The Backstory: My First Marriage, Osama Bin Laden, A Punk Rock Coming of Age Story

To understand the chapter of the upcoming Four C’s story, you need a quick prequel.

I married as a teenager in 2012 to a man more than a decade older. Yes, I know. Why? Because I had already declared a civil war at home. After middle-school medals and placements at Bergen Tech and Bergen Academies—catnip to any Korean father—I chose public high school out of principle and teenage spite. Fairview didn’t even have a high school, so I skateboarded and bused to a neighboring one that reliably ranked near the bottom of New Jersey. Consider it field research.

My dad responded by going silent. I responded by breathing for the first time. I retired the “human calculator” identity and picked up skateboarding, tattoos, and bad ideas. You have to understand: In middle school, I was a freak-show. I was in advanced Spanish, told I was Autistic, and bullied relentlessly—I declined skipping a grade. At 88 measly pounds, it would’ve been social suicide. So I decided to do as one does when they decide to live of a life of rebellion: Older boyfriend. Worse ideas. You know the genre.

Junior year, the valedictorian befriended me and rerouted my timeline. I probably should’ve ended up with him, but I left him last minute before Senior Prom to be with my live-in on-again-off-again boyfriend who was expelled by the time he was a Sophomore (you know who you are; I still love you buddy). Valedictorian and I started a debate club. We volunteered. He was the straight-edge student everyone wanted to be—and he ended up with a full ride to Princeton. I was the one rocking the “D.A.R.E” shirt, convincing kids that while I was “infamous”, I was also changing my life—and they could, too! I wrote my way into AP classes with a GPA that hovered around 1.7. I had been suspended thirteen times. Juvie and I were on a first-name basis. CPS knew our doorbell. Luckily, I was a varsity runner in track for a bit, and a pretty decent one. That helped the CarFax.

I surfed couches, foster homes, and sometimes the sidewalk. My grandmother would sneak food to me on the side of my dad’s house like a covert supply line. I discovered essay scholarships, and for the first time words paid rent. Two thousand dollars later I bought, from Craigslist, a “classic” 1984 Saturn with 200,000 miles and exactly two surviving hubcaps.

I realized I could get a mall job that paid real money. I slept in the car and hopped between retail gigs that paid double my McDonald’s wage. Progress looks glamorous from far away and like a trunk full of wrinkled blouses up close. I regularly nicked fruit at Whole Foods, and now I make sure to shop there and pay in full every time.

Then I met my first husband. He was older, stylish, vaguely Middle Eastern with a faint German lilt, and dressed like a runway had fallen in love with him. He was also very certain. “Marry me. Come to Los Angeles. I’ll fix it.” My life at that point was a spreadsheet of unsolved problems. I said yes.

I packed a duffel, hugged the people who still claimed me, and boarded the myth. Suki was moving to Hollywood.

When my grandmother met him, she squinted, smiled, and said, “He’s so handsome. He looks like Osama bin Laden.”

Reader, I married him anyway.