Still here.

About two years ago I wrote a post talking about how I wish I could just disappear. Two years have passed since then, and I still feel that way, and I think I’ll stay that way until the day I die. I’ve tried to engage with friends more, but just when they’re about to know something about me I withdraw and go back to the  ” I’m fine” phrase that blocks all attempts at cracking me open and have me show more emotions.

I was told by someone recently that he couldn’t understand me. He said, ” You’re always smiling, and that’s why our friends think you’re happy, but I don’t think you are, your smile has no emotion. I don’t know what you’re thinking behind that smile. You’re always smiling, but you rarely laugh and I’ve never seen you cry. Do you even have emotions?”. I was kind of shocked that somebody had been watching me that much to be able to notice that about me. And what did I do? I for sure didn’t use it as a way to connect with him and talk a little about what I’m thinking. I actually stopped attending events he was at, even as I was arguing with myself that if he had noticed so much, maybe he was the right person to try to talk with and share more of me with him. But as always I ended up alone.

Also this year I lost a very important family member in a very unexpected way and I couldn’t face my friends because they’d see me cry, so I went radio silent for 2 months. I even made up a lie that I’d lost my phone and all their numbers. I literally went and changed my phone plan to make it real. And as I’m not very active on social media, I just didn’t even open any facebook, instagram or twitter feed, and they didn’t find that odd since I’ll only post on any of those things once every 6 months or so. I was also unemployed so I ended up just holing up for two months in my house with no contact besides the occasional delivery from my local supermarket. I sometimes skyped family but mostly just short texts, pretending that I’d had a late night shift so I couldn’t talk. things like that. So yeah I was basically a mole. The thing that got me out of my house was because I’d become bored with the online games, with watching movies, or shows. I was sick of just lying in my bed almost  18 hrs a day without lifting a finger.

And just recently a  death that I felt very deeply in spite of not knowing him at all, was the Korean star SHINee’s Jonghyun’s suicide. I was surprised that he committed suicide, surprised and yet I understood his struggle. I don’t wish to commit suicide myself, not because of the dying part, but because someone will find me and suffer trauma because of me, I wish however to not live very long with myself.

So back to Jonghyun’s suicide and escape from his pain. I hadn’t seen it coming, I had noticed that he was not the 100% sunshine that almost all KPOP artists exude, but he appeared to be working through his depression, his radio talk show was something I listened to at times, and I was always struck by how thoughtful he was and how he tried to cheer  up the people who called the show. He gave sound advise about mental illness and in general you wouldn’t have thought he’d leave us behind as he did. I was surprised that he felt many things that actually resonated with me, his letter to his friend had many things in common to what I’ve thought. And I found that I actually could understand him. He smiled for his fans, on the surface he hid just how bad he was feeling, that in spite of his successes he felt his weaknesses were even stronger. I’ve felt that way too. I’ve smiled always for everybody else, and almost never for me. I’ve felt like a fraud. That even when I work hard all I can think of is all the things that went wrong in spite of what might be termed a success.

In short. I still have a lot of loose strings to tie up in my mind, and I have to believe that someday I’ll feel better, that sometimes the sky is a vibrant blue and not always this pale grey haze that I remember. If there’s anything that has helped me and any good that has come from Jonghyun leaving us is that I’ve seen how his fans have suffered, and how sad I felt to see him gone, that I don’t want to cause my family that kind of heartbreak, and so I’ll continue as I always have with one foot in front of the other, taking each day as it comes, hoping for the day that I can lift my eyes from the ground and see that there is something out there for me.