[▶] for safekeeping.

pink carnation

and then I looked at you and I thought I loved you, once. but then I looked at you again and blinked and you weren't there anymore.

but darling, how would you know...?

---

I think what one chances upon, every once in a while, is that opportunity that suddenly presents them with something that they didn't dare to believe in before.

I think I've had a couple of those chances recently. (one of them being you.)

But the one that's got my stomach twisted up in knots right now is the one that tells me I may have potential in working toward my future career prospects - and for some reason the idea of success terrifies me.

I've spent so long being the underdog that being presented with an opportunity so suddenly feels overwhelming. In fact I feel almost crippled by it. By the crushing weight of expectations and responsibility and this sudden duty to uphold the images of not only myself but all the people who believe in me, and I don't quite know what to do with myself.

Is it weird that it makes me feel sick?

and that foreign feeling, where I want to be far away. sitting by the river in somewhere like Paris (as almost romanticisingly foolish as it sounds) talking with someone, baring my heart for all its worth - I want to be there with you because I have been by the river with you, once. and you're the only person I've ever been by the river with and the first person I feel like I've been fully, authentically myself with for the very first time - from the very moment I met you.

and I say met you because even though we'd talked before, we never really had - not quite like this. and I think what a teacher (and a friend) told me was right - "it's like meeting a whole new person because you discover parts about one another that you haven't before". and it's difficult to articulate exactly how that feels because it's not really something you can explain to someone, is it?

it's the way I felt nervous for days leading up to meeting you, not sure if I even fully believed if it was really going to happen - it's the way I slipped on my rings in the cab on the way there, trying to accessorise myself with a little more false confidence if anything (fashion has become my armour of sorts in recent months, I've found, and I think it's here to stay), and the way I texted my friend who I've told all about you, hands shaking, and him encouraging me in the most outrageous manner possible.

it's the way I walked up the steps to the door to ask for a table, and walking in - and then as soon as I was there feeling a tap on my shoulder and turning around to see you there. I hadn't quite expected you to arrive immediately after that.

and it's the little moments I remember - like the way you smiled so wide talking about what you wanted to do, the way you clasped your hands together for a moment and sighed, worried (but I appreciate that vulnerability), the way you covered the rim of your coffee cup with a palm and I wondered if it was something people were meant to do that I didn't quite know about (I know so little about the world, really) - and the way we both gave little sighs and paused when it was time for the bill, and we both somehow knew that we didn't want to stop talking just yet.

so you suggested we could take a walk down to the river nearby.

and as much as I've always wanted to go walk by that river and talk with someone - people always go sit by that river and talk, and for so long I've wanted to talk with someone like that, just completely relaxed and at peace and able to say even the littlest things on my mind - I never thought it would be with you of all people. in fact I only really realised the fact after thinking about it retrospectively.