I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air.
So, there.

- Lorde, Team

-+-

This Thanksgiving was the first time that I didn't spend the fourth Thursday of November with my own family.  I'm used to a modest dinner of Filipino food, half of the food cold from sitting at the dinner table since being cooked early that morning, but still tasting of love and care.  I'm used to going to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or the mall with my family for the incredible Black Friday extravaganza.  This year was different.

This year, on Thanksgiving, I woke up in the familiar spot, where I used to wake up everyday during that long summer.  In the early afternoon, I opened my eyes to the sight of his high school senior portrait resting on his desk, his throngs of books, his various pieces of bacon memorabilia.  I felt his hand around my waist, and for that instant, it almost felt like these last few months of living thousands of miles apart never even happened.  I rolled over to wrap my arm around him, and his eyes fluttered open while his mouth uttered a groan of exhaustion.

I asked, although I already knew the answer, "Do you want to wake up yet?"

In response, he grabbed me and restored us to our previous sleeping positions.  He punctuated with a simple, "No," and we fell back asleep, entwined.

Throughout the week, there were little moments like this.  Moments where he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in, and I saw a glimpse of our past together.  But as a whole, these moments were fleeting.  As a whole, the week was far from being reminiscent of our wonderful summer together.  As a whole, it was clear that we were dying.  That is, if we weren't dead already.

I spent Tuesday night meeting his oldest sister, who invited me to her wedding next May.  Wednesday evening, I spent dinner with him and his family.  I spent Wednesday late-night with his friends at the same beach where we first kissed.  I spent Thursday night meeting his aunts, uncles, grandparents at Thanksgiving dinner.  Friday night, we again spent time with his friends.  On paper, it sounds like an amazing, intimate week.  But by early morning on Friday, when we were supposed to be falling asleep, I was sobbing in his arms.

In response to my weeping, he implored, "You have to talk to me."

I wept, "How am I supposed to end up like these girls who you've been with, and you ask them to hang out whenever you're in town, and then you just act like nothing ever happened?  How am I supposed to become friends with you and pretend that nothing ever happened between us?"

"I don't know.  We don't... have to pretend we never happened," he stammered, looking for the right words.  His arms tightened around me, "I don't want to think about that yet."

I waited for my crying to die down, and explained, "We're never going to be the same again.  We're never going back to the way it used to be.  I know it, and I accept it, but... I miss it."

He sighed, "The circumstances are different. I know it sucks..."

We agreed that our attachment to each other had severely deteriorated.  He asked how my life was, citing that I wasn't emotionally healthy when I saw him at Georgia (i.e. my lovesickness for him), and I was offended that he described my missing him as some sort of emotional illness.  From there, my sadness increasingly transformed into frustration.

He went on to explain that he'll always care about me, when I started becoming truly upset.  I, too, heaved a sigh, "Please, don't comfort me.  I really do appreciate that you want to comfort me, but it's just absurd that you're giving me this talk again."

He replied, "I know I shouldn't comfort you, but I just want to say that it's normal.  It's normal to be upset about this."

"I know," I told him.

I tried to tell him more about my thoughts on the week, when he interjected, "Can we not talk about this anymore?"

I fell quiet, and silently rolled back to my side.  He put his hand on my shoulder, "I didn't mean it that way.  It's just... it's late, and I feel like we talked about all we need to talk about."

"I know."

With that, we fell asleep, and we never mentioned it again.

By Saturday, we were two distant people sitting under the same roof.  We didn't have any last dinner together.  No last date, no final celebration before he left.  He cutely requested a night with just the guys for his last day in San Diego, clarifying with everyone that he was "kicking out Christa for Bro Night," which I completely understood and admired.  But my eyebrows admittedly rose when he promptly invited a slurry of girls to said Bro Night, even publishing a Facebook status publicly announcing the location of his bonfire party, inviting as many people as possible to show up -- an invitation extended to everyone in the vicinity... except for strictly and specifically: me.

Honestly?  Maybe, at another time, I would've become some varied level of jealous, or I would've expressed how strangely he went about this -- even if he had at least not called it a "bro night" before inviting all the girls, that would've been enough to quell any red flags for me -- but by Saturday night, my attitude had already blossomed into, "Well, fuck that."

Let me lend more understanding of what happened throughout the week that escalated into my apathy.

I have always been fine with (and even thoroughly enjoyed) the way he would always incessantly troll me, playfully insult me, and poke fun of me.  Behind it all, I always knew that he really liked me and cared about me.  He would punctuate each prank with an affectionate hug or kiss, and he would never fail to reaffirm my importance in his life.  Throughout Thanksgiving week, the scale felt absurdly off-balance.  He playfully slapped me around, and followed it with no redeeming qualities.  He insulted me non-stop, and punctuated it with only laughter.  When we were with his circle of friends, where he used to hold me by the waist with ridiculous amounts of affection, he instead sat with his back facing me, and I felt more like the stranger in the room than I did when I first met any of them.  (When I expressed to him on Friday night that I missed the way he would hold my hand and hold me by the waist, he simply explained, "C'mon, that's PDA," and I restrained myself from snapping at him that I was the one that was anti-PDA before I met him.  During summer, he literally apologized to me for holding me all the time.  It's a dumb point of critique, but it bothered me.)  It was quickly getting to the point where I was questioning how much of it was done jokingly, and how much did he actually care about me behind all of the playful punches.

At one point on Thursday night, he asked, "Can you get me some water?"

I fished for a Please? when he jokingly replaced it with, "Bitch."

I smiled through my sigh, feeling my back crush under this last straw, and I apathetically grabbed the empty cup from his hand, "I think I hate you a little."

When I came back with a full glass of water, his expression seemed permanently set in puppy-dog eyes, "Do you actually hate me?"

I'm a lot of things, but I'm not one to lie.  "Uh, kinda."

He understandably replies, "whyyyy"

I told him earnestly, "You've been really mean to me since you got here.  And I even like it when you troll me, 'cos I think it's hilarious, but you've been, like... especially mean to me since you got here."

For the rest of the night, he made a deliberate effort to show that he still cares, but we fell out of it again by Friday night.  When we walked back to my car Friday night, I told him, "You keep being really mean to me, and I'm getting kind of sick of it."

He beat himself up about it, "I just... I didn't want to give you any expectations... but I should be treating you better.  I can treat you better."

I quietly thought, 'Well, I sure don't have any expectations, that's for sure.  So, good job there.'

His finals are next week, and he'll be back in San Diego soon.  I don't even know if I'm excited for it.  Maybe when he comes back, we'll be full-fledged friends.  We parted ways on a strange note.  In the morning, he was exhausted and grouchy from "Bro Night."  I don't even think we kissed at the airport.  It's strange watching us decline so readily.  We've barely exchanged a handful of texts since he left -- we used to webcam/text/call all the time.  I can't help but truly feel like I'm watching something, well... die.

I used to have such optimism for the two of us.  I used to see the world in pink.

Now, I just hope that at the end of this, there will be enough left to salvage a friendship out of the wreckage.

We fell asleep in our three-day clothes,
one tilted head on the other...

- Vienna Teng, Flyweight Love

-+-

-- "We'll fix this lab!"
"Looks like you and me gotta, Christa!"

...

"It's like you have a Robin to your Batman!  Or... ube ice cream to your Halo-Halo!"

-+-

How do two people meet each other?

More specifically, what happens in that transition between "strangers" and "lovers"? When two people first make eye contact, and, unbeknownst to them, lay their eyes upon the person that they would someday marry? When do two people become two independent souls in a world full of people, only to somehow end up absolutely intertwined with each other?

It's a strange feeling for me to have questions like these. Primarily, it’s because I feel so oddly detached from my own daydreams. As a single woman (albeit, as you may have read, a single woman with a more complex love life than she'd like), you’d think I would take these questions more personally. All things considered, maybe I should feel a little more lovesick about this. I’ll admit -- at times, I can feel quite lovesick. Yet, not about this. When my emotions reign free, it’s typically unrelated to this perplexing question. How do two people meet each other? When it comes to this, a larger part of me wonders about it in the same way that a scientist wonders about the mysterious role of ORMDL-3 in asthma pathology. Part of me wonders in the same way a bioengineer wonders about the single-cell behavior of transfused blood cells versus host blood cells.

How do two people meet each other?

I have been wondering about this ever since I was asked that million-dollar question out in Georgia, almost a lifetime ago. Out of everything that we said during our heavy-hearted conversation, I’m surprised by which sentence ultimately stuck with me the most:

“You really don’t think you’ll meet someone else?”

We were sitting on his bed in Georgia, and we had just talked about dating other people – he gingerly tiptoed around his great ambition to “have fun,” while I tried to convey that, in contrast, I’m personally not interested in dating around. I’m at that point in my life where I feel like I’m done playing games, so I’m not spending my time actively seeking someone else to be involved with; I can be fully content on my own, so my current priorities involve finding neither a husband nor a piece of ass. After all, I was with him because I liked him, not just because I wanted to be with someone. (Edit: Reading this post over, I think it's worth apologizing that my wording sounds like absurdly self-righteous, victimizing logic.  I'm still deciding if it was just my wording that's absurd.)

“It may be hard to believe at times,” I laughed, bittersweetly, “but I am, inherently, a good girl.”

He took my explanation as a lack of personal belief that I’ll ever find someone else. A reasonable misinterpretation, but it resulted in a curious question. The simple, sincere inquiry of, “You really don’t think you’ll meet someone else?”

I can half-shyly admit that the concept is not at all foreign to me. You meet someone, you flirt, and you hit it off from there. When that's over, you move on. Easy peasy. During my Crazy Extroverted Girl phase, I practically had it down to a science.  Yet, that singular question completely transformed “dating” for me into something strange and bizarre.

For starters: if I were to gamble on the claim, “Someday, I will date someone,” or even on the statement, “Someday, I will marry someone,” it is actually quite safe to go all-in on either of these bets. Looking everywhere and seeing little children all around, seeing people holding hands, seeing wedding rings on fingers – it’s actually enough to extrapolate that at some point (when armed with at least good hygiene and some degree of gung-ho steadfastness), it is entirely feasible that everyone can find someone else to call their own. Moreover, it is completely reasonable to suppose that someday, one of these people will be me.

Yet, it’s that exact scenario that strikes me as incredibly strange. When people believe they’re going to meet “The One,” is it a case of faith, or is it a case of treating love as a slot machine? Is it belief in Cupid, or is it belief that the ball will land on red in a game of roulette?

What is a gamble on love? What is a gamble on attraction, even? What about it makes it so simple that the question of whether I think I’ll “meet someone” can be treated with such nonchalance, to be stated so matter-of-factly? Essentially, the bet is this: someone out there -- who is currently a complete stranger, who is only one person out of billions of people -- will somehow cross paths with me, and we will become completely smitten with each other. Somewhere out there, there is a total stranger who will someday be the father of my children.

Clearly, this is a gamble completely unlike getting $10 back on a $5 bet. This is a gamble on getting butterflies in my tummy for someone who is essentially nonexistent. This is a gamble that somewhere in the world, there is a nameless person who I’ll someday want to spend the rest of my life with. When spelled out like this, having faith that I’ll “meet someone” just sounds completely bizarre. Nearly every component of the nuances that eventually lead to love – they’re all extremely dynamic and unpredictable. I don’t get how people gamble so readily on such an indefinable, intangible idea. I mean, I’ve personally experienced the steps to love, and I still don’t get it. And, yet -- I, too, would still go all-in on that bet, every time. It’s mind-boggling how something so complex can be so innocently summed up in the statement, “You really don’t think you’ll meet someone else?”

So what is a gamble on love?

There are times where I spend a lot of time wondering about this. Then, I would realize that my introverted, reflective daydreams start going in a stupid direction when my mind finds the tangent, “On that note, how do penguins meet each other? All they do is make eye contact with each other, give each other rocks as presents, then somehow pair-bond for life…”

Then I think, “This is getting really dumb.”

And it’s always that same tangent. Somehow, it’s never about prairie voles, swans, or other species that also demonstrate incredible pair-bonding. It’s always penguins. And then I stop thinking about the topic entirely until next time.

Kind of like how after just blogging about this topic for long enough, I am now thinking, “How DO penguins meet each other?” and am now Googling it extensively.

…. Ok I have to stop writing, I’m gonna read up on penguin pair-bonding now

</anticlimactic end to post>

“I used to feel so alone in the city.  All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside.  Because how do you meet a new person?  I was very stunned by this for many years.  And then I realized, you just say, 'Hi.'  They may ignore you.  Or you may marry them.  And that possibility is worth that one word.” - Augusten Burroughs

The San Diego mantra. I've mentioned it on my Tumblr and my Facebook, but it's relevant enough that I thought it was time to etch it here, too.

-+-

conversation with an undergrad on 11/7:

-- "Good news! So I've now been working here for exactly one month. I guess I'm not going to get fired!"
"I don't think that was ever the plan, Christa."
-- "I'M STILL STOKED, YAY"

-+-

There's a fine balance between being alone and being lonely.

For me, that balance is now incredibly salient. As a working girl in the big city of San Diego, most of my loved ones are now hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. It's something that I've read about in Young Adult novels. It's something that I've watched about in romantic comedies. Of course, moving somewhere and starting a new life -- this is an enormously common occurrence. At some point, it happens to most people, if not everyone. It's just now my turn to take a stroll down the catwalk.

Now that I'm in the big grown-up world of careers and manifestations of life goals, I've found that relocating for a job puts a lot more stress on that social balance than when relocating between schools or when moving out to college. When it comes to education, like when I moved to Sacramento for high school or moved to Merced for undergrad, school all but guarantees that you'll be thrown into a pond full of other fish to meet and swim with. You are constantly surrounded by classmates going through identical learning experiences and share similar goals. Even when I was extraordinarily depressed and antisocial my first two years of college, I still met my would-be housemate in my General Chemistry laboratory class. I still met many people in a variety of classes and undergraduate clubs and societies. In fact, with group activities in most of my courses, sometimes it would even be hard not to meet people. It was my own personal shyness and my own preference of "uh do i feel like making friends or would i rather stare at the floor quietly" that dictated my interactions more than whether there was adequate opportunity. By the time that I reached that fledgling stage in my life where I made a complete 180 from "Anonymous Shy Girl That Only Wanted to Online Chat With Her Long Distance Boyfriend and Nothing Else" to "MAKE ALL THE FRIENDS," the tightly interwoven web of a small college community made it incredibly accessible to transform from a nameless introvert to a social butterfly.  Even after I came back down from that crazy extroverted girl to a more balanced, less forceful self that's more comfortable with her skin and her social attitude, my grounding and my lessons remained valid, and I developed some fantastic, genuine friendships.  Though it's been more than half a year since graduation and we're all relatively far from each other, we still try to regularly update one another, and we continue to plan our future reunions.

Now, conducting research as a lab manager in the huge city of San Diego, at an enormous campus compared to humble UCM, I feel like the social rule book has been thrown out. Even though I'm not a student, I still feel myself becoming one tiny fish in a giant ocean of people. It's hard to have a proper conversation when everything moves in waves and blurs. Where people come and go, faster than the blink of an eye. Moreover, although I walk down the streets surrounded by others, work itself feels like a social fishbowl. I mean, I'm developing a decent rapport with my co-workers, which is good. However, I'm primarily BFFs with my lab computer and my lab bench, who I hang out with Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm.

It's been two months since Jacob -- the last SURF intern standing -- left San Diego. In both of my summer experiences in San Diego, I was on a social island. After all, put 16 people from all over the country together in the same apartment complex, and of course it would be natural for us SURF interns to cling together, to explore San Diego as a unit. However, as summer came to an end, they all had to leave, while I stayed behind. The members of my undergraduate research dream team are now in Maryland, New Hampshire, Georgia.  Effectively, since then, my life in San Diego -- professionally and socially -- hit a giant Reset button. I've been living here for a total of nine months, and the sights and streets are increasingly familiar; I can tell you all about the cultures and reputations of the many distinct neighborhoods of San Diego, and I can take you to a bunch of great places to eat. Other than that, I feel like I've just arrived. As I wrote to a pen-pal online, "My work situation feels like I'm both very new and mildly old to San Diego at the same time."

Currently, I am now at that point where I am straddling the line between alone and lonely.

Many people at UC Merced knew me as some outgoing off-the-wall social beast, while others know me as a quaint, respectful listener. Empirically, the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator describes me as 51% extroverted and 49% introverted in the "attitude" domain. I was like, "ooo yeah that's cool bro," but over the past few months in San Diego, I've really started to get it. There are days where I'll gladly chat up any friendly person on the bus on my way to work, or I'll ask to sit next to someone at the food court and have small conversation throughout my hour-long lunch break. I'll be the one to ask, "Let's keep in touch!" to people that I sit next to in scientific seminars, and I'll be the one to provide my e-mail address or phone number before walking away. Then, there are other days where all I really crave is to be alone in my room and read a good book, or to go down Clairemont Mesa Blvd and enjoy a quiet, relaxing cup of hot boba tea. There are days where I only want the company of the sun as it sets behind the Pacific Ocean, and to enjoy the beauty of having a beach-side cliff all to myself.  I've been making acquaintances here and there, and I have two old friends in town (one from undergrad, and one from SURF) that I meet with at least once every few weeks.  And really, for the most part, that's been more than enough for me.

But it's hard to deny that I miss it. I miss it in increasing amounts. I miss coming home from school at the end of the day, and walking through the front door to the welcome sight of my housemates all having dinner together. I miss the choir of, "Hiiii, Christa!!!" ringing from the kitchen. I miss my best friends asking me all about the details of my day, and sharing with me the details of theirs, as I cook beef and broccoli on the stove. I miss how dinner could easily last three or four hours if we didn't take care in restraining our conversations, because we would just get so lost in talking about simply everything. I miss going over to the apartment in Merced that was essentially my second home, and every time I came over, its two residents would always scheme for a new prank to play on me as I rang their doorbell. I miss how we would just lounge around the living room, which was completely devoid of furniture except for a TV and a PlayStation 3, and I would do my homework while watching them take turns playing Skyrim.

Perhaps it's impatience more than anything else.  After all, from one perspective, it's been two long months since The Last Intern left.  In another light, it's been only two months since he left. I should be more patient, because honestly, it can take a long time to develop a foundation in a new city. But part of me feels like this off-kilter feeling to life may have started a long time ago, when I turned off that kitchen light in my Merced house for the last time, because that was the day that I moved away from Home. While San Diego, in so many respects, is the perfect city... it sure doesn't feel like home yet.

Some actual progress info: A lot of people have been giving me advice on how to spread my branches in this big city, and I've been taking them to heart. I'm definitely not a total wallflower (51% extroverted, ya boii), so I've been good on my word on testing out advice (one peculiar piece of advice even involves finding platonic friends on a dating site? what?), but it's definitely taking some trial & error in making them stick, especially in a town like San Diego.  Like, "Let's meet up for [lunch/dinner/dessert/boba/coffee]! Text me when you're free?" is always a gamble when I put the reins in the other person's hands, although I feel like the give-and-take balance is necessary after enough times that I coordinate meet-ups myself. Most of my memorable meet-ups in San Diego have been with old friends and co-workers, but nothing yet has really attached me to the SoCal natives except for 1-2 dinners with people that I meet on-campus or that I've met at Scripps.  So I'm not utterly hopeless, but I would not complain if the winds were to change.  Oh well, there's time yet!

I may not feel lonely quite yet (and hopefully I'm not going to continue going down that path for excruciatingly long), but man, I would sure like to start turning this great city into home!

Destruction leads to a very rough road,
but it also breeds creation.

- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication

-+-

As the music plays, he pulls me in, leading me to wrap my arms around the nape of his neck. We don't know the name of the bar we're in - we just know that it's the only bar within walking distance that's open and has dancing on a Sunday night. The crowd is sparse; while people come and go, we become a staple of the dance floor, staying there the majority of the evening.

At this moment in particular, only the two of us are illuminated by the neon strobe lights, completely engulfed by the DJ's odd choices in clubbing music. It's an awkward playlist, combining songs with strange beats and unnatural drops in rhythm, mixed in with old pop songs and only a few handfuls of tunes we've ever heard of, let alone know the lyrics to. As Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers starts playing, he and I exchange a look of confusion. We're obviously familiar with the song, but we're unsure of how we should dance to this. Meanwhile, we're slowly swaying, just for the sake of maintaining momentum, when he decides to run with it. He wraps his arms around my waist, and pulls me closer, pressing his cheek against mine. I hesitate before surrendering myself to how pleasant this is, and I reciprocate, shifting my arms into a fuller embrace and resting my head on his shoulder.

The floor completely belongs to us as I bring my lips close to his ear to overcome the volume of the music, "You know, we're slow-dancing to The Red Hot Chili Peppers, of all things."

He brings his mouth close to my ear to reply, "I don't care. Do you?"

I think about this for a few seconds, and realize that I don't. Not at all. I shake my head.

We keep dancing, and I take in the moment. It's one thing to dance with someone and feel like we're the only two people on the dance floor. It's another experience entirely to literally be the only two people on the dance floor, knowing that everyone is watching us as they drink and chat, with us simply not caring. While the current atmosphere is of course far cruder, I can't help but wonder if this is similar to how the bride and groom feel at weddings. Even though we're in a nameless bar with Californication humming over us, with colored lights and smoke machines saturating the air, and with drunk people laughing all around us, there's still something exquisitely romantic about this moment.

I see the DJ looking up from his laptop and taking notice to us, and he changes the music to Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. Now, the tempo of the music matches our swaying perfectly, although it's clear in our body language that we don't mind either way.

Regardless, I'm admittedly delighted by the special treatment from the DJ. I pull myself away, with the intent to just briefly tell my dance partner, "I think he changed the music because of us!"

He looks at me and nods quietly, then slowly runs his fingers along the length of my cheek. To my shock, I see that his eyes are welling over with tears.

He must have read my expression -- I didn't put much thought towards hiding it -- because he fondly explains, "I've liked you for a really long time, Christa. I've always wanted to be with you."

My mind races a mile a minute. A few seconds ago, I felt like I was on a very nice date. Simple as that. Now, I am standing face-to-face with a man that not only admires this romance as I do, but has been moved to the very core by it. It suddenly dawned on me that all of this -- dancing with me, holding me, pressing his cheek against mine, even running his fingers along my cheek -- these are all things he's been dreaming of for a long time. For longer than I know.

What do I say?

It's been three weeks to the day since I left Atlanta, GA, and I flew away from Jacob. After the roller coaster of emotions that I went through as I was in Georgia and immediately after I left, things fell back to normal surprisingly quickly.

Even before Jacob left San Diego two months ago, it took a while to swallow the deal we made about our future together. Care about each other, but don't be tied down to each other. Christa, I care about you a lot, but I want you to be happy. Do what's best for you. If someone else piques your interest, don't wait for me.  Don't deny that we have romantic feelings towards each other, but also have the freedom to move on. When I was in Georgia, we talked about this more through a very sobering and disillusioning conversation.

It was difficult to cope with while I was there, crying in his arms, but it really shouldn't be a surprise that ultimately, Jacob's sincere advice rang true.  Once you move into your new house and start your new job, you'll be too busy to miss me.  It's equally undeniable that our conversation was vitally important for me to have -- not only did my mind become completely involved in work, but it helped a great deal to no longer see the world in pink. More self-discipline whenever I wanted to text him about all the random things. No more crying over missing him. Also, as it turned out, he didn't have that conversation with me because he had already gotten over me -- which I had well perceived. He just remembered our deal. We've liked each other, and while perhaps we're not destined to get married, we eventually want to stay good friends. I was just getting in too deep when we made plans to taper off.

I realized that it wasn't necessary to quit Jacob cold turkey, to throw my love off a cliff. Life happens as it should when my emotions and thoughts are not so clouded by lonesomeness, longing, love, and dreams of the future. We still text, call, and we chat over webcam, but steadily less and less frequently. What was once a text every few hours is now every few days. As we are not committed, not pressured to maintain our affections in the face of extreme distance, the taper does, in fact, occur naturally.  C'est la vie.

Suffice it to say that, even though my feelings for Jacob were far from an all-time high, I had mixed feelings when I got a message from David.  He was going to be in the San Diego area on family business, and wanted to see me while he was in town.  David was the technician that worked in the lab next to mine when I was still in undergrad. For the better part of a year, we exchanged small talk and had friendly conversations in the hallways between protocols.

One day, my lab manager and I were grabbing coffee, and he shared his opinion on my interactions with The Boy Next Door.  He coughed, "So, Christa... I think David likes you."  Indeed, soon afterwards, during the first month of my senior year of college, David started asking me out a few times to lunch and dinner.  However, aside from several meals and the occasional movie together, it didn't go anywhere.

The abrupt end to our brief history of dates was admittedly by my hand. In college, David was at the center of attention of a number of girls. One girl in particular, who worked in his lab, was especially affectionate towards him. She would hold his hand, rest her head on his shoulder, and tickle him at lab dinners -- lab dinners that he invited me to.  "Oh, Christa! Tee-hee, help me tickle him!"

...uh... no thx

Although he sometimes made concerned eye contact with me as she constantly found herself near him, his lack of refusing her advances -- especially right in front of me -- incredibly deterred me.  Before one of our lab dinners, the three of us were carpooling together when she cooed, "Oh, wow!  I just realized, I'm in a car with the two cutest people I know!"  In reply, he smiled, "That's funny, because I think that you and Christa are the two cutest people I know!"  I, however, was absolutely silent in the shotgun seat of David's car, 'wtf is this bullsh--'

I didn't want to play these games, especially not with someone who, at the time, only seemed to be courting me. I couldn't tell if David was just too kind to hurt her feelings, or if this really was how he always acted with her and he was just playing me. That was a gamble that I refused to make; as I described to my housemate, "I thought I was special, but I don't want to be with someone that's treating other girls the same way he's treating me."

I immediately lost interest, and I moved on. I stopped being enthusiastic when David asked me out on dates, and I let school, lab, and friendships take priority over him. We still sometimes ran into each other at lab, but in the end, I graduated and left Merced without even telling him goodbye.

(Answer that I received just this weekend: "Ugh, I didn't know how to make her go away!  She always wanted to be near me, and all I wanted to do was be near you.")

So after all of that, when David told me that he wanted to see me in San Diego, I wasn't sure how to react.  By this point, it had been forever since I held an extended conversation with him.  Even as the days counted down, I was still not sure how to feel about seeing him in San Diego.  A year ago, we went out a bit, I liked him for the length of a month, I shunned him, and then I moved away.  That was essentially our story, and I thought that's where we'd always leave it.  What was I supposed to make of this odd, unexpected sequel?

Think about how confused that made me, and hold that thought.  Now, imagine now how I must have felt when David was sitting next to me on the fold-out chair in my room -- several hours before our dance at the nameless bar -- and he told me, "I propose... that we make today a date."

Although my thought processing started working in overdrive, I held firm eye contact, my expression steady.  As I looked straight into his eyes, he seemed like he was holding his breath, waiting a lifetime for my answer.  I didn't manage to get far in my pro's and con's list -- Jacob and I aren't a committed relationship. I used to have a crush on David and this is my chance to see it through.  Either way, he's only here for two days before he goes back to Merced. -- before I realized, 'Oh god, he looks so nervous for my answer! oh god i don't have time to think of cons OH GOD I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING'

I quickly replied, "I'm not ready to commit to anything.  I don't want to start anything serious, especially since we're so far away from each other."  He reacted to my answer well -- maybe in total agreement, or maybe just happy that I didn't say no outright.  We agreed that this date would have a terminal ending.  I quietly breathed a sigh of relief.  If nothing else, I sure knew that I wasn't ready to jump into a relationship.

I effectively bought myself a few more seconds of thinking, but I instead spent this time staring into his eyes, trying to figure out what color they are.  They're a dark shade, and I had trouble seeing them clearly in this light.  I still don't know what color they are.

The word slipped past my tongue.  "Yes," I blurted.

After all, this date seemed almost sensible.  Practical, even.  Maybe it's, in fact, healthy for me to start testing other waters.  This also gave us opportunities for closure, as I closed the door so suddenly, and I never even said goodbye.  We seemed to wholeheartedly agree that this wasn't a commitment.  After all, he's only here for two days, then he's flying back across the state.  Right?

I suppose... there's no harm in it.

...

What do I say?

My mind reorients itself back to the dance floor.  Unlike the silence of my room when he asked for this date, the lights and sounds thankfully distract from my speechlessness.  I've always wanted to be with you.

Instead of waiting for my reply, David gently presses his forehead against mine, and we keep swaying to the music.  You got a fast car; is it fast enough so we can fly away?  He's clearly satisfied with the music, without further conversation, but I still keep thinking about what I should say.  How I should react.

It wasn't until a day later that I finally responded.

Throughout my workday, my distracted mind found a lot of time to ponder it over.  I knew that I enjoyed these past two days with David, but as much as I tried to conjure the mental picture, the past two days also let me know that I couldn't imagine myself being with him.  I couldn't see a future with him.  I can't see him as the "one."

When his visit was coming to an end, I have to admit, I was a bit relieved.  As I drove him to the airport, I gently touched his forearm with my fingertips, reminding him, "I can't start something right now, especially not something based in distance.  I do like having you in my life.  If nothing else, we'll stay friends."

His reaction was not as enthusiastic as last time.  He implied that something could still begin anew between us, but I was firm and echoed my own words.  Even then, it was still an explanation shrouded in euphemism, and I knew that it wouldn't be enough right now.  Not for closure.  Not for someone moved nearly to tears by one slow-dance. I delicately planted the seeds, but I know that's a door I'll likely need to close myself in the future.  Part of me has to wonder if it's because my heart still clings elsewhere.  Another part of me actually rationalizes that there are enormous pieces of us that are hugely incompatible -- critically so.

Yet even then, there was a small piece of me that was genuinely hesitant, just not quite ready to reseal that door just yet -- the part of me that's still lost in that dance.  The shard of me that's still stuck in that nameless bar.

Luckily, at least for me, I know that these things will taper off.  As far as I'm concerned, this was my closure.  I may be hesitant to close that door for now, but I know that in the end, I want it shut.  However, as I remember all the gratitude and joy that glowed on his face as his fingertips touched my cheek -- even though it had been ages since we last held a conversation, since we had last seen each other, since our last date nearly a year ago -- I'm not entirely sure I can say the same for David.

When the time comes, I may need to be ready to help this die.

C'est la vie.

-+-

Buy me a star on the boulevard,
it's Californication...

You knew that I adored ya',
but you left me in Georgia.

- MIKA, Toy Boy

-+-

In the early morning, my alarm begins to blare with 80's music until I slam my palm on the snooze button, temporarily silencing The Bangles until I force myself out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. I sleepily open the blinds, hoping to bring in light, but the gloom and darkness outside lends little to help my sleepy daze, to assuage my tumultuous battle with wakefulness. I groan with irritation, my eyelids heavy and my body limp.

I am not a morning person, and my body constantly reminds me of this with constant cravings for naps and caffeine. I haven't dealt with this sort of sleep schedule since high school, but even then I currently wonder how I ever managed to stay up until the small hours of the night, just to consistently awaken by the early morning in time to do my hair before getting breakfast with my then-boyfriend. Surely, Past Christa was either incredibly full of energy or immensely masochistic, because these days, I am thoroughly exhausted by the end of my workday (but then again, Past Christa did also get ulcers in her senior year of college). When early evening hits, the prospect of sleep becomes angelic, and I lose motivation to achieve much else besides submitting to the sweet temptations of bedtime. (In fact, this blog post alone is taking several days to write, simply because I fall asleep before I can finish it in one sitting!)

These days, I could only hope to want for so little. I would be thankful if an early start to my day was my only complaint.

I feel that at the core of my petty hardships, it's my own heart that's the problem. As written by Mary Schmich, though I first heard it in "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann - Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.  When I first heard that track, I was still growing up in San Jose, and my older sister and I would listen to it together. I would follow along with the words, with that line always inspiring my curiosity. Throughout my life, I've resided throughout Northern California -- San Jose, Sacramento, Merced -- never quite understanding what that line meant, never really getting it, even finding it humorous and silly, despite myself being quite the gentle creature. ("I'm a delicate flower," I would always playfully insist.)

Now, I live in San Diego. However, the strange universe of Southern California (despite admittedly feeling very different than my life above the 37th latitude) never got under my skin during my two internships at Scripps; I was always holding the mindset of a visitor, of a tourist, a nomad. I was constantly moving between apartments and houses, and my groups of friends and co-workers were persistently shifting, as I never really had a place in San Diego to call "home." Although I was effectively living in Southern California, it never quite felt like it. While I have been working at UCSD for only two weeks, by the end of October I will have been here for five continuous months -- including last summer, nearly eight months of my recent life have been spent in Southern California. Yet, it was only until now, when I am finally motivated to accept my new identity as a San Diego resident, because I'm living in a house with my own room and my own furniture (although I'm still not quite ready to call it "home"), and I have a desk at work that I can decorate with whatever I want because that'll be "My Desk" until God-knows-when, that Southern California is finally getting under my skin. And I am finally realizing what everyone meant when they call Northern Californians -- or at least, people like me, "soft."

I am a doe-eyed fledgling that only really knows to be hardworking and to smile a lot. Overall, my values are linear. Learn to love, and try to be kind. Replace ignorance with lessons, and keep them to heart. Laugh nervously at awkward situations (in fact, I laugh nervously about most things, if not everything), and try to overcome the bad habit of taking harsh criticism personally. Though I very well could never be described as "spunky," these qualities still got me far in Merced -- I shone in my experience at the Manilay Lab. Even though I was teased often in the Baldwin Lab, it was enough that I had a great rapport with my mentoring graduate student. Maybe it's specific to my life in my new lab at UCSD, but these days, people feel rougher around the edges. In only two short weeks, I've experienced extraordinary waves of tough love and impatience. It becomes a safe bet to gamble that everyone is being sarcastic about everything. Just smile and nod, Christa. Try not to laugh too nervously.

As my boss yells at me to yell that I need to yell at the people I supervise, I can't help but wonder if in the long run, will living in San Diego begin harden Soft Northern Californian Me?  In the first two weeks of my job, it has already proven necessary to toughen up in order to withstand my demanding new boss on top of my own personal challenges.  To undertake the triple task of lab manager, and lab technician to two labs.

I wonder how, in these next few months -- years -- my edges will begin to roughen.

-+-

When getting trained in retro-orbital bleeding of mice:
-- "Ahh, sorry!  I'll get it soon with some more practice."
"Sink or swim, Christa."

Then my eyes open wide, with an expression that I'm sure is exclaiming, Jesus Christ!

b/c so help me i promised an atlanta photoblog

It don't run in our blood.
That kind of lux just ain't for us;
we crave a different kind of buzz.

- Lorde, Royals

-+-

I wiggle away from his playful assault.  He had just finished tormenting me by putting feathers up my nose, making me sneeze uncontrollably.

I pout, “I hate you!”

He grins, rolling away from me, “You love me.”

I can’t decide whether he’s fishing for the depth of my feelings, or if he had a slip of the tongue and is hoping that I don’t notice.  After some hesitation, I decide that if I pursue the latter, there’s less damage to be done if I’m wrong.  If I choose the first in error, it could easily turn this romantic vacation into a very long week.

“I do like you very much,” I mumble as I nuzzle into the familiar nook of his arm.

I realize then that if he did intend the first, I may have let an opportunity slip from my hands.  I force myself to take that loss in stride.  Truth and circumstance are two entirely different beasts.  I have to focus on taming one at a time, lest I recklessly let both roam free.

If the theory of alternate universes is true, where two worlds diverge each time we make a decision, I realize that just then, a new universe just budded off, growing into a blossom that I’ll never know.

…

Later, lying in his arms and blinking away tears, I would find myself thinking, ‘…Okay. I made the right call.’

As far as universes go, it was clear that I chose the lesser of two evils.

I can only imagine what hell Alternate Christa must be going through.

-+-

I am writing this from Atlanta, Georgia.

The state is beautiful so far, and the people have been incredible examples of Southern Hospitality.  The moment after touching down at the Atlanta International Airport, people left and right started asking me where I’m from, asking me if I needed help finding where I was going.

Of course, it was all quickly overshadowed by seeing his handsome mug in the flesh, as he laughed, “Hey, dumbass.”

I immediately hit his arm, my voice shrill and flustered, “WHAT? THAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU SAY TO ME?”

Then he smiles and gives me that look.   I giggle, my knees weak.  As my emotions are quickly displaced by gratitude and excitement, I wrap my arms around him, lost in laughter.  It was so surreal.  I absorb the sensations of his fuzzy beard against my cheek, his arms around my waist, his scent of fresh laundry and Old Spice – things that I’ve missed ever since he left San Diego over a month ago.

-+-

Over the course of the week, we would have our ups and downs – admittedly, most of this rollercoaster was on my side, on a personal and internal level.

Our summer infatuation became as summer infatuations do.  After the seasons begin to shift, we became forced to sober ourselves with distance, with the realization that at some point, we need to let ourselves become bound to move on.  Initially, we spent the summer with the plans to become friends after summer – that’s that.  It was supposed to die the day he flew away.  We’re two rational people that fully know that summer relationships tend to not yield much, especially when it’s between two people that are fated to be across the nation from each other.  But as the summer came to a close and we grew so sentimental and attached to each other, we decided that we couldn’t just instantly become “just friends.”  Instead, we decided that despite the distance, we wouldn’t deny ourselves a romantic connection with each other.  However, we would draw the line at where the distance caused our chemistry to grow forced and artificial.  We would give ourselves space to care for each other, but to also have the freedom to move on with our lives.  At the end of the line, we would become close friends.  This way, that transition would feel more natural and organic. At face value, this seemed like an excellent, well-thought plan.

So I knew this arrangement and this end goal, but I ruined it when I still put myself in a position to become overly vulnerable.  After emotionally guarding myself for a few weeks after we met, I realized that this, what we had… this was worth going all-in for, no matter how or when it’ll end.  This has truly been the best thing I’ve had since my time with Phuc two years ago; he had similar sentiments, telling me, “This has been the best relationship I’ve ever had. How are we so compatible?”  While it was incredible, it was also a terrible note to end the summer on -- instead of preparing me to let go, it primed me to hold on even tighter. Because as much as I agreed to becoming just friends, it was so heartbreakingly obvious that we both wanted more.  I started looking up jobs in Atlanta, and when none of them went through in time for my job acceptance deadline in San Diego, I cried for hours on end, realizing that I wouldn’t end up near him.

So I don’t know why I was shocked that the conversation hurt.  That it hurt to receive the talk where he reassures me, “When you start your new job, you’ll be too busy to miss me,” and, “Don’t worry, we’ll always be close friends.”

I wiped away my tears with the back of my hands, and rested my palms against my forehead.  I tried to regain my composure, and told him, “I can’t believe that you’re giving me advice on getting over you.”

He looked on, apologetically.

Getting the words out of my mouth took more struggle than I would like.  I’m a big girl.  I can do this.  “I know we said we’re going to just let our spark run out naturally, but I’m realizing now it might not happen that smoothly.  There’s a lot of potential for one of us to get hurt.”

He nodded, not making eye contact with me.  He didn’t need a call from Captain Obvious to know that I meant myself.

I continued, “At the rate this is going, I just don’t think the spark is going to just run out for me.”

He explained, with bittersweet optimism, that this would get a lot easier when I’m at my new job and I’m at my new house.  That I’ll forget about him once I stop going through the same motions alone that we used to do together.

This reminded me of my ex-boyfriend breaking up with me just a few days before my first research internship, how I was always bitter at him for his choice timing.  Is that the logic that ran through Phuc’s head when he decided on his timing to break up with me?  But more importantly, these fresh ideas reminded me of days even further in the past – unrequited crushes that each easily lasted for at least two years.  It reminded me of my unwavering affection for Phuc despite the distance, clinging to our relationship despite knowing for years that we were falling apart.  Looking at my history, it was clear that my truest affections tend to grow resilient, with incredible stamina.

Despite his sincere hopefulness that it would be easy for me to move on, it was clear to me that if this was going to die, it’s not a flame that would just run out of fuel on its own.  At least not for me.  I would have to snuff it out myself.  If I were to wait for this to end by natural causes, surely I'm bound to let history repeat itself. After all, just a day before this conversation, I had to work so hard to deny myself from saying, “I love you.”  A concept I have never even began to touch with anyone since two years ago.  I was going to move to Atlanta with no hesitation.  I flew two thousand miles with a weeks’ notice to see him.  I spent months, years, recognizing foolishness in young romance, and here I was, completely head-over-heels -- I became Juliet chasing after Romeo.

However, my muted proclamation of adoration was meant for the version of that boy that I knew during summer.  The one that was even crazier about me than I was about him.  The one that couldn’t take his eyes off me as I fell asleep, amazed by how beautiful he found me.  The one that couldn’t keep his hands off of me, whose arm always found itself wrapped around my waist.  The one that would embrace me with so much warmth and sincerity, constantly elated that he was mine, and that I was his.

The boy that I visited in Georgia is still an incredible person, and always will be.  But as the week went on, it was clear that he’s not that same boy anymore.  Now he’s someone that insists that I’ll find someone else, who politely requests that my feelings don’t grow any deeper, that it’d be foolish, reckless, naïve.  He’s the boy that lets go of my hand as we walk around his college campus, breaking my heart a little every single time I felt his fingers break away.

It wasn’t long before I realized that my love was no longer for him, but for the idea of him.  For the memory of lying next to him and hearing his heartbeat, slow and steady against my ear, as I was overcome with awe and gratitude that this heart – it belonged to me.

My heart still longs for him, and it pangs with pain as I increasingly realize that the boy I love doesn’t exist anymore.  At least, if I'm going to let go, I can't let him exist anymore. I need him to become a myth and a memory.  Because by the end of my week in Georgia, when I rested my head against his chest and listened, I heard the familiar ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.  Yet it was nothing more than a simple heartbeat, nothing more than the sound of blood flowing through his chest.  I don’t know who or what I am to him anymore.  If I were the girl I was a few years ago, maybe even a few months ago, maybe I wouldn’t have cared and would have unapologetically let myself stay attached, no matter the consequence.  Yet, he was the very person that truly taught me to recognize whenever I’m receiving less than what I deserve, who taught me to find strength when it’s necessary to walk away.  I realized that, in some sort of cruel irony, he was now the very person that he himself warned me against.

So I prepared to leave this behind, in that little dorm room in Georgia.  I prepared to start letting these emotions and attachments go.

Of course, if only things were so easy.

I have a long journey ahead of me.

I just got a new camera which I am absolutely in love with.  When time doesn't allow for a lengthy blog post, my new camera has sufficiently provided a means to blog as the lazy, new-age Blogger - writing posts through the exciting visual experience of Photoblogs!  After all, as the lazy blogger says, isn't a picture worth a thousand words?

WELL HERE'S 9000 WORDS THEN

Soon, expect a Photoblog (or maybe even a real blog, oo la la) frommmm.. *drumroll*

... ATLANTA!

This girl is going to visit a boy in Georgia tomorrow!

Call it your 2.0, your rebirth, whatever –
So long as you can feel it all,
so long as your doors are flung wide.

- Vienna Teng, Level Up

-+-

-- "Omer has a parrot, and he loves me! He was freaking out and squawking whenever I walked away."
"Well, I'd scream too if I were a parrot and couldn't get some of that."

-+-

Huzzah, (finally) got my Xanga migrated to 2.0!

I bet when everyone else heard about the transfer and realized that you now have to pay to be a blogging member, most others went, "dafuq that don't jive with me!" I was initially like that too - you might recall my tremendously anticlimactic migration to my tumblr, but sentiment dies hard. Of course I couldn't stay away long. ohohoho

We'll be here a while, Xanga!

(unless xanga freakin closes down again)

-+-

Finally, I can talk to you about a girl named Christa -- who she was, who she is, and who she will be.

As recently as two weeks ago, I couldn't even begin to tell the third part of that narrative: who I will be.

Beyond the glamorous hustle and bustle of my romantic life, which I gratuitously have been writing about in this blog, the post-graduate life has actually been heavily muddled by uncertainty. I spent all of summer butting heads with the unknown. My summer internship was scheduled to last from early-June to August 16th, so I spent most of the summer not knowing where I would be in autumn.

I spent all summer running on faith. I accessorized with pie-in-the-sky goals, realistic objectives, and back-up possibilities. But, at the end of the day, the outlook for my professional life was enormously dependent on a few simple words that required enormous amounts of faith: “Everything will be okay.”

I was invited to the Baldwin Lab at Scripps for a tentative full-time position, although the offer had the footmark, “as long as budget allows.” As summer went on, this became a rollercoaster of an offer. After months of wondering about my future after August 16th, it wasn’t until the last week of my internship that my principal investigator informed me that she was waiting to receive grants and for funding to get approved. Thankfully, I was extended by a month through a grant provided by my summer internship, giving me more time to wait for my principal investigator to get funding for me. In the last few days of my grant extension (again, spending the entire month wondering where I’d be after September 13th), my principal investigator let me know that she didn’t have enough funding to keep me on as an employee. So yet again, I was wondering where I’d be after September 27th.

And somehow, everything will be okay.

Thankfully, in the last week of my internship, after two job extensions, I was given a job offer at UC San Diego as a lab manager for the Department of Rheumatology.  Even more gratefully, Jacob’s parents provided me with a few weeks of free housing until I could figure out more permanent career goals.  The same week that I was given the job offer, my sister tells me that she has a friend in town that has an open room in San Diego, and is looking for a new roommate.  A few days later, I put down my deposit and pay for my first month's rent.  So now, I can look forward to spending October with a new job and a new place to stay.

So, I'll be spending the autumn (and then some) as an intern-turned-lab manager, and a UC Merced graduate-turned-San Diego resident.  I wonder what adventures await!

Now, this Friday is my last day with the Baldwin Lab, and then even more adventures -

I’ll let you in on what they are soon!

I promise you'll be as stoked about it as I am!

It was a simple five-second sample in the introduction of a song in his music library.  Still, it's hard to deny that it warmed my heart when we both soulfully sang along, him sitting in his chair and pulling me close to hug me,

I can't help falling in love with you