Having had a grueling week at work tackling one logistical hiccup after another, I was really looking forward to today’s house party. NA was a childhood friend I’ve been occasionally hanging out with since I moved back, but now it was her turn to move away for a couple of years. It was comforting to know that she would share this journey with her boyfriend. Perhaps the reason I didn’t feel anything about their upcoming departure was that I perceive the passing of time nonlinearly I knew that I’ll see them again someday.
“When do you want to head out?” I asked MT as I finished my makeup and put on my moldavite necklace. As I was expecting to socially drink and meet a lot of new people, I wanted to overcome the fear of saying something weird or forgetting to be mindful – wearing the necklace kept me grounded.
“Eh, we don’t have to arrive right on time. Don’t people say something about being fashionably late?” I shrugged as it didn’t make a difference to me. We needed to swing by a store to pick up apple juice to mix with the gin we were bringing. As soon as we finished moving some folding chairs into the car in case the party needed more seating, we headed out.
An interesting dynamic that intrigued me was that NA still lived with her ex LL and his brother, and that the ex was coming to the party. We had met LL when NA and him were still dating, so when we arrived, we grabbed some drinks and food and sat near him to catch up.
After spending about an hour meeting people and drinking, the things I wanted to talk about became less stiff. Since LL mentioned he was tutoring now, I waited for him to reach a natural end in his conversation. “Hey L…?”
“Yeah what’s up?”
“Look…I know it’s wild to ask, but I’ll go for it: I’m not good at math, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to make me understand how alcoholic a mixed drink is.” I pulled out a notebook as he laughed. “Sure!” He grabbed a pen (that I guess he just carries around?) and walked me through an example of my current drink.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
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Basically, it depends on the volume poured.
“Oh…I thought this’d be a stronger drink than those 5% bottles, but it’s the same.” I laughed as we moved on to a different topic.
It was nice to experience a house party.
When MT and I came back home, we got ready for bed. MT was extremely quiet. After some coaxing, he muttered how he feels like there’s a high chance I’ll cheat on him. I was shocked, and my mind instinctively tried to figure out what compelled him to think this way. It felt like the tables had turned, because I’m the one to bring up suspicion of his fidelity, usually in jest as a weak attempt to conceal my actual fear. Unfortunately, while he can persuade me quite easily – either because I was more willing to accept what he said, or because he was better at reassuring than me – it seemed that I wasn’t very persuasive.
I had some homework that was preoccupying the very back burner of my mind, but I thought about how in the grand scheme of things, I’d rather have been there for MT than to have a higher grade in a summer course I’m taking purely for enrichment purposes. Zooming out to put things in perspective probably led to this epiphany: I became giddy as I realized that we might have gone to the party so that I could explain to MT about the overall percentage of realities where I cheat is extremely small out of all the realities. With much gusto, I repeated the explanation because to me, it was a fact supported by ✨math ✨, which MT was well-versed in. He appeared to begrudgingly accept that reasoning for now.
For a moment before it dissipated, I felt in control, at peace, and gratefulness from the magic of today’s events aligning quite purposefully. And yet, the lasting thought that carried me to sleep was glum. I’m mortified at how quickly my life went back to mundanity. Does magic truly expire so quickly, or am I failing to capture and harness it?
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