Chapter 4.1 – Wearing Many Hats

The Hats We Collect

I have always liked hats.

Baseball caps. Knit hats. Flat caps. The kind you grab on the way out the door without thinking too much about it. Some people collect shoes. Some people collect watches. I guess somewhere along the way, hats became one of my things.

At first, I think I just liked the way they looked. A hat could fit a mood. A season. A place. A baseball cap on a Saturday morning. A winter hat during a New England snowstorm. A flat cap when I wanted to feel a little more put together than I actually was.

But the older I get, the more I realize that hats are not just something we wear on our heads.

Life has a way of handing us hats.

Some we choose.

Some are given to us.

Some we grow into.

Some we do not understand until years later.

And some arrive unexpectedly, at a moment when we thought we already had enough to carry.

I have worn many hats in my life.

Son. Brother. Husband. Father. Friend. Airman. Manager. Employee.

Each one came with its own responsibilities. Each one shaped me in a different way. Some hats felt natural right away. Others took time. Some I wore proudly. Others I did not fully appreciate until much later.

I think everyone collects hats over time.

We all do.

The question becomes what we do with them.

Some people put certain hats on a shelf. Maybe they belonged to an earlier season of life. Maybe they are too painful to wear. Maybe they no longer seem to fit.

Others wear their hats proudly, even when they are heavy.

And then there are those hats we keep nearby because we know they are part of us, even if we are still learning what they mean.

New Hats After Reunion

For Korean adoptees, I think this can become complicated in a very specific way.

Sometimes we are handed hats we never expected to wear.

Some of those hats answer questions.

Others create entirely new ones.

When I reunited with my birth family, it did not replace the life I already had. It did not erase the family who raised me. It did not cancel my responsibilities as a husband, father, son, brother, friend, or employee.

Instead, reunion added more hats.

Reunited Korean adoptee.

Eldest son.

Eldest sibling.

Long-lost Korean son.

Those hats did not come slowly. They arrived all at once.

And I wish I could say I figured out how to wear them gracefully right away.

I did not.

I wish I could say I learned how to put one hat on, take another one off, and move between them easily depending on the situation.

But life does not really work that way.

Sometimes I ask myself why we were only given one head if we are expected to wear so many hats.

I laugh when I say that, but there is truth in it.

Because hats may be a lighthearted image, but the responsibilities behind them are not always light.

When I reunited with my Korean mother and siblings, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I still am. There are days when I think about the fact that reunion happened at all, and it still feels almost impossible to believe.

For so many years, I did not know if I would ever see a photograph of my birth mother. I did not know if I would ever hear her voice. I did not know if I would ever know whether I had siblings.

Then one day, the impossible became real.

I found out I had a Korean mother who had been living with her own questions, her own memories, and her own pain. I found out I had siblings. I found out there was an entire part of my story still alive across the ocean.

I love my Korean mother deeply.

I love my Korean siblings deeply.

Those relationships are not burdens to me.

They are gifts.

They are treasured parts of my life.

But even treasured hats have weight.

That is something I have had to learn.

They All Belong

It is possible to be grateful and overwhelmed at the same time.

It is possible to love deeply and still feel stretched thin.

It is possible to receive something you prayed for, hoped for, or quietly carried in your heart for years, and still not know exactly how to hold it once it arrives.

After reunion, people would sometimes say things that sounded simple.

You just have to choose which role matters most.

You cannot be everything to everyone.

You have to decide which family comes first.

I understand why people say things like that. They are trying to help make something complicated feel manageable.

But I respectfully disagree.

Because these hats belong to me.

They are part of who I am.

I am a father.

I am a husband.

I am a son to two mothers.

I am a brother to siblings in two countries.

None of those roles cancel the others.

They coexist.

Not always neatly.

Not always comfortably.

But they coexist.

That has been one of the hardest and most important lessons of my reunion journey.

For a long time, I think part of me wanted identity to become simpler after reunion. I thought answers would bring clarity. And in many ways, they did. But answers also brought relationships. Relationships brought responsibility. Responsibility brought weight.

And weight requires strength.

Standing Beside My Sister

One of the clearest moments of this came when I left Korea after reconnecting with my birth family.

Before I returned to America, I remember talking with my younger sister. In my mind, I was leaving again. I had my life in the United States. My wife. My children. My job. My responsibilities.

So I asked my younger sister to take care of our mother.

At the time, I think I meant it sincerely. I meant it lovingly. I was asking her to watch over the woman who had given us life, because I was going back across the ocean.

But later, the words stayed with me.

They would not let me go.

Take care of our mother.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized what I had actually done.

I had asked my younger sister to keep wearing a hat she had already been wearing for years.

She did not suddenly become responsible for our mother when I left Korea.

She had already been responsible.

She had already been carrying things I had not seen.

She had already been showing up.

She had already been present.

While I was growing up in America, trying to understand my own life and identity, my younger sister was living hers in Korea. She was not waiting in the background of my story. She was living a full life with her own struggles, responsibilities, and sacrifices.

And somewhere along the way, she had been wearing a hat that should never have belonged to her alone.

That realization hit me hard.

Because I am the eldest son.

In Korean culture, that means something. It carries weight. It carries expectation. It carries responsibility.

But I had been gone.

Not by choice.

Not because I abandoned anyone.

But I was gone.

And in my absence, someone else had to stand in places I never knew existed.

My younger sister did that.

Quietly.

Faithfully.

For years.

She is small in stature, but she has the heart of a warrior.

I do not say that lightly.

There is a strength in her that I admire deeply. It is not loud. It does not need attention. It does not announce itself when it walks into a room.

It just keeps going.

It keeps caring.

It keeps carrying.

And when I finally came back into the family, I think part of me misunderstood what she needed from me.

She was not asking me to replace her.

She was not asking me to take everything off her shoulders.

She was asking me to finally stand beside her.

That is different.

And I am sorry it took me time to understand that.

I am sorry for the years she had to carry what should have been shared.

I am sorry for the moments when I thought I could simply step back into a role without fully understanding what had happened in my absence.

I am sorry for assuming that because I had returned, the hat naturally belonged to me again.

The truth is, she had earned it.

She had lived it.

She had carried it.

And maybe now the work is not about taking the hat away from her.

Maybe the work is about standing next to her and saying, “You do not have to carry this alone anymore.”

A Living Family

That is what reunion has taught me.

It is not just about finding people.

It is about learning how to be in relationship with them.

It is about understanding that while you were missing from their lives, life did not pause.

People grew.

People hurt.

People adapted.

People survived.

People carried responsibilities you may never fully understand.

And when you return, you do not return to an empty space waiting perfectly for you.

You return to a living family.

A family with rhythms.

A family with history.

A family with wounds.

A family with love.

A family that kept moving even while you were gone.

That can be humbling.

It should be humbling.

A Traveling Wardrobe

One of the images that has stayed with me is this idea of a traveling wardrobe.

When I travel to Korea, I do not leave my American hats at home.

When I travel back to America, I do not hang up my Korean hats.

They come with me.

All of them.

Because they are all part of the same person.

Whether I am Andrew or Jong Yoon, I remain both.

I used to wonder if those names belonged to different versions of me. Andrew was the life I knew. Jong Yoon was the life I lost, or maybe the life I was trying to find.

But I do not think about it that way anymore.

Andrew and Jong Yoon are not two separate people competing for space.

They are both me.

One name was given to me in Korea.

One name was given to me in America.

One connects me to my beginning.

One connects me to the life I have lived.

Both matter.

Both belong.

And both carry hats.

The Work of Balance

That is where balance becomes difficult.

Because how do you balance America and Korea?

How do you balance being a father and being a son?

How do you balance being a husband and being an eldest son?

How do you balance work and family?

How do you care for others while still caring for yourself?

I wish I had a clean answer.

I do not.

Balance is still a work in progress for me.

Some days I feel like I am doing okay. Other days, I feel like I am failing someone no matter what I choose.

If I focus on my family here, I worry I am not doing enough for my family in Korea.

If I focus on Korea, I worry I am asking too much of the people closest to me here.

If I work hard, I worry I am not present enough.

If I slow down, I worry I am falling behind.

These are not problems that get solved once and for all.

They are tensions we learn to live with.

And maybe that is part of wearing many hats.

You do not always wear them perfectly.

Sometimes one sits crooked.

Sometimes one falls off.

Sometimes you forget one entirely and have to go back for it.

Sometimes you realize a hat you thought was yours alone is also being worn by someone else.

And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is not take a hat from someone, but help carry the weight of it with them.

A Map with Dotted Lines

That is part of why Haneul matters to me.

Because life for Korean adoptees is rarely a straight road.

There are mountains.

Roadblocks.

Rivers.

Fog.

Unexpected turns.

There are moments when the path disappears completely, and you wonder if you were foolish for believing there was a way forward.

Many people would stop there.

And honestly, no one could blame them.

But Korean adoptees often keep searching for another path.

We look for a bridge.

We look for a trail.

We look for someone who has been there before and can say, “I do not know the whole way, but I know the next few steps.”

That is what I hope Haneul can become.

Not a perfect GPS.

Not a perfect map.

I do not think any organization can promise that.

Our journeys are too personal. Too complicated. Too full of missing pieces, cultural layers, family dynamics, grief, love, timing, and questions.

But maybe Haneul can be a partially completed map.

One with dotted lines.

And I think those dotted lines matter.

Because even an incomplete map can give hope to someone who feels lost.

Sometimes you do not need someone to hand you every answer.

Sometimes you just need to know that a path might exist.

Sometimes you need to know that someone else has stood in a similar fog and kept walking.

Sometimes you need a companion.

Someone who understands that you can love your adoptive family and still long for your birth family.

Someone who understands that reunion can be beautiful and complicated.

Someone who understands that identity is not always a single hat, neatly chosen and easily worn.

Sometimes identity is a stack of hats you are still learning how to balance.

And maybe that is okay.

Keep Walking

Life will continue giving us new hats.

Some will come through joy.

Some through grief.

Some through responsibility.

Some through relationships we never expected.

Some through doors we thought had closed forever.

We may resist them at first.

We may wonder if we are strong enough to wear them.

We may ask why we were given so many.

But over time, we learn.

Not perfectly.

Not all at once.

But gradually.

We learn how to wear them.

We learn how to adjust them.

We learn which ones need care.

We learn which ones have been carried by others for too long.

We learn when to stand up.

We learn when to stand beside.

We learn when to ask for help.

And slowly, these hats become part of our story.

Part of our identity.

Part of who we are.

So to my fellow Haneul Travelers, especially those carrying more than you know how to name, I want you to know this.

You are not alone.

You do not have to figure everything out today.

You do not have to wear every hat perfectly.

You do not have to choose one part of yourself and abandon the rest.

Your story may be complicated.

Your map may still have dotted lines.

Your road may twist through places you never expected.

But there are companions on this journey.

And sometimes, that is enough to keep walking.