The May Review
Like every month at this point, May was a busy one. Sometimes the world feels like there is not enough time to accomplish the things you want to do. But that is okay and that is life. However as a Ph.D. student, I am really testing my limits to see how much I can handle in the span of 5 years. While life has been very exhilirating and eventful, it has also been a lot of pressure and pain in the sense that I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to. However this is just the reality of my situtation. My goal is to just do my best and if thats not enough than oh well…
This month there are no highlights. This is not true necessarily since I was able to go to North Carolina and see my best friend graduate but sometimes the events of our lives are overshadowed by larger ones. It has been a while since I have felt a deep pain but this was one of those months. Therefore I wanted to share about my life, my side, and my decisions.
One thing I learned this Month
Losing the Most Important Person of my Life (Currently)
I am 22, on the verge of turning 23.
In the past two years, I’ve undergone significant personal growth, leading me to believe that I have lived a fulfilling life. After graduating from college with low confidence and a sense that my life lacked excitement, I vowed to transform my perception of my personal life. I yearned for a life filled with adventure, open to unexpected opportunities, and aimed to maximize my 20’s. Indeed, I feel I have achieved this goal. I have traveled extensively, improved my social skills to interact with diverse individuals, and have begun to live the life I always envisioned.
However, with all these experiences accumulating, I’ve realized that experience does not necessarily equate with maturity. I would like to consider myself mature and wise, yet this is not entirely accurate. It is important to acknowledge my shortcomings rather than pretend to be a persona I have not yet become. This realization of this shortcoming is something really valuable when entereing a relationship.
In September, I met Collette Lee, whom I would describe as my dream girl. I was in love by every aspect of her personality and believed we were deeply compatible—a rarity. Collette, vastly different from me, introduced me to the realms of design and media, and shared insights from her career at Yensa. She is beautiful, reserved, kind, and loved me genuinely for who I am, embracing all my imperfections. Despite being a graduate student with limited resources, she accepted my situation unconditionally. Occasionally, she would astonish me with her intellect, outperforming me on an IQ test. And there were also times where she would not, like when she thought Mt. Everest was in America. However, her mind is a blend of artistic flair and intuitive wisdom, offering me new perspectives on the world. And when I met her, I truly did not want to mess this up. I would always get butterflies before every date and it started rather slow because I was trying too hard to be perfect.
As time grew along, I was in the happiest moments of my life, being with a girl I truly loved. While she wasn’t the best at expressing her love to me, her effort and her actions would always show me that it was there. On days I would work 15 hours, I would go over after a long day and she would just hold me tight providing a sense of comfort that felt so foreign. She never asked for too much and from the start, I knew I wanted to give her the world. She was just that amazing.
However, within me was a sense of doubt and pressure that was piling up as time went on. Things naturally got busier in my Ph.D. and I felt like I was slowly spending less time with her and more time at school. However we would text, facetime, and hangout relatively frequently and this relationship really worked even with my hectic schedule. But just because it worked, that did not mean that things got any easier in my head.
But I think this was fundamentally one of my worst problems. I expressed my concerns with Collette when I felt comfortable, and she still said she would love me and wanted us to be together. She was okay if things slowed down so I could chase my dream and get my degree. She was supportive and so mature for our age to be willing to do that for me. However I from an early age was never to be able to trust. I always see the best in people but deep inside I have always felt I could trust no one. Therefore the precedence in my head was that my thoughts always overrided others. So even someone as important in my life as Collette, could never help me get over this doubt in my head. And for that I was sorry for myself. So even with her accomodation, I told her time and time again that maybe “she had just met me at the wrong time”.
As more time passed, I just felt more under stress. Ironically, it had nothing to do with academics but more about my personal life. I still loved Collette and I truly enjoyed every moment I spent with her. We went on vacations together, and she even introduced me to a bunch of her friends. I felt lucky to get to know her, and her life and everything really was trajecting in a positive direction. Even when things weren’t so great, we always found compromises and I felt like the luckiest man to meet a girl that was the one for me.
But at some point, I hit my breaking point. I made a decision that was terrible and really hurt her. I realized that I could not give her the world and that my life would probably not get easier from here on out. I did things and said things that I am not proud of as a man which ultimately led us to splitting apart. I broke her trust, the idea of a working relationship, her heart, and ultimately her. And this had to be one the saddest moments of my life. I instantly felt regret after, but sometimes the things you do and the things you say have irreversitble consequences. A person I love had everything sucked out of her in an instant, and we again were just strangers in the end.
This month, I learned one of the hardest things about life which is the fact that I am not ready. A part of me has always wanted to grow up, and do adult like things but I simply am not ready. My mind over the last 2 years has been in delusion, thinking that I have to constantly be doing something every second, and that life was always full of events and fireworks. But this perception of the life I wanted to live, was unsustainable and it came at the expense of Collette. What I failed to see was that the only thing I needed was the person who stuck by my side for the last 9 months.
I feel like a failure for letting this one go. This event has hurt me in ways that I cannot describe. How does a person sacrafice a the love of his life who is everything that they ever wanted. Why was I under the illusion, that life always had to be exciting? There were and still are so many questions that I don’t have the answers for but all I know is that Collette is gone. Sometimes crying is not enough to feel better, and that there will probably be a dark void in my heart that will take time and reflection to fill again. I said it to her, and I will tell everyone to hear, but I am sorry to Collette. I am sorry that you had to meet me, a boy under the a spell, who threw away the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Los Angeles has felt a little emptier since Collette and I have split. I don’t know what to do anymore or who it is I have in my life. I question my current motivations and why I wake up in the morning. But life is full of these moments and we have to find ways to continue moving forward. To this date, this was the most important lesson I learned in my life. I realized I needed to build a better sense of trust and belief that there are people who care about me and are accepting of me, even if I cannot return it back to them. I did not know what intimate love had felt like until I met Collette. The way she would tease me, be awkward, and be the most imperfect but perfect girlfriend was everything I ever needed to see. And even if it wasn’t a straightforward love, there were always signs.
She would come pick me up no matter what, she would be clingy with me which was something I loved, she would buy me silly gifts like eye masks so I could sleep better, and the list goes on and on and on. I just want her to hold me one more time and tell me that everything would be okay. But now this is all gone…
I think about her a lot and what will happen to her in the future. She’s awkward and quiet, but she’s also the perfect partner for the right person. I was that right person but I was not ready for her. And because of my mistakes, I will think about her for a really long time. I don’t really see myself wasting another girls time because I do not want to repeat the mistakes I made with Collette. I need time to heal, and grow to become a better man for whoever it is I meet next. But hopefully one day, I can come out a better man and go and find her and beg for her back. I am a pathetic man for thinking this, but she really felt like the one.
But before then I really have some areas where I need to grow. First off my ego needs to die. There is a distinction between confidence and ego, and I think I have primarily ego. Therefore, it is safe to say that this ego is gone. Another area is to limit the distractions in life. Oftentimes when I am stressed, I resort to the easy way out, but I need to become a little stronger mentally to not always take this option. Another huge goal of mine, is learning how to be happy alone. Life is not always about people, friends, and girlfriends. Life is spent a lot of times alone and knowing who I am, what I want, and not feeling doubt. When someone tells me they love me, I need to accept their love. I also need to learn to trust and be honest. My life is not perfect, but a lot of people are not perfect too. Therefore it is okay to be vulnerable, get help when I need it, and not always try to perform calculations in my head that make people happy. And lastly, I need to forgive myself for this. This whole experience hurt so much. I still love Collette. But I have to learn all of the things that I just shared with the world and become a better and more noble man. The whole world is watching me, and my friends, colleagues, and peers all see the lovely side of me. They see I am doing great things so I cannot let them down. My life has always been beyond me so I have to continue working hard to make them all proud.
I am sorry to my friends, and my family for worrying them throughout this time. Truth is, I am still not okay, but I will learn. I will be better. And I will grow to be the good man that I am trying to be.
But to Collette. I am sorry and I will say it again and again and again for the rest of my life if I have to. I wish I could hold you once more like you have held me everytime we were together. I love you and I miss you every day.
My Favorite Photos with Her:
There are so many things I am going to miss about Collette so may these memories rest here…
Quote of the Monthly
“Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.” - Angelina Jolie
Contact
Simon Lee
simonlee711@gmail.com
simonlee711@g.ucla.edu