Carrier, london, everyday
23 kg. This is the number that is based on free baggage when boarding an international flight. Last winter, I picked up an impending carrier weighing 23kg to move my accommodation from London with my mom. And I went down the narrow stairs of the subway where about 1 person could stand. I started to go down with confidence that 23kg was nothing among the countless people going down the subway. Oh, but… Suddenly, the carrier only felt heavy, and the strength fell from my hand. At that moment, I sat down there, and at that moment, the foreigners who were following me didn’t know what to do. My face began to blush, and the embarrassment of my mother who was following me began to feel in my back.
Do you need help?
A word that can be heard clearly then. A foreign uncle who was following me reached out to me and gave me a carrier. And the person behind him also passed the stairs safely, carrying her mother’s small suitcase together. It was a moment when I felt kindness that I had never felt on the 4th day of the trip.
In fact, I thought 23kg was nothing.
When I was in my twenties, until I faced the situation in London, I thought 23kg was nothing. 23kg was a very common weight for me. I knew the heaviness of that weight faster than anyone else.
When I was in high school, I had to go through three courses in order to go down to my hometown once a month and often every two weeks. It was a high school in Gapyeong- Seoul Station-Dongdaegu Station-Hometown. At this time, the transportation I had to use was a school shuttle bus, KTX, and a subway to go home or a car for my father and mother.
Whenever there was a concern for me, it was “How do I carry my luggage?” Especially when I had to go to Seoul to do external activities or volunteer activities on weekends outside my hometown, I was worried before the weekend came. Because there is no place to sleep, I had to go to a’friend’s house’ or’My sister’s home’, which was stressful because of poor relationships, and I had to go to the unfamiliar Seoul subway with that heavy carrier and live a wandering life.
In my second year of high school, it was the same on any weekend. I, who supported the’Musical Reporters’ saying that I would do external activities, had to go to Seoul instead of the dormitory on the weekend for the activities. I didn’t have a good place to sleep, so I decided to stay in my sister’s own room. The road to the shuttle bus stop after finishing the weekend activities and returning to school. On that day, my carrier was exceptionally heavy. What I heard so much, the road to the shuttle bus stop with a whine was unusually sad and difficult along that day. It was an unusually difficult day because I was trying to carry another luggage called a carrier in a place where it was difficult to get on the bus from my sister’s house, which was located at the end of Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, and transfer to another bus. That night when I safely returned to school, my arms started to ache. That day was the beginning of my daily life when I went up and down the stairs with my suitcase, and since no one carried my luggage, the weight of my daily life seemed to increase.
Despite such weight, I always showed confidence in lifting a carrier. Whenever I hear something heavy in a group life, I replied with a bright smile, saying, “It’s okay, I’ve moved a lot of carriers since I was a kid.
By the way. In that city of London, I realized that I had lived with a great illusion of this weight. At the moment that made my face reddish from the weight of 23kg, I felt that I was really’pretending to be strong’. I must have needed someone to lift the weight of my life. I might have rationalized it as’light’. When I was a child, the appearance of denying my heaviness passed through my mind, and it was a moment when I thought I wanted to reveal the weight of my daily life to somebody. Why was an 18-year-old high school student carrying so much weight alone?