scholar soulmate: the first meeting

I met someone new. Humans are weird after all. My previous traumatic experiences with one human don't stop me to from falling in love with another. This time around I found her by myself. Nobody introduced me to her even though later I found out some people I know actually know her. It is super weird but great. It is as if we were not meant to met despite all the mutual friends and shared similar environments. And even if we did meet, I was still with someone else so I don't think it mattered.

So, where should I begin? Well, once upon a time earlier this year, I went into tiktok because last semester I had this intuition that I wanted to accomodate students' different skills and preference, therefore, all assignments and midterms and finals are either tiktok videos or youtube videos. That decision led me to creating a tiktok account, made one content or two, exploring tiktok vids throughout fyp page and all that. One doom scrolling led to another, I ended up on cafe vibes contents with her account as one of them. I didn't know how, I didn't know why, but I was so interested with what I saw, I followed her on tiktok then I also did the same on insta. However, we did not really interact. But one thing for sure, I liked seeing her insta posts. I was facinated with the vibes. I was genuinely interested.

She messaged me once asking a free ebook I read. Then I responded by sharing the downloadable link. But that's it. She was very straigtforward and so was I. To be totally honest I was still struggling to, you know, trying to forget and forgive about what happened in the past with someone, you know who, the ex. So, yeah, that was the first and only interaction we had for the first half of the year. That was insane. Sometimes I gave her a like or two. Young people nowadays call it flirting. I'm old. I don't know much.

But then a lot of things occured on the second half of the year. That was when I have finally decided to continue my life, moving on without looking back anymore. One thing I've learned is that healing is a journey, it takes time, it's a process. But I also have learned that healing is a decision. When you finally make up your mind that enough is enough, you would finally be free from things that hold you back.

I went back to my island for around two weeks, right after the finals. It's like a semester break. I personally call it summer break. Yeah I know, we're in Indo and there's no such thing as summer because every single day and week and month all year long is summer. But let's keep it that way. It was some sort of a short vacation after one exhausting semester of teaching, researching and all that.

So, one day, I had this weird urge to go to one of the cafes in town. I keep seeing people's insta stories going there. But specifically that day I somehow really wanted to go there. My schedule that day was not really specific, just like any other day really. However, I had this strong feelings that I need to go there exactly that day. And then I followed that calling, my intuition, to have a visit exactly that day.

And can you guess what happen? I walked in to the cafe, entering one room to another, and then I saw her. But she really didn't see me. I was with my friend, we were just chiling, we picked up a piece of paper with an image with missing colors, so we also took some pencils along to put some colors into the picture. It was very childish but also therapeuthic in a lot of ways you can imagine. It is as if my colorless life asking to be colored. At the same time, there was her, sitting right next to my table, busy with her life, her work, her deadlines, or that's how I thought, simply because that's how it looks like.

I used many different colors. But I also used a lot of blacks. Somehow indicating and mirrorring what I was actually feeling. My life was empty. I need to put colors on it. But I also need to be honest that at that time, there were many blacks, because blacks are also colors. We need to accept every color in life.

That was one of the most enjoyable and relaxing day. But what was really going on inside my head? I was trying so hard to be brave. I wanted to stand and then go to her desk and said hi. But I did not. Well, at least not until when the very last minute. When I finally walk to go out of the cafe, I stopped myself right in front of her desk and said hi. Something I never really did in the past. Something that still feels weird until now, the normal me, the usual me, the insecure me would have never done such thing. But the me that day did it, I somehow got the courage to said hi. I pronounced her name. Mentioning how we're friends on insta. Then the rest was me talking whatever I could talk about, randomly, quickly, nervously. I hope she didn't notice. She was confused. I was definitely talking too fast. And then I left.