Even though this blog shows that my last one-pager post was from June, I have been writing in this journal on a more consistent basis. It partly comes from a place of self-flagellation (my friend gifted me this journal two years ago…) and of plain self-doubt. There is the recurring question of “what’s the point?”, which has also come into my thoughts as I considered whether to renew my domain for this site.
In the end, I decided to keep it on, as the cost is negligible compared to some other things I’ve been splurging on, and part of me hopes that it’ll be a good repository of my headspace in this period of my life or the inspirations most salient to me now. A sort of digital “Pensieve” š
Prompt: She was the new girl. The one who sat in the cafeteria at lunch alone. Maybe she was from the next state over. Maybe she was from another country. I wanted to know everything about her: her mother’s name, her favorite movie, if she had brothers, sisters, what she…
Response: …did on the weekends when her friends bailed on plans they’d made together. OK, that’s me starting to project, and I own up to that. I’m about to get up and switch to her table when Matthew — my Matthew, well not as in boyfriend or anything but my best friend who I would not turn down an invitation to become more than a friend — swings his ratty backpack onto the bench seat and offer her his hand to shake. I have many questions. One, I thought he was making up a physics lab, or doing an extra one because that’d be who he is. Two, I thought he’d come to me first, and then we could welcome and absorb the new girl into our weird circle, if she wanted to join. By the looks of her open-mouthed laugh now, she’d follow Matthew anywhere, that’s for sure. I haven’t seen him look up and around for me at all. Want as I might to include myself, I’m not sure he’d want me there. I’ve never had a thought like this before, and it creates a weight on my chest and I put down my food, preventatively reach for a napkin. My things I want to know about her have changed: How are you not nervous to laugh that big in front of him? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like Matthew?
I started reading a new young adult novel, if it’s isn’t obvious already.
Also published on Medium.