Joanna Gaines - The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters

The Stories We Tell

Copyright 2022 Joanna Gaines

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The information on is from Carol Graham and Julia Ruiz Pozuelo, Happiness, Stress, and Age: How the U-Curve Varies Across People and Places, Journal of Population Economics 30 (2017): 225264.

ISBN 978-1-4003-3387-5 (HC)

ISBN 978-1-4003-3388-2 (Ebook)

ISBN 978-1-4003-3389-9 (Audio)

Epub Edition September 2022 9781400333882

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on File

Printed in the United States of America

22 23 24 25 26 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents

T he first book I wrote, no one will ever read. I was a senior in college and a broadcast journalism major, so it wasnt entirely unusual that I would take up a writing project. But this book wasnt meant for the masses. It was just for me, and just for that season.

It was the summer of 2000, and Id lined up a pretty decent internship at CBS News in New York City. It was my first time living away from home, and in addition to being a nervous wreck, I was realizing quickly that the world of television news wasnt for me. Most days, Id leave my internship feeling uncertain or just plain homesick. I couldnt make sense of what I wanted for my future, yet as I walked those big city streets, I came upon parts of myself I hadnt been looking for.

I grew up in Rose Hill, Kansas, a small town outside Wichita. As a little girl who happened to be half-Korean, shy, and a little bit self-conscious, I was teased in the same ways a lot of kids get teased at school. There were certain parts of me that anyone could see, parts of my story you could glean from the surface of my skin. I looked different from all the other kids, for one thing. I tried my best to fit in, acting as though I didnt get their jokes about my slanted eyes or hear their whispers when Id opt for rice instead of fries in the cafeteria line. I learned quickly that there were parts of me that could draw attention I wasnt interested in. But that was only at school. At home, I was the proud daughter of a beautiful Korean woman.

Heres the short version of a very complicated yet beautiful love story: My mom met my dad in Korea in 1971. Hed been drafted in the lottery to serve in the Vietnam War in 69. My dad was stationed in Seoul when he met my mother at a party one weekend. They fell in love, and when my dad returned to the States, they wrote letters back and forth, both of them having to use a translator to understand the others written language. A year later, my father mailed my mom a plane ticket with a note attached that said: Will you marry me? If you say no, will you at least mail the ticket back?

A few months later, my mom landed in San Francisco, California, where she married my dad at the justice of the peace. She didnt know any English or anyone else. She was nineteen.

She figured out quickly how to conform to the culture in Kansas. My dad always talks about how fiercely mom worked to learn the culture and the language. She picked up some American ways of livinghow other women dressed and interacted, as well as their mannerisms.

There were not a lot of other mixed-race families in Rose Hill that resembled ours, so it wasnt easy for my mom to feel like she could fit in. Years later, it wasnt easy for me either. I can look back now and see how my mom shaped the life of our family in ways that were unique to her culturebut then, my sisters and I didnt know the difference between a Korean tradition and an American one. We were both, and they were the same. To my sisters and me, our mom seemed as American as all the other kids moms. We adored her the way little girls do. I loved her hair and the way she dressed. I was proud to be her daughter. I never thought of her as different. I didnt even realize that she spoke with an accent until a kid in my class pointed it out to me.

My mom had been helping in my classroom one afternoon when a boy who Id grown used to making fun of me started to laugh and point, and announced, No one can understand your mom when she talks. At first I thought, What is he talking about? My moms voice is normal. It didnt even make sense to me.

Still, I felt a sting of shame rise up, but I didnt fully understand why, so I pushed it back down as quickly as it came and carried on, believing I didnt notice the differences between usand really not noticing that my own beginnings of insecurity were part of the reason I didnt.

That same year, my moms mother left Seoul to come live with us in Kansas. The first time I met her I thought she was so different from my mom. I didnt know what a traditional Korean grandmother was supposed to be like, but mine didnt wear makeup or color her hairI could tell from all the streaks of gray. She wore really simple clothes while my mom was always dressed to the nines. And during the many years she lived with us, she only ever spoke Korean.

As different as they looked to me on the outside, I would learn to see that my mom and grandmother shared a past that ran deeper than anything. The history and heritage between them linked their hearts to a world Id never known.

They went everywhere together. Theyd drop my sisters and me off at school together, help in my classroom together, show up at my track meets side by side. It seemed like the more the other kids saw my grandmother with me, the more convinced they became of how different I was. And being different meant getting called names. It meant eating alone. I grew up thinking I had two options: fit in or be called out. So I dressed the way the other girls dressed. I laughed off insults. I told the other kids my middle name was Ann because it sounded more American than Lea (pronounced Lee). The lies I told out loud, though, werent as harmful as the lies I was letting take root in my heartthat the person I was made to be wasnt good enough, that Id have to learn to push aside the part of my familys history that didnt seem like it fit into the corner of the world I lived in.

As I got older, I watched it play out with my mom as well, in how she pretended not to notice the slow glances at the grocery store or hear the quiet insults under someones breath. So I pretended too.