired. I have been telling people that I quit, but the truth is, while debating if I should quit or not, I got fired. The day of, I wanted to quit, I guess it showed. Not much to it. It sucked.

But before that happened, I started dating, Meghan Rose Scott, whom I met on Hinge— a dating app that I was on, because I wanted to fuck girls and mess around. We went on a few dates, I still had my doubts and reservations, but I felt that this was a girl I wanted to date. She intrigued me, comforted me, laughed with me, watched me as I scratched my dick (and my ass) and stuck by me.

There’s been really hard moments. Tomorrow marks four months of us dating, I thought it would be easy; it wasn’t very easy, I’m sure it won’t be easier. We fought a few times, it’d been getting a little harder.

Today, we talked with a lot of inhibitions, at the end of what was something close to two or so hours on facetime. She told me that she wasn’t Christian. A fear I’ve had tucked away for all of our relationship; I was so glad to hear that. She’d told me that she wanted to be a Christian. I’ve seldom felt that type of joy in my heart, I felt truly blessed. Met with a moment I feared for long, I found myself gravitating towards tears that I yearned for. I thanked God that this happened. I felt needed and called, I think this is a reason for me existing to a degree. I am glad.

I felt like a lot of new goals were laid before me. Mayhap not the few that I was looking for, but boy am I thrilled that they are what is ahead of me. This life, these moments, these breaths, they have reason again. I come to the start. I am of old, and becoming new again, Every moment.

In always, Thank You.

12/1/20

8:18 AM

December 1st, it’s really been a year.

With that said, I find myself incredibly confused about most. I move out of my parents’ place in two days. I’ve lived in this room— sometimes confined, other times, absent— a decade spent waking and an eternity in sleep, that’s crazy. Confused about this year, I’ve compromised, changed, progressed, hurt, laughed, cried, and everything. Everything is crazy. Confused about where my heart is, confused about life and the steps, confused about what I want; I’m only twenty five and I seemed to be losing my youth at an alarming rate.

There’s been a lot of dynamics this year, perhaps too much. From relationships, to friends, the will to live, and wanting to not.

Man, what a trip.

I started cussing a lot. I blame no one though. I feel like my adolescence is hitting me now, what’s a second puberty? Is it the quarter life crisis that I jokingly throw around? Hahaha… I recently had a conversation about how I changed. And to some, I haven’t changed a bit, perspective is crazy.

In the midst of this turbulence, today I teared up randomly twice. it’s barely 8:30 in the morning. Erik Kwak is a soft ass bitch. First was listening to the words “잘 할 수 있다는 말도 / 잘 하고 있다는 말도” (I can do well / I am doing well) It’s cheesy as shit, Koreans are pretty cliché, I’m Korean.

The second was whilst watching a Genius video on D Smoke explaining "Black Habits.” I looked up if he was Spanish, he speaks Spanish. I found this— One of his most incomparable artistic appeals is especially bred from this experience, as D captivates his audiences with Spanish bilingualism in his raps. “I still consider myself a teacher,” he says. “I just do it in a different medium now.” I listened as this man explained the hood, I listened to his explanation for his lyrics. it was crazy. I find myself in a place of a little more reprieve now. The irony of finding peace in a tale of anguish is most likely in camaraderie— not that I ever lived in the hood— in knowing that the worst shows itself to us all, in different faces.

I live by this now.

“You throw me to the wolves, Imma come back the leader of the pack.”

11/10/20

10:21 AM

Hello,

I thought I’d create a place where I can keep track of my transitory thoughts, emotions, and a state of my being in writing so that I can keep a record of how I feel at times where I see myself at my lowest, or even at times when I feel like writing down my joys.

With that said, I’m currently not doing too well.

I’ve come to see myself in a place of continual sisyphean efforts; I don’t find comfort in much at the moment. My fear in stagnancy has fully blossomed into reality. At 25, a college graduate, full-time worker, and what I’ve known and seen to this point as an adult, I don’t know if this is what I wanted after all these years. Every year I find myself growing with stress and uncertainty. I’m not sure if I want to start over or stop. This may seem really emotional and fleeting, but I can’t remember when and why I was really happy. Each time I think myself to be content, an equally if not greater sense of gloom and pain seems to revisit. Maybe this is what everyone goes through though— am I so mentally and emotionally unstable to think that I feel more than the average person? I wonder, as I’m hoping for just a few of my problems to disappear, even momentarily.

My negative relationship with my parents, car problems that cost money, not having enough money, wanting to move out but not having enough money, not making enough money, my parents not having money, the fear of stagnancy in my life, the isolation, the insecurities, the uncertainty, what I think is depression and the confirmation I’ll never get, it just seems like a lot. And the more I think about it, the more I can see in my life things I never wanted. Where did it start? How much of this is my fault? Is it my fault? What can I do? What should I do? Every waking moment I’m told to keep my head up and seek comfort in _____. My back grows weary and my eyes wander to a sunken place, I’m having a hard time being optimistic and positive. I am pessimistic by nature. What good is it to find solace and reprieve in things to be let down by whatever will drag me down again? I hate this about myself. The fact that I can’t believe in anything, the lack of motivation that plagues me, the inability to change anything in my life, the constant fuck ups in my life that keep weighing me down, My current and past conditions and how they stop me from the future. I never signed up for it— does everyone hold on to hopelessness in their lifetime? I’m tired of telling myself that it gets better.

Does it?

Each time I’ve told myself “sadness and hurt become less as time passes”, but each trial is heavier and more taxing than the last. What joy does life offer that I need to keep moving on?

I’m not suicidal, I promise. But I do find that sometime I wasn’t born, or that I don’t want to live anymore, that I feel like I would be content if I fell asleep and never awoke.

I have no reason or justification or even the smallest of reasons to as why I’m writing this, it just feels appropriate. I’m not sure if I’m seeking emotional relief or answers from introspection. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel different. I don’t want to write “Hopefully things will be better or my problems will be solved.” I’m tired of hoping.