20th December 2017

Earlier today, I visited Jonghyun's memorial self-organised by a group of Shawols. The memorial was located at a heritage public park in my country.

I didn't know about it until today at about 3+pm. I was already having plans to go out later in the evening. 

My friend sent me the tweet of the memorial and the google form link to register in order to get in as the area is restricted to only residents of the country. To my disappointment, the google form registration has been closed by the time I checked. I already knew by then I was not planning to go. 

Somehow my friend and I ended up walking near the area and unconsciously, I was already very near park where the memorial was going on. I passed by the place and saw some lightsticks and many people were wearing black. I was already wearing black because I wanted to self-commemorate his death. Little did I know I was rightfully dressed up for the memorial even though I had zero plans on going initially. 

I would like to thank my friend who was willing to accompany me and queue up to get into the memorial area despite not registering on google form beforehand and we had to wait for the rest to go in first before we could. We met up after his work ended and he was probably feeling tired but he still decided to stay and actually wore his black jacket to show respect.

Something I regret was not bringing any flowers or writing any notes for him since coming here was not planned at all. I did not have anything to offer to Jonghyun. I only hoped my prayers and words could be reached out to him. Since i arrived at the memorial when it was almost ended, everyone decided to sing Replay together and have 1 minute of silence. Everyone shouted "수고했어"(you've worked hard) at the end and immediately cries were heard. 

At that moment, I started crying. I started questioning, is this even real life? Am I really witnessing all of this? 

In my whole life being a k-pop fangirl since 2010, I've never imagined a day where I would experience something like this in the k-pop industry. I just want to say that SHINee was the first ever group that got me attracted to kpop. I've never knew what are  "ships" or OTPs or any korean slangs or the korean culture or fandom culture until i decided to stan them and create my first ever Twitter account just to get more updates about them. I've never knew about fanfictions until I came across a fan-made youtube video about a SHINee Jongkey story made up of imagined conversations including gifs and short clips of SHINee. I didn't know what was a gif until I discovered a gif of SHINee's Hello Baby and I wanted to find more gifs. That led to my discovery of Tumblr. I didn't know about SM, what it meant or what was it, or any other companies/entertainments until SHINee. I didn't know dating in Korea is taboo and has negative effects/reactions from fans until Jonghyun became the first ever k-pop artist to publicly date but instead got a ton of backlash from his fans.

SHINee was my stepping stone into the realm of K-POP world/industry and I have grown a lot since then. I'm still proud that i'm still a part of this world despite the mocking and negative perceptions from many. 

I'm thankful and glad I actually went to Jonghyun's memorial today. I felt slightly easier and at peace after being surrounded with people who probably had the same feelings and thoughts as me. My mind is slightly better and I feel like I can tweet normally and do my work properly. 

If anyone of you who is reading this feel down, upset, disheartened or depressed, please do not be afraid to drop me a message if you need a listening ear and someone to emphatise with you. I sincerely know how it feels. If you prefer talking somewhere else, drop me a private message here. 

Drink some water and if you think you don't want to do anything today but just lay on your bed and curl yourself up, just so you know there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Be healthy and stay happy.