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A girl once gave me a wonderful birthday present. Shocked, confused and feeling most of all undeserving, I exchanged promises to hang out more after break and parted ways. I later changed the goal of my travels to finding the perfect something to express my feelings of thanks -- my birthday being when it is and the stubborn lack of close friends during college, I rarely receive any personal (read:non-facebook) acknowledgement, and have only once had a surprise party (A going away party by Waseda-gumi I will never forget. Watch the douga every now and then to cheer up, remember the fukai kizuna we forged) -- and eventually settled on a cd I sampled in a huge Korean bookstore within an even bigger mall. Travel and the break itself came and went, and I found myself ready. Ready to give her my gift, let her know how much her time and effort and that small gift meant to me, how much strength it had given me. Time went by, my resolve weakened. I wanted to give it to her, yet still I hung onto it, could not bear to part with it. I think much of it was due to my weakness, confusion and reluctance. Partly because it was probably the first such open display of affection I had ever received (or at least remember[ed?]), she was Singaporean and I was still recovering from trauma (not that it's fully fixed now or anything) and second guessing both my evaluation of her motives/feelings and my own attraction towards her (I once half-joked that I only liked Singaporeans, when another smartass tried to confirm/assert that I like asian girls; I like to think it's initially a combination of the laid back-ness [no pun intended], internationalism[?], foodie-ism and accent that seems to be shared among the island's people). Partly because, well, just a plain fear of rejection. After that initial promise we never really hung out, didn't talk much and I sure didn't give her that present. I still listen to it, now and then. It's good. So good, I feel regret for still having it, listening to it, enjoying it. Maybe even guilt, and the feeling that yet another bridge was not burned, only left to wither and might well have already crumbled.
(A work in progress, to be streamlined and fb-statused later)
(Also while checking old fb messages can be shocking, it also reveals that we did make some plans (to go to a concert) and communicate, and probably even met up, during/possibly after the break; memory is definitely selective, definitely fallible, definitely playing up to what we want to believe in or say. Gotta work on harnessing this power...)
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As my advisor used to tell me, "Whenever I felt depressed in grad school--when I worried I wasn't going to finish my Ph.D.--I looked at the people dumber than me finishing theirs, and I would think to myself, if that idiot can get a Ph.D., dammit, so can I.
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