Churning emotions
First:
To Jonghyun-ah,
You are precious. You are loved. You did so well. Rest well love, until your soul is ready to journey on.
--
I don't know how I'm going to get through the next few days, but I imagine it'll be more of the same. Bursts of laughter and activity, bracketed by silent anger and punctuated by fits of tears. I feel so empty most of the time and I know it's my inability to cope.
But I'm also really alone right now.
Thanks family for abandoning me and not even stopping to check on me. You know, you'd think after the shit week I've had, someone would check in on me?
Let me backtrack -->
1. Full time graduate student who gets betrayed by both a former colleague (who talks shit behind her back and tries to sabotage her work) and by a professor who decides to bully her and let her get harassed by his creepy post-doc.
2. 18+ hour days for last 2+ months, no weekends, barely any breaks, and I'm still not done with the revisions to get this fucking publication out.
3. Cherry on top, get betrayed by another professor who is so insecure that she accuses graduate student of not respecting her, even though I hustled the fuck up to get her the shit she wanted.
Theme of this semester: Don't trust white PIs (and lab people), they will fuck you over because you're, as a POC, not subservient enough for their egos.
And then December 18th rolls around and my cinnamon roll, angel with the heavenly voice, my absolute bias is gone.
I don't even know if there's any point in me keeping up with Kpop anymore, if SHINee is done. They were everything. The reason I got into, the reason I stayed. And after non-stop listening to their music, I can't imagine them ever wanting to sing any of their songs because Jonghyun's voice is everywhere.
Sure, they could record new stuff, but when it comes to concerts, how will they fill the space? The only thing that would work is a stripped down tour, acoustic with new rearrangements of every fucking song.
But every day, every moment, I know I'm mourning him.
And I'm just so angry at my family for dropping the ball when it comes to supporting me. It's fucking Christmas' Eve and I'm in lab alone.
Aren't the holidays supposed to be spent with your family?
It's times like this that I remember how easy it is for everyone around me to forget about me. I was too quiet as a child, too independent. Didn't ask for much, didn't demand attention, so they never had to put any effort in. And now, they don't even care that I might need it.
And I wonder why I reached out to Jonghyun. Why his voice, his music, his being meant so much to me?
Because he was a kindred spirit.
And so I'm back to mourning and feeling alone again.
I don't blame him. No, I understand the depths of his despair and why it was the option he took. I know, I lived in that kind of hole. The only tragedy is that it was him who pulled me out of that, and I couldn't return the favor. So I feel like this guilt and grief of failure and loss. I know, rationally, that there was nothing that I, an international fan, could've done to help him. But I can't help but wish that when the depression and insomnia got so bad, that he'd come to the US or UK. Somewhere that he wouldn't have been treated with the whole "get over it" mentality that SK is notorious for. I wish that people had taken his troubles seriously. I wish that they had done more, but wishes are just that. Wishes.
He's not coming back and it destroys me to type that.