You try to make your escape, but the blows keep coming...
and as the dust clears away, you start to notice something:
each time a piece crashes down into the floor,
you're a little lighter than just before.
- The Paper Raincoat, Rough Cut
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As far as I am concerned, the first day of 2013 was today -- January 2nd, 2013.
Today, I saw the face of love in many shapes and many forms.
By the end of 2012, I thought of countless acts of love as a thing of hindsight. But my god, I was so wrong.
By the day's end, there was even a point where all I wanted was to rest my face in my palms and tremble in tears at the love from and for my friends. But this was not a moment meant for that. Rather, this was one of inspiration -- in an instant, I re-evaluated my life, my priorities, and remembered the beauty of living in love.
And I realized that it never left my grasp at all.
-+-
Today felt new.
It tasted new -- my first time having citrus lavender tea. The novelty of smelling licorice in my car. My first time witnessing an electrophysiology apparatus. My first time singing U2's "In A Little While" as I drove down I-80 with a co-pilot that knows the lyrics just as well as I do.
We were in my car, driving towards UC Davis, and this was going to be my first time back at that campus since the Break. I jokingly teased, "Okay, if we run into He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and he happens to have some new boo now, you know the plan. You steal her. You just start mad hitting on her and just totally sweep her off her feet. Then we laugh gloriously."
He chuckles, entertained, "I think I'm going to disappoint your expectations, Christa. You're a very... interesting ex-girlfriend. You're a character."
I laugh boisterously at his clear use of euphemism, "It's not spite... it's... justice!"
"So bad break-up, I presume?"
I laughed, "Yeah, he dumped me."
After our electrophysiology training session at UC Davis, I apologized, "Dude, I'm sorry I keep talking about him, it's just that I haven't developed any new memories of this campus in the past two years, so that's the freshest impression I have of this place. ...Okay! You know what? I have decided that from this day forward, UC Davis is now full my fond memories of electrophysiology training with you."
After that, he would spend the rest of the day trolling me. Of course! We got out of training early, and walked around the local mall with our extra time. Suddenly, he pointed in front of us, "Hey... is that him?"
"OH DEAR GOD SWEET BABY JESUS," my arms flung into the air, and I began to scurry aimlessly, as if scurrying would somehow cloak me in a veil of invisibility. It took a weighty moment before I realize he was joking, and I sighed in dear sweet relief.
"So," he ponders, "if that was him... that would've been your first impression, eh? Flailing and running in circles? Totally failed!"
"I hate life," I pout.
"That's a lie," he refutes.
I provide rebuttal, "No! It's... hyperbole, at most."
"No, that's just a lie."
"...Yeeeeeeeee'. ( ─‿‿─ )!!!"
The day would yield many surprises. At the mall, he surprised me and bought me a canister of tea that I've always wanted. He gave me a belated Christmas present, where he made me a mixtape of U2 and Vienna Teng songs -- a mix of his favorites and my favorites. As I skipped through the songs on the CD, I realized that he didn't just include U2's "Walk On", but he included my favorite specific recording of "Walk On" -- the UK single version. As I drove, we sang along to "Beautiful Day" and "In A Little While," and in no shy manner; instead, we soulfully bellowed at the city lights of Sacramento.
These things made it all the more difficult to understand that the mind cannot control what the heart wants. Or, in my case, what it doesn't. Because as the day unfolded, and continued in its amazing details -- he had acquired Vienna Teng's entire discography after my initial recommendation, and he continually remembered details in little stories that I had told him a year ago -- there was one thing that proved stagnant:
I still felt nothing.
My mind told me that this was all amazing. Mind-blowing. When was the last time someone cared for me to this kind of extent? Logically, this was awesome. But it brought me back to a recent conversation that I had with another friend:
"...Wait, so why don't you like this guy again?"
I pursed my lips, "Well, you know how you can't help how you feel about a person? That works on both the positive and the negative. I've thought about it. I mean, he'd be really great to me. But I just can't feel it. I don't know what it is, but I just... can't."
In spite of the many surprises throughout the day, I really shouldn't have been shocked at what happened at the end of the evening. We sit in my car, about to part ways, and he asks, "Can I... take you out on a date sometime?"
This is my first time being asked out on a date -- at least directly, without tip-toeing around phrases like "hang out" and "do something sometime" (halfway during which I think, 'wait.. wait am i on a date? is this a date? did this ho just swindle me into a date? i didn't sign up for this shit, i didn't agree to no date'). I'm taken aback.
I am unsure how to answer, so I give a huge range of responses, from derisive laughter of disbelief to an Almost Yes to a gangsta, "Let's figure shit out first, aiite?"
But I knew that the mind cannot control what the heart wants. I knew that truly, I felt nothing. I finally share words that, once upon a time, broke my heart when I was in his exact position, "But seriously... let me know if I'm ever leading you on. I'm not a bitch."
If it already stung that much to say it, I could only wonder how much it hurt to hear it. The first true steps of the bitter sting of unrequited affection.
What a start to the year.
Oh, 2013! You rascal!
Overcooked =/= extraordinary. Otherwise let's say yes to be positive.