Full Circle | Th 11/24

I went to bed late last night so I only just woke up in time to get ready and head to Mom's house for lunch. I was late, but still not the latest, which somehow wasn't surprising. Dayi gave me some fragrance samples before leaving since she was swamped with responsibilities, which was actually sad since it was a while since I saw her last.

Lunch was alright. The food was alright and I caught myself scrutinizing the charcuterie board since I sampled a few nice ones last night. The conversation was a lot of random things like how French government is organized, how America is the land of opportunity, why people like politicians who make impossible claims, and autonomous driving cars.

It was decently fun, but I heard echoes of someone talking about long distance relationships, saying that the large gaps in time spent together allow for forgetting of a bad dynamic or red flags, which I noticed coming out of mom during the conversation. It was more like monologue at us instead of dialogue and she seemed much more ready to share her stories and express herself rather than listen, which I was not excited to experience after a while.

Eventually I was about to call it since Alex was staying at his parents' house, which is minutes from mom's, but a search for beater shoes to take into the rain and load my car with turned into a search for useful things that I left behind. I found some nice bags (overnight and laptop) in a box, my old planner/journal from senior year of high school when I was going through the Victoria situation, and old name tags and IDs (Karen Dillards, CYLC). It was both helpful and a blast from the past, which made it the sleeper hit of the day.

Afterwards I went to see Alex and his family, which was a fun time to catch up and see their house again. They had to leave soon after for a dinner with family friends, so I figured I'd go to the gym with my free time. I went out on a limb to ask Gigi if she wanted to lift together since it was fun to do in the past, and she was not only down but also surprised since she meant to earlier by herself. By the time I got home though Ben asked me if I was free to hang out, so I explained the new situation to him and Gigi.

Also on the drive back I realized I should try approaching dating and relationships like job hunting: try my best moment to moment hoping for a big break, but not getting attached to any single opportunity or getting my hopes up. Lately it's also been hitting me how much I talked to and loved hanging out with Jasmine, which stings when I also realized how we just stopped talking anywhere.

Gigi and I decided to work out after the hangout since it seemed like we would end early, and we drove up with Adele. It was surreal to cover back to Mom's and Alex's family's house, but going near the old neighborhood near Ben was a real trip. It was unbelievable having food his mom prepared at his house a year after I had turkey there when I visited with Alex and I realized how much changed in that time.

We chatted and played "would you rather" which led to some funny situations and interesting conversation. Afterwards we went for boba and continued the conversation, and I confirmed that I'm joining for NGHTMRE, which is exciting.

The drive back was a nice conversation about relationships. I proposed my "see relationships like job searching" theory and she likes it, but both of us realized we have to fight the tendency to daydream and get our hopes up. We started exploring good deep the parallels go, but possibly shopping around for partners may not be as ethical as looking and keeping options around for different jobs.

Back at Ben's again we started playing Jackbox games and our answers to questions mirrored fishbowl last night. People had a few "cop out" answers: everclear, Joe, penis, and hentai, but they kept getting used even when we switched games. I even started using them and making jokes in "split the room", which had interesting situations but isn't meant to be joked around in. By the end of Jackbox all of us were laughing hysterically choosing between two joke answers on quiplash, admitting that they're not funny words as we were losing our minds laughing.

Eventually we called it so I drove Adele and Gigi back, and I had a fun conversation about following one's passion as opposed to having a practical job and pursuing the passion as a hobby alone. Gigi shared about an interesting perspective of colleagues being okay with long hours for good pay, wanting to keep progressing or having good uses for the money, which I realized challenged my personal philosophy and was surprisingly understandable.

The whole night made me see the past year so happily. I would bet that myself from last year couldn't have imagined all the experiences he'll have and friends he'll make. I have so many leftovers now, my condo is much nicer, but it also has a lot of things that need organizing since I'm behind on chores. I planned on logging in tomorrow, but we won't even have a stand-up meeting so I may not need to.