It has been 5 days since my boyfriend has gone to the Korean Military training camp. Being a Korean citizen, it is mandatory for him to serve for 21 months. Since the beginning of our relationship, I have always been aware of this fact and I didn't mind. I knew the duty to one's country is important and that this was something that he was always going to have to do; there was no escaping this. However, what I did not realize is just how much I would miss that guy.
I know that I am an emotional person that gets attached to things and people easily. However, I thought that since I had known about this for a long time and I had been preparing myself mentally to wait for him, I wouldn't be so sad. Man was I wrong. The last week before he left, I think I cried everyday, possibly multiple times a day. On a side note, as a disclaimer, I'm not writing this for pity or to ask for help. This post is mostly just about my feelings on what's going on in my life.
Anyways, as I mentioned before, I was pretty much a mess before he left. He left on November 19th, at 2 pm. The day before and the morning of his leave, I seemed fine on the outside. However, I think this was actually just due to the shock hitting me. Knowing that someone is leaving is different from when it is actually time for them to leave. You can prepare yourself all you want, but when the time comes, it is totally different from what you thought. I really thought that I was going to be okay. I really thought that I would be fine meeting friends and studying. However, I have found that I am not quite okay. We had spent every single day together for so long that it felt almost unreal that now we had absolutely no communication. I think that's the worst part. Not knowing what he's up to or how his life is going is the absolute worst part of this whole experience. Although I know he's strong and is probably doing really well, it's hard not to worry. Yeah, I'm a worrier. I have always been a worrier so I'm not sure why I thought that I could pass this obstacle of not worrying. I worry about his health, his eating habits, the new people he is meeting, and I worry about how tough life must be in the camp. Yeah this is something that all Korean men have to face in their life, but who says that we cannot worry? I'm sure all the soldier's family and friends are worried for them on some level. It just so happens that my level of worry is quite high.
Besides the constant feeling of worrying, I carry a heavy feeling of missing him. As mentioned before, we literally spent all our time together. We studied together, we ate together, we laughed together, we did nothing together. Being in a foreign country, he was my number one go-to person for everything. He helped me, he taught me, he cared for me, and he loved me. I have friends here, thats for sure and although I'm so thankful for their words of encouragement, they were not with me all the time here. They don't know the struggles I've had here and they cannot really give me the same support that he gave me. We were each other's best friend and that is a relationship that is hard to match. I really thought that I would be okay because I had other friends here. I thought that I could busy myself and just live life happily while waiting. However, that dream sounds so "dreamy." Although it is still early, it's only been 5 days, but at the moment I feel so low and down.
I know that I sound like a weak girl that can't live without her boyfriend, and maybe at the moment I am. However, I do not feel like missing someone and being sad about it means I'm weak. Recently, from my crying episodes, people have told me that I need to contain my emotions better and that I cannot be so emotionally weak. I do not agree with this statement. How does crying in public make me weak? In my opinion, crying in public shows that I am strong. Being able to show your true feelings is already a statement in itself, and doing it in public just shows that you actually don't care what others think about you. Not caring about what others think or say about you is something that a mentally strong person is capable of doing. I am not saying that those who hide their feelings well are robots that have no feelings, but I am saying that whose who do show their emotions freely have the same amount of strength. The strength to do something that isn't always thought to be the "right thing."
So, I have allowed myself to be sad. I do not want to force myself to be okay when I'm not because I think that would take an opposite effect on me. How can a forced smile make a difference on the inside? As many of my friends have told me, it's going to take time. This is something that I agree whole-heartedly with. Time has always been such a crazy concept to me. How can time run differently for all of us? Why is it that time goes by faster when we're having fun and it runs so dang slow when we're not? This has always been fascinating to me. Last year, I had a really tough time and I was also quite sad and felt that time would never pass by any faster. Everyone says that time is the best healer, and I know from past experiences that it really is. However, I hate how this time medication takes so long to actually work. I know that time will make me feel better and I know that it will probably make me miss him a little less, but why is it that I have to wait for time to cure me? Why can't time cure me of this worrying and missing now? I actually hate crying and feeling this lump in my throat all the time.
I know the answer. I know that I'm complaining about being sad and how I wish time would go by faster, but in reality, I know why it takes so long. I believe that there is a reason why the time for us to heal takes so long. It is because it takes a long time for a heart to heal and for pain to subdue; it's a process that we need to feel. Feeling something real makes us grow up and learn more about ourselves. If we continue on in life not knowing all our emotions, we will be living without knowing all about ourselves. From new emotions and experiences, we can learn more about what strength is. Picking yourself up from the ground is really the best way of growing up. Things that happen quickly seem to be forgotten easily. When something happens too fast, we tend to not even know how or when it even happened right? But things that hurts deeply and things that cause a long period to get over, is not so easily forgotten. You may forget why the pain was caused, but you will never forget how the pain felt. I believe that this pain of worrying and missing him is something that I need to go through. I have admitted countless amounts of times how sad I am. Admitting that I am sad is not what's wrong. What would be wrong is if I continued to mop around for the next 4 weeks. I have told myself that letting myself be sad in the beginning is the best way to start feeling better. I cannot feel better right away, but knowing that I can feel better in the future is what I'm looking forward to.
Too many times do we try to speed up time and feel better right away. This is not what is actually going to help you. Giving yourself time to be sad is the best gift you can give yourself. Forget everyone that tells you that you need to go out and meet friends right away. How does that help anyone? You are probably going to go out and have a terrible time and make your friends feel bad because you simply are not ready. For example, I was suppose to meet my friend the other night for dinner, but looking in the mirror I knew that I couldn't go. I looked like a zombie and I was just not in the mood to smile and laugh. How could I when I knew my boyfriend was probably having a terrible time too? I wanted to just lay in bed, be sad and, watch Friends. Luckily, my friend totally understood and after my night in bed, I actually did feel a little better.
That time to myself made me understand how much I actually loved my boyfriend. That saying that "you really don't know what you've got until it's gone" is so real. I didn't realize just how much I would miss him and just seeing pictures of him brought tears to my eyes. Missing my boyfriend so much doesn't make me feel like a weak and helpless woman. It actually makes me feel more like a woman with actual real feelings. Having feelings for someone doesn't make you less of your own person. The fact that you love this person just shows that you care enough about yourself to make yourself happy. Love plays a different role in everyone's life, but in my life it is a huge part. Love makes me happy. I don't care if people think that I'm cheesy or stupidly head over heels over a boy. I know I'm cheesy, and I know I'm in love. So what? What's wrong with loving someone so much? People who hate on girls who are in love and the girls who talk about their boyfriends are wrongfully doing so. First of all, their love isn't doing anything harmful to anyone in this world so what's the point in hating on them? I have noticed that girls who openly talk about their boyfriends and their love has become negatively viewed. I always hear people talk about how they want to throw up from the cheesiness or how they "can't even" deal with those girls. I will admit that I use to be one of those people and that is why I know it is a real thing that happens. Everyone is different, every couple is different, and so if it is wrong for us to judge someone by their cover, wouldn't it be just as wrong for us to judge the way they show their affection for their significant other? I think it is actually worse to judge someone by the way their show their affection because affection is dealt with love. Love is something that is good and should not be hidden. Why would we hate one someone just because they're in love? I'm not defending myself from being talked about for being too dramatic and over emotional, I'm defending myself for actually caring about another human being. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what I'm feeling and I don't want to have to apologize for having real feelings. Me being sad, me missing my boyfriend, me even making this post, all is because I have feelings. We shouldn't be taught to hide our feelings just because society deems it weak or not strong. However you deal with your life's situations is your own business, no one else's. So why do we have to worry about how people will perceive our sadness? We don't worry about how people perceive our happiness right? People don't criticize people for being too happy or excited about life so why should we have to fake our sadness to be accepted?
I just want people to understand that the things that people do that make them perceived as weak, is actually not weak at all. We are not belittling ourselves and giving up everything for our significant others. That is something that I feel is misunderstood by many. Some think that by giving your all to someone else makes you forget who you are. Giving your all to someone is something that takes a lot of courage. They can break your heart in a second, but having the strength to realize that and still give them everything is empowering. Making that decision and trusting them is what I believe makes us not weak and makes us much more our own person. I feel empowered knowing that I am capable in trusting someone who can break my heart in an instant. I feel happy knowing that I care about someone just as much as they care about me. I don't feel like I'm losing any part of my life. If anything, I feel like a new part of me has been discovered and I am so happy to have found that new side of me. If you're in love, embrace it! There's nothing to hide. You're not hurting anyone around you so there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You only get a few chances in life to feel love, so why not take it all in and express your feelings? People who are emotional and people who show a lot of affection towards their loved ones are not partaking in any type of harmful action towards others - so there's no reason to talk about them in a negative light.
I know that I will be okay over time. It may be a few more days or another week until I am fully ready to go out and live like before. But slowly and surely I will start to develop an thicker skin that will allow me to live and wait. However, I know that I will always on some level, miss and worry for my boyfriend. I don't want to lie and say that I won't, because that is just not realistic for me. But surely I can try my best, for my and for everyone in my life's sake, to be more okay.
Sorry for this terribly long and "all over the place" post. I just had so many thoughts going on in my head that I needed an outlet to release them all. I'm not sure if this post will flow in a way that people can understand, but all of these thoughts are connected in my head (hope it wasn't too confusing). Thanks for reading, and please let me know your thoughts on anything that I talked about in this post.
from Jackie
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