I've posted about my mental health issues on Tildes before, 1st post 2nd post.

I reread my other 2 posts before writing this, and I definitely cringed a bit at them. I was not doing good and did not have a real sense of what to include and not. However, I really needed to feel seen and heard, so I also don't regret either of them. I didn't have anyone to open up to in my real life.

I've gotten a much better understanding of what I went through as a kid over the past year. My sister physically and emotional abused me since before I can remember until she left for college, and my parents always ignored it. That's fucked up, and there's nothing wrong with me for being so damaged because of it.

I moved to Portland, and it was definitely the right choose. I can't imagine living in the suburbs again. I went to my first concert, I got my first tattoo. I tried weed for the first time, and it really helps me gain emotional clarity. For first time in my life, I have some real hope for my future.

As the final note, I'd like to thank all the nice people here again; you really did help a scared, lonely kid more then you think.

2020. That's when I met her.

To some of my close friends it sounds silly to them when I tell them we loved each other. It's hard for some people to grasp the intensity that a long distance relationship can have. But I don't have anything to prove to anyone - I truly did love her.

Being with an ace, I thought, would make things more complicated as I am not asexual myself. But if anything it made things simpler. It made the long distance easier to deal with. It made it easier to be patient. Easier to deal with her not being in my life all the time, because when push came to shove, she was in my life when I needed her to be. In fact, she was the main reason I labeled myself as polyamorous this year. I realised that I didn't want to pretend we were just friends anymore. I cared for her too much for that.

In so little time, she changed me into a better person. She taught me subtleties about love, sex, relationships but also about life in general. She helped me through mental struggles. She was my first call when we got my SO’s sister out of Kyiv this year. In fact, the day of the war, we talked for over six hours in a row.

She was always, always positive no matter the challenge. A true constant. Saw the flip side nobody else could see. No matter how ill she would get, she'd always brush it off and get back on her feet. In the two years I knew her, she had never made me cry, and her messages would always put a smile on my face.
Difficulty tends to make people stronger. She's had an incredibly difficult life, and was the toughest person I knew.

None of those challenges defined her. She was not defined by her gender, illness, sexuality. She was defined by her constant, absolute positivity. And her unending love for Korea.

She believed, as I do, that we're all one entity - the universe experiencing itself. That her role here had been to spread love and positivity. I hope everyone here will be lucky enough to meet someone like her, at some point in their life.

She was 30. The world is worse without her in it.