Dear Mina,
Do you remember the day we met? It was back in April when I was stuck in quarantine, hanging out on Twitter all day all night. I just decided to responded to a thread on Twitter, which you just happened to see it. We became friends instantly since that day. I remember you DMed me to tell me that you won’t be so active on Twitter and that I shouldn’t follow you because I’d just be disappointed. Would I?
Isn’t it kinda funny that even though we met on stan twit, we barely talked to each other about KPOP? I loved that we’d share with each other how our day went, and our worries about being a young teacher. Honestly, I was still trying to figure out your complicated life. It seemed like so much was going on, but I wasn’t much of a talker so I was too afraid to seem nosey to ask you too many questions. But I still really wanted to hear all the things you’d tell me. It was always an eye opener.
I still remembered the voice challenge that you encouraged me to do. You have such a cute voice and I love the way you pronounced words. Speaking of which, I always thought it was so cool how you’re so multi-cultured. I remember you told me about how many times you’ve moved in life and all the places you lived in before you ended up in SG. I mean heck, you can speak 6 languages. I have SO MUCH respect for you on that. I wished that you took some time to get to know me better, then you’d understand why I always ‘fangirled’ so hard over that fact.
The time we had on Twitter was so much fun. You were the first and few people I felt very close to, and I genuinely wanted to visit you one day. I felt like we both saw the KPOP world under the same lens (that love/hate thing). I still remember how I wanted you to show me the world of cup sleeve events and ETC. When you told me about them, I thought about how I wanted to go to one with you one day. Remember how that’s when we exchanged address so we can become penpals?
Then May rolled around and I just got more and more anxious about work. You, on the other hand, would always take the time out of your busy day to remind me to take good care of myself. I really appreciated that. In fact, I still remember the day I received your letter. I was on the verge of breaking down, but your letter gave me so much reassurance. It help push me forward day by day. I’ve been meaning to reply to your letter, but June and July kept me extremely busy day by day, I wasn’t able to prepare a nice letter package that would be worthy of your time so I kept putting it off.
Then one day you disappeared.
I don’t know if you’d believe me on this but, I noticed right away. After all, despite how I seems on the outside, I’m actually quite shy and I don’t talk to that many people in private. I wanted to message you but I noticed that I wasn’t able to find you on my list anymore.
After a few days, I was able to get your email through Recine but I thought that if you decided to take a break from Twitter, perhaps, you wanted to take a break from me as well. I didn’t want to bother you so I decided to finally send you the overdue reply via snail mail. It truly was a snail mail because it was over a month and I still didn’t hear back from you…
「How are you?」
It was as simple as that, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry I didn’t reach out to you when you needed me the most.
I received your mail this past Thursday and do you know how many times I read it? I mean, aside from the fact that it took me a couple tries to decipher your doctor-like hand writing (as you would put it), I was also in so much shock. To be honest, I’m so mad at you that you’re not able to see how much I actually care about you. I really really really do. I wish you could have seen how I see you through my eyes. Even after the big misunderstanding we had, all I wanted was for you to be happy. I didn’t care if you hated me, if it meant that you’d be happy– I was fine with that. I decided to distance myself from you but leave my communication open in case you needed me. I know you knew where to find me.
I was so happy the day you reached out to me after finally receiving my long lost letter. I thought that we overcame a big obstacle together and we could finally be honest with each other. The chats we had during that short period of time were one of my happiest moments. But things started to go down hill. I feel like the kinder I was to you, the more you hated it. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to be a better friend to you.
Why was I too late? What do you mean that it’s a pity that we couldn’t have more time? It really didn’t have to end this way. It really didn’t…
But at the end of it all you have made your decision and I’m very sad about it. All there is left for me to do is keep you in my memory for a very long time. I don’t have to prove it to anyone but myself that you really did mean a lot to me even though we only knew each other for a short period of time. I’ll take your advice to heart and not hesitate to reach out to the people I care about anymore. I won’t ignore people’s messages anymore. I’ll reply to people as soon as I can. I’ll put more effort in keeping in touch with friends. I’ll do my best to not lose my friends anymore…
I hope that you are finally happy now. When you’re ready for life again, I hope you’ll reborn with all the things you always wished for surrounded by love and joy every day.
May you rest in peace.
Wilda aka Mana
P.S. Even after all of this, I still don’t regret the day we met.
Thank you for being my friend. I miss you dearly….
