adulthood is weird. you stop having time for your interests that once brought you so much joy as a teenager and instead, you become overwhelmingly stressed and worried about the next bill or the state of the world we live in.
it’s been years since i’ve used tumblr. it’s been years of not being active in fandoms. it’s been so many years of just growing up and out of my interests i found comfort in. the obsession as you grow older fades, even when you don’t want it to. it happens. and it’s okay if it happens. but i have to say, the care you feel towards the people you found home in doesn’t go away.
i loved kpop, i found a safe haven within the fandoms and groups. nct, especially meant so much to me. mark meant everything. he got me through my darkest moments. mark and nct was genuinely the only thing i found joy in. so much has changed since then.
years of inactivity, i still find out news— nct or other groups. i came out of hiding after hearing the news of mark lee leaving nct. his love, his passion, his ambition, his perseverance. everything you could possibly think of. never in a million years did i think that’d ever happen.
if i were to go back in time to tell my younger self the news, my heart would have shattered into a million of pieces and selfishly wanted him to sacrifice his happiness.
but now, as my mindset changed and i became wiser, i should have seen it coming. mark dedicated and sacrificed his entire teen years and majority of his 20’s to music. to the group(s). to nctzens. absolutely no break. absolutely no control over his childhood. to do what he has done for the past 10+ years is so crazily insane. i should have known he’d eventually feel burnt out.
i’m just here to give my thanks, my kudos, my gratefulness, to mark. it may have been years of not keeping up to date with him, and everything else, but i wanted to share my full support to someone that supported me when i needed it most.
thank you, mark. for everything you’ve showed me. for always managing to put a smile on my face. you deserve to rest— i’m happy you’re finally choosing yourself. whatever it is that you end up doing, whatever it is that you want for your life, i’m positive you will succeed.
reality check towards self: you’re not the only one who grows older; they do too. there comes a point where, as the years go by, they want to stop. they want to start living their lives for themselves. for their future. can’t blame them for that.