Letters to Kim Jong-Hyun

i felt worn out in this heat. if you live south in any country i imagine you can relate with me. it was just so unbearably hot and i felt like i was the only one sweating and out of breath, even though all i did was walk. on top of this, my calves are sore from my workout two days ago. (for some reason my right calf is extremely sore, as in my knee buckles when i stand)

in the library, i spent a lot of money on college textbooks that i didn't want to spend. i felt frustrated and cheated by my college. the rain was coming (even though there was 0% chance when i left for today) and i got a migraine. so i listened to jonghyun's music for a bit, and it helped calm me down like it usually does.

but then i started watching a sports game. i was streaming it online because obviously i wasn't home to watch it. i started to work on my online course.

i'm not sure what caused it, but my migraine came back full force. i could hardly concentrate, but i felt so behind in my work (even though this is the 3rd day of class). i keep pushing myself because i had felt that i've wasted my time in the library (in reality, i arrived around 11:15, purchased my books, had two phone calls, and started working around 1:15pm). i felt utterly hopeless, and that i didn't work hard enough and that i should work harder. so i kept pushing. but then i became hungry (all i've had was a salad) and it just made everything worse. so i decide that enough was enough when i realized i was shaking. so i leave the library and to go my dinner (it's only 3:45pm) and make the walk across campus to my dorm.

when i arrive i feel so exhausted and sweaty and tired that i set up my laptop and watched the game and ate. immediately after the first bite, my migraine became bearable. after i finished i took a migraine pill and relaxed a bit. then i opened my fortune cookie.

it read "your best is enough"

and the first thing i thought about was jonghyun saying "you did well" to a fan (the moment when he surprised her at her café job; it's been going around my twitter tl).

and i realized that when i was working in the library, i was overworking myself. i kept thinking about my old roommate who worked hard all day studying. and that i was. comparing how slowly i was working to how quickly she worked.

it hit me that i was doing my best that was my best /for me/ and that i was pushing myself when i would've usually left for the dorm to figure out why i was so worn out. i was drowning myself in everybody's expectations of me and not being the me they don't care to realize.

and maybe i still feel out of it, or maybe it hit me how out of it i was when i decided to listen to a /fortune cookie/ but.

keep at your own pace. listen to your body and what it's telling you. don't push yourself.

even though it is a fortune cookie from panda express, i felt connected to the damn piece of paper.

it reminds me of jonghyun. as if he saw me struggling and decided to take out the old one and slip in this piece of advice.

(im saying this mainly because it wasn't in the cookie itself but hanging out of it)

or maybe i'm still not fine i'm not sure but.