I did.
Haha, I never thought I was capable of something like this.
Perhaps it's not a word as strong as love. It's just that my heart felt like it was going to burst, looking at him, knowing what he did.
His small action told me every important thing I needed to know.
I will never meet him again. But if I ever did, it is wishful but perhaps, I might recognize him. That's too darn romantic. A set up set to fail.
I was on the subway to see my friend. I had earlier doubled back home in the middle of my 1.25 hour journey to my friend's place for a sleepover. A trip back for my forgotten laptop charger.
I was a little and a lot frustrated but I knew that I'd need it.
When I was finally back on track, I boarded the subway that would be a straight shot to her place. Sitting there, I pondered how life has been. 2 weeks into my lonesome stay in DC, I've been anything but lonesome.
My host is one of the most companionable of people. I never feel alone when I'm with her, even though I do spend more than a few days at a time holed in my homestay, locked to my laptop. She's lived through so much -- her wisdom and self-assuredness push through to me. Her spirit living outside her body at times. Every idea I thought I had, she entertains. She whips in many great stories that ask for more from me. "What do you have to give and share once my story is done?" her eyes seem to ask. Keeping me rooted to the wooden floor with her words. With what's happened and what will happen, even after I leave, she haunts me.
Her presence, even when she's absent, is everywhere in this house. There is too much personality here to feel left alone.
I want a home like that. I want a space that blurs the line between when I was there and when I've left.
I've been alone, but have not yet felt lonely. Or as lonely as I thought I'd feel.
My host, along with some of the friends I have here in DC and friends planning to come visit me in DC -- I've been kept. And that's a damn good thing.
I've realized that I'd only feel loneliness if my friendships weren't already strong. Distance can do little damage if substance is truly there. The heart is there. Perhaps this is a small segway but that means long distance relationships can work if my long distance friendships have.
I've always known this. Even in Singapore, despite the distance and time, I was always excited to hear back from friends across the world. My heart would wander back to folks home and the mere urge to see them all again with more and more stories to tell would just be.
Freedom is scary if you don't have security. And I had a lot of security to keep me company and rooted and un-lonely thus far.
It's been a month of summer.
A month alone, but not lonely. On my own, but warm.
Sometimes too damn tired to feel lonely at all.
I find myself busy cooking, too tired to cook but cooking anyways or I won't have dinner, legs all sore as I stand there cleaning all the dishes I've made. Taylor Swift's "Carolina" would play. I'd want to watch "Where the Crawdads Sing" again and I'd sing again, "it's between me, the sand and the sea; Carolina knows."
I sing a lot now.
I sing plenty to myself. I sing plenty as I make or think of anything and I sound good. I sound like I know what I'm doing. Like I wrote the words myself.
At night as I lay in bed, some brief thoughts that would cross my mind are, what I have to do tomorrow. What meals am I having? Who do I have to call to remind them I love them? Or like them?
I'd be on my back at the end of a long day and feel SO good. All clean, smelling like coconut soap across my arms and elbows, while making my pillows smell like vanilla from my shampoo. A long breath would escape and everything held in is freed.
I am a bird on its back. Wings spread wide. Tired. Of finding food.
Of making food.
Designing whole days and many weeks around when I'm getting groceries and how many 2 hour slots I might have to cook.
I'm a slow cook. And my food is too mediocre to enjoy, but I push it down. Sauce it up with newfound sauces like Thai peanut sauce and what Manal introduced to me herself, Peri-Peri sauce.
I'm an unpaid intern making every dollar count, yet I burn through too many dollars on ingredients for Smoothies, and too much money on meat.
My proteins are expensive.
I'm rambling right now, I know. I'm supposed to tell you how I fell in love on a subway.
And if it makes any sense to still be in love with a stranger I'll never meet again.
Well, love isn't infinite.
So I don't still love that young man on the subway.
But my heart loved him a bit. For a day. I loved him for a day.
And I was all too happy to share with my friends about it. "I did that crazy thing that people feel in movies. Why, yes. I fell in love in a hopeless place."
Perhaps it's how my days have been feeling like melting soaps or coconut white chocolates where the white coconut parts are unfoundable among the white chocolate parts. Little is distinguishable, yet it tastes darn good.
My days have been good.
I'm not sleeping enough. Staying up late talking or playing or being afraid.
Being afraid in general.
But not afraid to fall in love.
That's silly isn't it? I've been hurt by love, a lot. I've been disappointed, yet I've wanted it all over again.
But it was never love I really wanted.
It was always to be wanted.
Simply it.
To be someone's gem and then have the chance to decide if being their gem meant anything to me. If I like being their shiny thing and if I'm no longer their shiny thing or I no longer feel shiny to them -- I leave the love I had. I've left the "loves" I had.
I'm cruel that way. I'm as sharp as I am shiny. And I'm mean when I want to be. And when I have your attention, I know how to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. But I know how... and, sometimes, I let it burn. And I let it go.
So perhaps, for people like me, people who are more dangerous in love than out of love, to fall in love with strangers.
Where I can't harm a soul.
Perhaps this stage of my life, I'm not meant for anyone.
I'm just meant for me. I'm just meant to be alone and not feel alone, be alone but still warm and happy, be alone and know that I hurt more than I heal -- to be as I am.
And it'd be a lie if I said I wasn't doing well.
He's probably doing well too. The young man I fell in love with.
I had my green Hawaii-like halter top on and my cute jean shorts. Hair tied up in my fattest of ponytails. A big bag of sleepover necessities -- my flip flops sitting on the top.
I didn't notice him at first. Just a smaller, lanky frame entering with an electric scooter, helmet still on. Sitting where no one could really see him. I found myself noticing him. Perhaps because his hair was black and his skin was olive and perhaps I thought I found a bit of myself in him across a subway full of people who didn't look like me.
I was listening to the same Vietnamese love ballad on repeat, trying my best to romanticize my own life and how the journey ahead was going to be awesome.
Later, a woman dressed in grays and browns that had browned from time and wear walked from behind him with a sign. Up to his seat, she held the sign in her hands to him, her head bent over and clumps of hair falling forward over her face. He read the sign quickly. I could tell. His eyes moved faster than any eyes I've seen before. After finishing, he looked up to her just as quickly, and respectfully replied in soft, "Of course, of course. Yes. Um... here."
Everything this man does is quick. Quick reading. Quick response. Quick hands into his pockets. And he struggles a bit with his wallet but he pulls out a 20 and respectfully hands places it into her hands.
She thanks him happily and leaves the subway at the next stop, and I found myself, being a creep. Looking up at him several times. Sizing him up. Wondering more about him.
And my heart simply knew. That if I were to want any quality from someone in the future it is this; kindness when no one else is looking.
It's all I'll ever need to know.
Among other things haha.
But it's the biggest part of the pie. He simply caught my eye.
He was so speedy and ready, and perhaps, yes... perhaps privileged enough to be in a position to give someone else a 20 dollar bill -- needless to say; my heart pounded.
And I didn't know how capable I'd ever be at love again after forever -- but this one random ass guy reminded me what it felt like again.
Subway is not the place for the best loves.
It's not longlasting love.
It's a simple reaffirmation that good men exist, haha.
I mean, Singapore did that already. But let's do it again.
I'm doing great by the way. :) JUST TIRED IM TIRED OF COOKING AND WASHING DISHES AT THE SAME TIME OR IM RUNNING OUT OF DISHES AGHGGGGGGG ;((
