Thoughts about October 14th, 2019
It's some sort of irony, i think, bittersweet, that as i write this i'm sitting on the same bed in which i used to dream about her when i was younger.
I dreamed about her all the time, asleep or awake, i dreamed about seeing her, meeting her (once i even had a dream about kissing her, which was weirdly cute bc i was 15 and hadn't even kissed anyone). I created so many scenarios in my head, but never in a million years i would've imagined i'd be standing at her funeral.
It is ironic, i've decided. Way more bitter than sweet.
That day i think was the first and so far the only time i've dissociated. Derealization. I felt like i was outside my body, watching this terribly sad, tragic scene developing before me.
I've never had somebody close to me die, so this was the most similar experience i can remember... just a little twisted. On one hand i had all these memories that basically only ever existed in my head, all the times she made me happy when i was maybe at my worst – nobody knew about that, certainly not her, but it still somehow felt like she was taking those memories with her, because i simply had no proof of them (maybe i should've kept my high school notebooks in which her name was literally written all over).
On the other hand... being there... I can't even find the words. Seeing hundreds of young women completely devastated, i have images in my head, actual memories, of girls that were barely able to stand because of how much and how hard they were crying.
It was unbearable to see, really, I literally could not take it and that's how dissociation happened, i couldn't stand to be in my body because i couldn't stand being there. And yet, weirdly, i didn't want to leave... because i didn't want to leave her. I was literally mad at my body for not reacting because that was my only chance to say goodbye to her – the only chance to say anything to her, i was finally meeting her. So i had brought with me a letter, that i completely forgot about once i was there because, again, i was simply not functioning. It was too much to take in.
I had been crying for the entire past two days, yet when i was there i didn't drop a single tear.
To this day i'm not even sure if i was actually there or it was just another dream.
I still have that letter though. I don't dare to open it. It's hers.
It's honestly hard for me to even talk in the third person, because i've talked to her so many times in the past year, i've written a million letters in my head. It's like i'm still daydreaming about her.
One of the hardest things i've had to deal with since then is regret, and sorrow. I hate to even say it. Regret that at one point i stopped paying attention, sorrow that at some point i was kind of mad at her... maybe because everyone else was mad at her. Regret that i took her for granted, even when i got to know, on a surface level, of the struggles she was probably going through. And yet still i wish i had known better. As if that would've made any difference.
Back when it happened, more than now, i remember being just so upset at the thought of somebody that once made me so happy, being in so much pain.
I don't know if i've "come to terms" with it now, but something like that. Maybe i'm just holding on to the idea that she's finally at peace now.
That's what she deserves, peace. She fought really hard, not only against herself and her own struggles but she fought for the things and causes that she believed in and that are so important for so many people and society. I know she made a change, i saw it, i know she IS the change.
I love her. I love her so much.
My Jinri, I'll love you forever.
