Rory and I met on Sunday evening. Earlier that day, I came home from improv training and laid on my bed with the familiar sense of raw anxiety.
During BMT, when we’d queue in formation at Pasir Ris Bus Interchange to wait for our buses to come take us to the ferry terminal, I’d be breathless and giggly and I’d say “wow I’m so excited???” and I would find out in uni that I had anxiety.
When I met her, she was sat next to the river. I sat down too and we made small talk, while I tried to seal my throat with my tonsils to stop my heart from doing that thing they do in Prison Break.
4 canned fruit wines later, we got into really uncomfortable conversation territory where I asked her about “us” again, specifically lamenting how our Telegram conversations seemed so… Lame now.
She was upset, telling me that she thought we went over this already, that she thought our small talk was already going very well and that she was tired of having The Talk every time.
I was morose, of course, but somehow we started to see how we both wanted to reconnect again, and how the weird awkward Telegram convos were there because she wanted to draw boundaries, to stop me from having feelings and making things weird again.
We started laughing a lot about the absurdity of the odd push/pull and how we did miss hanging out.
She told me how hurtful it was to feel like the second banana (I was hopelessly enamoured by XM when I asked her out last year) and I apologised.
I told her about how confusing it was for me, when she said she used to like me and said the opposite the next time we met and she apologised as well.
We stopped being so guarded, and I started to tell her how I really wanted to just be friends again. Well, be friends again first, if it mattered, and she agreed.
I promised to not talk about anything like this for the next year and that I’d assume that she’d never date me ever, which she replied with “I wouldn’t say ever…” but I told her to shut the fuck up and let me focus on the friendship first.
I think we can begin hanging out and just talking shit. I sometimes fear having nothing to say, but I think things aren’t like that for now.
I think our convo’s back to normal. We talked about booking driving lessons. I smiled the whole time.
I don’t know. That feels like… a lot. Honesty really does a whole lot. I don’t know. I still have feelings for her. But I’m not judging my feelings. I’ll just let them stay next to me while I remember how much I love having a friend back.
Oh yeah, Gratitude Lab 1.0 went so fucking well, you guys.
Ping really just… Made a whole fucking workshop which people came for, and took part in wholeheartedly, and left feeling absolutely full.
It’s Gratitude Lab 2.0 next week, then the real exhibition setup shit is gonna start.
God, I’m fucking just… I don’t know.
Be here now.