Preface: this is my series of RAW and UNEDITED daily posts for NaNoWriMo. It’s going to be extremely imperfect, lauden with grammatical and spelling errors, but brimming with potential. I post it mostly for myself, but invite any daring souls to try and keep up with the winds that blow me to tomorrow :wind_face:.

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Day 92 (NaNoWriMo Part 11)

Promise and Void (Wings)

This ain’t been a dream in a long time Make sure you play the music when my time’s up Oh, just say it, I’m done

Somewhere in a university library of the past, I find myself frantically stribbling a foerign tongue I had no reason learning in the first place. I was an COMPUTER SCIENCE major, I was here to study SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, and MATHEMATICS, not FOREIGN LANGUAGES. As I racked my brain to make more room for foreign characters I would quickly forget over winter break, a beautiful young girl sat next to me, tilting her head in disappointment at the lackluster effort I was making with her time. This girl was my Mandarin tutor, who would soon become my college girlfriend. The reason I was learning Mandarin was simple: I wanted to become trilingual, and knowing English, Spanish, and Mandarin would grant me access to speak to over 1 if not 2 billion residents on the planet. That reason was also a terrible front: I was actually learning Mandarin to try and impress an international Chinese student straight from the motherland. Plans change (and a shocking realization that my laid-back American work ethic stood no chance against her borderline militant Chinese upbringing), and I found myself getting together with my American-born Chinese tutor.

And at first, it was pretty sweet.

I came from a rather small suburban town, and none of the maidens from my high school very much impressed me (definitely warranting the ego trip here). College was a different monster: so many people from so many places growing up in so many walks of life was wholeheartedely refreshing. It was here I met a girl who had an eerily similar number of interests to mine, so much so that I learned a great deal more from her. But unbeknowsnt to me initially, the exchange was not equivalent. Whenever it came to anything interests pertaining to me, she would shrug it off. We could do it later, she would gently persuade me. Let’s do what I want to do first.

The gentle persuations and pivots became the lynchpin of our relationship. Whenever she felt the situation was veering out of her control, she would find ways to pivot it back. And as an easy-going guy, I just let myself be strung along. We weren’t like those ugly couples who argued and screamed at each other day. We were different, we were better. We never needed to argue or discuss anything, the choice was always obvious.

Eventually, the choices did not become obvious, at least not for me.

We dated for two-ish years, but only met at a cadence of about once per week. Just enough to cool off the flames of conflict whenever they did arise. As the seasons changed, I began to question why I was even in this relationship in the first time. Unsure of where to turn and God-awful at expressing myself, I made a passing comment to my roommate at the time during one of our weekly groceries run, stating that maybe we were just dating each other to stave off the lonliness of being by ourselves. My roommate scoffed, saying that such a thing was implausible. We were cute together and never argued, that’s more that he could say for most people.

And unbeknownst to me, in that moment, I became truly alone.

Unable to confide in the person that would suppose to be my other half, the once curious passion in my heart had now turned to dread. I HATED making the trip to see her weekly, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief when I graduated a year before her. I now lived two hours away by car, and made the compromise that we would only see each other once per month. But once per month was still too much for me to stomach. I kind of wished I had made the choice to break-up with her earlier, but I picked up a weird tidbit of advice at the beginning of my college journey from one of my upperclassmen mentors: never break up with a girl before an important event. For my mentor, her boyfriend broke up with her before a major final exam, and unexpected, she did horribly and had to pick up the pieces of her failure from then onwards. And as the ever moral-upright and vigilant man I was, I sucked up my frustrations to at least grant my then-girlfriend the peace of mind to finish school on a high note.

I counted the days, counted the hours, counted the seconds until that fateful confrontation, and I almost giddied with excitement. I asked her to meet at the halfwaypoint between her college and my home, a quant little ice shop on the side of the road one hour away. No way in hell I was driving two hours for someone I never wanted to see again. We arrived on time, got our ice cream, and sat at the farther bench away from the general public. The weather was lovely in that May-day Spring as a gentle breezed rolled over the empty plains of the ice cream stand.

The conditions were all perfect. And on this peaceful plain, I unleashed hell.

I spewed everything I hated about this person to her face. You never do what I want to do. You never want to discuss things as a couple. You never push me to try new things or introducted me as your boyfriend to your friends or family. You forgot my birthday. Bla bla bla. And in this cathartic release of pent-up emotion, I saw my then-girlfriend’s face turn from joy to shock and then shell-shock, like I had pulled the rug from under her without warning. I said my piece, breathy heartify and victoriously, and immediately demanded a response to the verbal assault I had barraged her with. She looked away, unable to muster even a word of contestation. And with that signal, I took it as my cue to leave. Goodbye, forever.

I remember leaving that quant little ice cream shop with her still sitting at the bench, completely still as if I had unplugged her from life. I remember the immediate release of cathartic joy wash away all the dread that had amassed over the years, and as soon as the adrenlaine passed… I felt nothing. Empty. Like I was unsure of that I was planning to do next.

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So if you loved me, how was I supposed to know?

So apparently, I was a huge asshole and broke up in the worst way possibly. I don’t exactly remember where I had cemented this chilvarious ideal, but if you are invested enough in someone to want to break contact with them, might as well be a man and do it to their face. A text or phone breakup just seemed rude, like that person wasn’t worth it for one last face-to-face goodbye. But my then girlfriend was non-confrontational by nature, and I had just completely destroyed her self-worth in one unexpected blow. I began to think on this further, wondering if I had made the right choice at all. There was definitely good times mixed in with the self-inflicted bad, and thinking back to see the life and color flush from her face made me realized I dealth with this all wrong. Despite all our time togetther, I didn’t understand her at all. Damn, I really was an asshole, huh.

Weeks after that confrontation, I recieved a text from a person I had once thought to cherish. It was my now ex, stating her side of the story, now in fully thought out and apprehensive form. I remember being filled with adrenaline and antagonism once more, and immediately replied back in the candor I recieved. I don’t remember much of the actual contents outside of me being upset, but two things stuck out at me: my fixation of her dodging the accusations I pinned her with at the ice cream shop, and the fact that she said that she truly loved me. I remember getting a rather random and incospicuous text a day before a final exam she was stressing about, stating that she loved me and that I helped her get to this point, and was thankful that I was with her until this point. I think I replied with a smiley face and a thumbs up, thinking how nice she was being today.

Oh my God, I really am an asshole.

And the end of our digital rants, she gave me an ultimatum: go out of my way to drop everything and meet her tomorrow at a place she was going to be, or never speak to her again. The answer was obvious, are you kidding me? I’m done being railroaded around.

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And you can find me where the sea pours into the stars I’ll get there someday

I don’t remember why, but I remember something after the breakup confiding in my sisters about the totality of the events that had transpired. It was like the final step of clousure, finally closing the book on a last chapter that been open for too long. I never confided anything in anyone, especially not in my sisters who I told myself I would always appear strong in front of to not worry them. But something about that day… was different, and I spilled everything. They listened earntently and hung on every word, and at the end of my tale, they both looked at each other and nodded in agreement, I had made the right choice. My then-girlfriend and I were both extremely immature, and our breakup was inevitable. There were no villians, we were both just really stupid. And my decision to leave was correct: my then-girlfiend was pushing to stay exactly where she was in life. Unbeknownst to me, I was pushing to go somewhere farther, somewhere I didn’t even realized I was heading towards yet.

Later than night, my dad texted our family group chat in pride. He had listened to our entire conversation through the master bedroom walls (damn our house’s thin walls), and was immensely happy to all himself our father. The conversation we had something other families and siblings could only dream of.

To this day, I’m still not sure where I’m heading, but I know if I keep pushing the way I’m going, I’ll definetely get to wherever I’m suppose to be. After today (thanks wildkitties) I don’t believe in something so prophetic and fatatlist and finding «the one», that’s utter nonsense. I’‘ll just find someone worth more than sending than a thumbs up and smiley emoji to.

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Friday the 13th, huh? Spooky. Today I went to the worst spot in Virginia to pick something up and got trapped in traffic-hell. I decided to :dolphin: the traffic and just wait at a nearby park and finish up today’s post. The orange iridescene sky turned to black. The streetlight outside of my car is flickering on and off randomly. I think I see a shadowy figure at the end of the street briskly approaching my car. He has something in his hand… oh :dolphin:. Plz send hel-

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Today’s word count: 1,875 words
Total word count until today: 23,882 words

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@mariasokolowska @michellebasey @sabweld @ParisaR @sydneydobersteinlarock @wildcat @dragon @homeroom11