She strikes me across my face.
"Look at you, you worthless sack of sh*t."
I slump further into my chair and feel the sting of her blow. What am I doing? It's Thursday night, my assignment is due tomorrow, and I'm here watching a video of a guy describing different varieties of cheese.
She glares at me and says, "At least get up and shower, you literally haven't for the last four days." After a painful tug on my hair she walks away. I wince as I scratch the area she tugged on. She was having one of her bad days again. I sigh and get up from my chair to head towards the shower.
After an hour of showering I hop out. I look at myself in the mirror. My cheek glows red from her strike. That's going to bruise tomorrow. I divert my attention downwards. My belly visibly protrudes, a stark comparison to the near six-pack I used to have. When did I gain so much weight? It was only last summer I was running with her daily and going to the gym.
Lost in thought, she bursts through the door. "Ah you finally took a shower," she says. She grins and steps over to my side. With one hand she pinches my belly and with her other she playfully shoves me. "Let's see how much fatter you've gotten," she says tightening her grip. It hurts and hurts but she shows no signs of stopping. Just before I have to say something she lets go and disappears as quickly as she came.
If it weren't for the lingering pain in my left side I might've thought she was never there.
After the shower I start work on the assignment. She walks past me and casually glances at the section I'm on. An hour later I am stuck on the same problem. She pops up by my side and looks at my work. "Holy you're dumber than I thought. Even that guy from your class said this part would only take five minutes."
I brush her off and keep working. She leaves, but what she said stays with me.
After some more struggling I finally understand and complete the problem. If I had started this even a day ago maybe I'd be in a much better spot. Sleeping in class doesn't help either, but she occasionally keeps me up at night.
Anyways, that's enough for work for tonight. I need to get some sleep for tomorrow, or at least that's what she says. I crawl into bed to find her out cold already. She's kicked off the blankets in her sleep, so I gently tuck them back around her and slide into bed next to her.
Goodnight.
I'm jostled out of my sleep, and as I come to I make out her figure in the darkness of the room. She's on top of me and my face feels as if she had slapped me throughout the night. "Time to get up for school! Can't wait till you have another horrible day of feeling mediocre and useless!"
She leans towards my face and her hair falls over me. The sweet scent of the strawberry shampoo I use invades my nose as she pulls up to my ear and whispers, "Or is today finally the day you do the world a favour and off yourself?" I can hear the grin and excitement in her voice.
She intertwines her right hand with my left and places a flashlight - no, a pistol in my right hand. With her hand wrapped around mine she puts the barrel to my temple. To be honest, in this moment, right here, right now, I want nothing more but to pull that trigger, but then she would win, and I can't lose yet. I shrug her off and turn on the light.
I get up and wash my face. The bruise I was expecting on my cheek says good morning to me.
"Hey," her head pokes out from the bathroom doorway, quickly followed by the rest of her body. She comes up to my side and wraps her arms around my side in a side hug. She looks at our reflection and smiles.
"You look good today. Sometimes I forget how attractive you are." She tip toes and gives me a peck on my cheek. "Come on, let's go make some breakfast for us."
I glance at the mirror on the way out and the bruise is gone.
We head to school together, her head dozing off on my shoulder on the bus there. Off the bus we walk to class hand in hand. My friends always talk about how perfect we are together and how envious they are. With the memory of her lips on my skin, I feel pretty lucky to have her in my life.
I get my midterm mark back for one of my classes and she asks about it when we have lunch together. "You barely passed? Jesus dude, how stupid are you?" She grabs her bag and gets up. "I can't be seen with somebody as dumb as you." I eat the rest of my lunch by myself, in silence.
After slogging through the rest of the school day I finally arrive home. I enter the living room and find her sitting in my chair, twiddling her thumbs. She jolts up when she sees me.
"Hi."
A stand of her hair falls in front of her face and she nervously brushes it away.
"Sorry for earlier today. I didn't mean it."
Yeah, it's okay, I know you didn't.
She beams at my forgiveness and runs over to hug me. Her arms wrap around my back and I can feel the warmth of her breath as she speaks.
"You'll do better next time, I know you will."
She snuggles her head into my chest and my heart thaws once more. Maybe this time. Maybe this time things will change.
"We need each other. You need me. I need you."
We need each other. You need me. I need you.
I need you.
I raise my hand up to stroke her hair and she strikes me across the face.
"Look at you, you worthless sack of sh*t."
I need her <3
October 24, 2018
October 19, 2018
read this
moments
I'm sitting by myself since the seats are in pairs and I look over to see two of them knocked out cold and the other two just doing their own thing and in that moment and all other moments I spend with them I realize that I love them and I'm genuinely grateful that they are a part of my life. I sat by myself because I didn't want to break up their group but I think I am happiest to see them just living and doing their best.
=====
After getting off the bus one night from work, I thought about how tiring of a day it was and I thought about how tired my parents must be working each day. I realized I've been terrible at giving them a warm welcome home when that's all they want from a long day at work. Then I thought about how happy I was to just get home and I ran the short distance from the bus stop to home. I walked in and my parents and brother were in the kitchen, and my dad says to me, "Good work today." In the afternoon I had a dental checkup and I had to head straight to work. My head was pounding half the time I was working and I got home late. Thanks dad. Thanks mom. And thank you too Raymond, it'd be lonely without you brother.
some other things
I've thought a little bit more about my loneliness and I think the thing I miss most about being in a relationship is physical contact.I make a good amount of physical contact with my male and female friends, but I don't think I've ever been nor will I ever be the type of person to show platonic affection through excessive contact. However there is a special language in touch and over the past year since the breakup I've forgotten how to speak in it, at least in the romantic context. I feel a profound sadness in this. It seems like forever since I last held hands with somebody and felt the warm and gentle grip of somebody who loves me.
To be honest, I'm scared that I have forgotten how to show affection and love. I think the breakup had a severe effect on my understanding and beliefs of what constitutes a relationship - the aftermath was not pretty (especially from my side) and I felt as though everything I had done was wrong. It's taken me a long time to dig myself out of that mindset and I am still in this process of working on that.
The breakup left me feeling as if I was completely undesirable and worthless, however my time with playing with the SBL team in the Vancouver Ultimate League helped me so much. The large majority of the team was Caucasian, and I used to hold the notion that I would be treated differently due to my background. It felt that way throughout high school and I was expecting to just be tolerated at most. I behaved with that expectation for the first couple of weeks, but I soon saw that my teammates not only genuinely cared for me, but also liked me for who I was.
It sounds somewhat sad, however I forgot that people could actually like me for my personality. At an ultimate (heh) low in my life, my teammates really did wonders for my self image. From changing dinner locations so that I could attend as a minor to late night drives while pouring our hearts out, they really made me feel special. Just a few days ago I was talking to one of the players from the team and he commented on how after I left the post-season party everybody on the team had good things to say about me. I am reminded of how special the team and those people are to me.
Looking back at it, I think the breakup had to happen. As much as it pains me to say so, I have grown a lot as a person since, in ways not possible if I had stayed comfortable. I know I would go back in a heartbeat because the relationship is still comfortable and familiar to me, even after a year, but I don't regret it happening. I regret the way it happened and I wish that I had behaved more maturely during that time. However I am fortunate for the different pathways it has opened for me. I have met tons of new people who have helped me develop as a person, and I think I have changed a lot since last year.
In the same vein, she has also changed as a person. From my limited exposure, I don't think I could or would love this new person. However it still hurts a tremendous amount, so much that I think my heart is going to self-destruct and splatter over the bus that we coincidentally are both on.
I am still scared that I will not be able to love.
However I look toward the future and I am getting closer to leaving the past.
I genuinely like who I am as of now. There are plenty of rough edges and places where a lot of improvement can be made, but I like me.
With love,
Kevin
I'm sitting by myself since the seats are in pairs and I look over to see two of them knocked out cold and the other two just doing their own thing and in that moment and all other moments I spend with them I realize that I love them and I'm genuinely grateful that they are a part of my life. I sat by myself because I didn't want to break up their group but I think I am happiest to see them just living and doing their best.
=====
After getting off the bus one night from work, I thought about how tiring of a day it was and I thought about how tired my parents must be working each day. I realized I've been terrible at giving them a warm welcome home when that's all they want from a long day at work. Then I thought about how happy I was to just get home and I ran the short distance from the bus stop to home. I walked in and my parents and brother were in the kitchen, and my dad says to me, "Good work today." In the afternoon I had a dental checkup and I had to head straight to work. My head was pounding half the time I was working and I got home late. Thanks dad. Thanks mom. And thank you too Raymond, it'd be lonely without you brother.
some other things
I've thought a little bit more about my loneliness and I think the thing I miss most about being in a relationship is physical contact.I make a good amount of physical contact with my male and female friends, but I don't think I've ever been nor will I ever be the type of person to show platonic affection through excessive contact. However there is a special language in touch and over the past year since the breakup I've forgotten how to speak in it, at least in the romantic context. I feel a profound sadness in this. It seems like forever since I last held hands with somebody and felt the warm and gentle grip of somebody who loves me.
To be honest, I'm scared that I have forgotten how to show affection and love. I think the breakup had a severe effect on my understanding and beliefs of what constitutes a relationship - the aftermath was not pretty (especially from my side) and I felt as though everything I had done was wrong. It's taken me a long time to dig myself out of that mindset and I am still in this process of working on that.
The breakup left me feeling as if I was completely undesirable and worthless, however my time with playing with the SBL team in the Vancouver Ultimate League helped me so much. The large majority of the team was Caucasian, and I used to hold the notion that I would be treated differently due to my background. It felt that way throughout high school and I was expecting to just be tolerated at most. I behaved with that expectation for the first couple of weeks, but I soon saw that my teammates not only genuinely cared for me, but also liked me for who I was.
It sounds somewhat sad, however I forgot that people could actually like me for my personality. At an ultimate (heh) low in my life, my teammates really did wonders for my self image. From changing dinner locations so that I could attend as a minor to late night drives while pouring our hearts out, they really made me feel special. Just a few days ago I was talking to one of the players from the team and he commented on how after I left the post-season party everybody on the team had good things to say about me. I am reminded of how special the team and those people are to me.
Looking back at it, I think the breakup had to happen. As much as it pains me to say so, I have grown a lot as a person since, in ways not possible if I had stayed comfortable. I know I would go back in a heartbeat because the relationship is still comfortable and familiar to me, even after a year, but I don't regret it happening. I regret the way it happened and I wish that I had behaved more maturely during that time. However I am fortunate for the different pathways it has opened for me. I have met tons of new people who have helped me develop as a person, and I think I have changed a lot since last year.
In the same vein, she has also changed as a person. From my limited exposure, I don't think I could or would love this new person. However it still hurts a tremendous amount, so much that I think my heart is going to self-destruct and splatter over the bus that we coincidentally are both on.
I am still scared that I will not be able to love.
However I look toward the future and I am getting closer to leaving the past.
I genuinely like who I am as of now. There are plenty of rough edges and places where a lot of improvement can be made, but I like me.
With love,
Kevin
September 11, 2018
imagine
September 4th, 2018
At 6am the alarm blares through my room and I slide myself out of bed. I get dressed, brush my teeth, and have some breakfast before heading out the door. My bus comes pretty quickly and I glance at my phone and am pleasantly surprised to see I'm ahead of schedule. When I get to the skytrain station I shoot a message to the group chat with Phil and Sarah, asking them if they've arrived yet. They respond that they just got off the bus and that's when I realize that when they said they have to meet at 7:30am they meant on campus.
I mentally slap myself on the wrist for being dumb and buckle up for the rest of the trip. To add on, I'm actually running behind schedule and should be on campus by 8:00am. I text my leader and let them know that I will be late and spend a good chunk of the trip staring at Google Maps location. Ultimately I arrive at 8:22am, and while it isn't the end of the world (the students are supposed to arrive at 8:30am for check-in), I'm still disappointed in myself.
The rest of the morning goes much better and I finally get to connect the names I've been emailing for the past month to a face. We head out on the campus tour I roughly hashed out yesterday and although it feels like I'm talking at them for most of the tour they seem to get along with each other just fine. The tour I give them is pretty cookie cutter, but it's difficult to do anything particularly special for Computer Science transfer students - there are literally two comp sci buildings on campus and they're right next to each other.
After the tour my group and I head over to Doug Mitchell for a classic welcoming from the dean of science. We have a panel of experienced transfer students come up for some questions and once we're done with that we head over to one of the aforementioned comp sci buildings for the department hosted lunch. I let my group have free reign at that point after letting them know how the lunch worked, but to my surprise three of them ask to stick around!
We each grab a hot dog, a bag of chips, and a can of pop, and start to look for a spot to eat. I find a table close by with some other students eating there and I ask them if we could join them. We all introduce ourselves and I find out that two of the students are actually second years and had graduated from Mountain.
Some of the other Transfer Orientation Leaders (TOLs for short) joined us, their groups having gone off on their own way, and we talked about courses and such. I gained a lot of insight from the older TOLs and I'm really happy that they came to join us for lunch. They finished up lunch and then they asked me if I'd like to join them to see what clubs were out on Main Mall. To be honest I was thinking that they would leave me behind, so I can't tell you how happy I was to hear them ask that.
Our newly founded group walk down Main Mall and we have a blast checking out all the different groups. I feel like I'm brand new to the school and I regain a sense of the wonder and awe that I had when I was participating in my Imagine Day. We make a quick stop at Abdul Ladha to drop off our signs (we had been holding onto signs with our program name on it) and outside the building S wins a raffle. J meets up with us outside the bookstore and we continue to explore the campus.
We check out what the rest of Main Mall has to offer and after D suggests that we sit down we enter the EOSC building. There I do a cool little personality test with them and in general it's a good time with them. A and K, two other TOLs meet up with us and shortly the other TOLs and I head back to Abdul Ladha to set up for the team social later today.
To be honest there isn't much to set up and most of us spend the remaining time before the team social starts "play testing" the games. I have a lot of fun playing Jenga with B and then Settlers of Catan with the other TOLs from EOSC. When the students arrived we have ice cream and it looks like everybody is having a good time.
Of course the event eventually ends and we start clean up. As we're cleaning up Settlers of Catan the other TOLs talk about how much fun they had playing and we agree to meet up sometime and play again.
Afterwards I meet up with Ja, Je, and Sha so that we can fulfill our plan of going out for dinner together. J from earlier is meeting up with us at the restaurant so we grab seats first. We're seated and the whole night passes by in a blur, but it was a really cozy time and even though we were all relatively new acquaintances it feels like we all get along well. Once we're done eating J kindly drives Sha home and I head home along with Ja and Je.
=====
I feel really proud to be a UBC Science student and a UBC student at all. I'm really fortunate and happy that my orientation group was willing to talk and seemed genuinely happy and engaged at UBC. I hope that I had a positive impact on them and I think back to the words that one of the engagement officers said,
"They won't remember you for what you said, but for how you made them feel."
At 6am the alarm blares through my room and I slide myself out of bed. I get dressed, brush my teeth, and have some breakfast before heading out the door. My bus comes pretty quickly and I glance at my phone and am pleasantly surprised to see I'm ahead of schedule. When I get to the skytrain station I shoot a message to the group chat with Phil and Sarah, asking them if they've arrived yet. They respond that they just got off the bus and that's when I realize that when they said they have to meet at 7:30am they meant on campus.
I mentally slap myself on the wrist for being dumb and buckle up for the rest of the trip. To add on, I'm actually running behind schedule and should be on campus by 8:00am. I text my leader and let them know that I will be late and spend a good chunk of the trip staring at Google Maps location. Ultimately I arrive at 8:22am, and while it isn't the end of the world (the students are supposed to arrive at 8:30am for check-in), I'm still disappointed in myself.
The rest of the morning goes much better and I finally get to connect the names I've been emailing for the past month to a face. We head out on the campus tour I roughly hashed out yesterday and although it feels like I'm talking at them for most of the tour they seem to get along with each other just fine. The tour I give them is pretty cookie cutter, but it's difficult to do anything particularly special for Computer Science transfer students - there are literally two comp sci buildings on campus and they're right next to each other.
After the tour my group and I head over to Doug Mitchell for a classic welcoming from the dean of science. We have a panel of experienced transfer students come up for some questions and once we're done with that we head over to one of the aforementioned comp sci buildings for the department hosted lunch. I let my group have free reign at that point after letting them know how the lunch worked, but to my surprise three of them ask to stick around!
We each grab a hot dog, a bag of chips, and a can of pop, and start to look for a spot to eat. I find a table close by with some other students eating there and I ask them if we could join them. We all introduce ourselves and I find out that two of the students are actually second years and had graduated from Mountain.
Some of the other Transfer Orientation Leaders (TOLs for short) joined us, their groups having gone off on their own way, and we talked about courses and such. I gained a lot of insight from the older TOLs and I'm really happy that they came to join us for lunch. They finished up lunch and then they asked me if I'd like to join them to see what clubs were out on Main Mall. To be honest I was thinking that they would leave me behind, so I can't tell you how happy I was to hear them ask that.
Our newly founded group walk down Main Mall and we have a blast checking out all the different groups. I feel like I'm brand new to the school and I regain a sense of the wonder and awe that I had when I was participating in my Imagine Day. We make a quick stop at Abdul Ladha to drop off our signs (we had been holding onto signs with our program name on it) and outside the building S wins a raffle. J meets up with us outside the bookstore and we continue to explore the campus.
We check out what the rest of Main Mall has to offer and after D suggests that we sit down we enter the EOSC building. There I do a cool little personality test with them and in general it's a good time with them. A and K, two other TOLs meet up with us and shortly the other TOLs and I head back to Abdul Ladha to set up for the team social later today.
To be honest there isn't much to set up and most of us spend the remaining time before the team social starts "play testing" the games. I have a lot of fun playing Jenga with B and then Settlers of Catan with the other TOLs from EOSC. When the students arrived we have ice cream and it looks like everybody is having a good time.
Of course the event eventually ends and we start clean up. As we're cleaning up Settlers of Catan the other TOLs talk about how much fun they had playing and we agree to meet up sometime and play again.
Afterwards I meet up with Ja, Je, and Sha so that we can fulfill our plan of going out for dinner together. J from earlier is meeting up with us at the restaurant so we grab seats first. We're seated and the whole night passes by in a blur, but it was a really cozy time and even though we were all relatively new acquaintances it feels like we all get along well. Once we're done eating J kindly drives Sha home and I head home along with Ja and Je.
=====
I feel really proud to be a UBC Science student and a UBC student at all. I'm really fortunate and happy that my orientation group was willing to talk and seemed genuinely happy and engaged at UBC. I hope that I had a positive impact on them and I think back to the words that one of the engagement officers said,
"They won't remember you for what you said, but for how you made them feel."
September 2, 2018
henlo
So I've been meaning to write this post since the beginning of summer but I think that putting it off until now has helped me further understand the topic.
=====
When the summer first started I was a lonely and lost boy. To some degree I still am, but much less so now. Networks like Snapchat and Instagram amplified my feelings of social mediocrity yet I continued to stare longingly at the vibrant lives of those around me. I felt like my life was colourless and bland in comparison to those that my friends led.
If I were to pinpoint one specific thing that shifted my mentality, it would have to be Canada Day.
I was invited to a barbecue + sleepover at my friend's house and this invitation came out of the blue to me. The friend group was one that I was familiar with, but I didn't think we were close enough to be invited. I was pleasantly surprised and I remember thinking This is how I get that colourful life.
The get together was great and I ended up sleeping over despite not planning to (my first sleepover at another person's house). We spent a lot of time outside just listening to music and talking, and overall it was a very cozy and comfortable environment to be in. The morning after we made a pilgrimage to IHOP and had a nice breakfast together.
While it sounds like pretty standard fare, the party was important to me because it deglorified the lives of others. I had only ever seen these friends through the filters of social media, so spending some quality time with them helped me realize that my life is just as interesting as theirs are. Perhaps it's not even a good train of thought to compare the quality of our lives like so.
Regardless, I had a blast and this event kicked to life some friendships and strengthened some that were not as strong before, and for that I am eternally grateful.
=====
There is another friend group that I have, though as time passes it feels as though we grow more distant. They are the friends of my ex-girlfriend. Only last summer did I hang out with them no less than three times a week, and I'll be damned if that wasn't a fun summer. However after the breakup the physical act of even being with them was difficult. It was always obvious that they would choose her over me, but it didn't lessen the blow.
For a while this had me feeling really low, but as I met more and more people in my life, I found that maybe they are not the close friends I was looking for. Their entire culture and dynamic is incredibly different from mine, and while I had dismissed this as my fault in the past, I know now that I just don't agree with some things that they do.
They're all great people and they mean well, but they're probably not (and they haven't been) the people I want to spend time with the most. I blindly assumed that because they were friends of my partner at the time that they would be what I need, but that has changed after some introspection and critical thinking of myself.
=====
This all sounds good and all, "Wow Kevin had a epiphany, he must feel great," but that couldn't be further from reality. Writing this feels difficult because it feels like I am speaking poorly of the people I really did consider my closest friends when I mean anything but that. I still care for you all and I do enjoy hanging out with you!
- Kevin
=====
When the summer first started I was a lonely and lost boy. To some degree I still am, but much less so now. Networks like Snapchat and Instagram amplified my feelings of social mediocrity yet I continued to stare longingly at the vibrant lives of those around me. I felt like my life was colourless and bland in comparison to those that my friends led.
If I were to pinpoint one specific thing that shifted my mentality, it would have to be Canada Day.
I was invited to a barbecue + sleepover at my friend's house and this invitation came out of the blue to me. The friend group was one that I was familiar with, but I didn't think we were close enough to be invited. I was pleasantly surprised and I remember thinking This is how I get that colourful life.
The get together was great and I ended up sleeping over despite not planning to (my first sleepover at another person's house). We spent a lot of time outside just listening to music and talking, and overall it was a very cozy and comfortable environment to be in. The morning after we made a pilgrimage to IHOP and had a nice breakfast together.
While it sounds like pretty standard fare, the party was important to me because it deglorified the lives of others. I had only ever seen these friends through the filters of social media, so spending some quality time with them helped me realize that my life is just as interesting as theirs are. Perhaps it's not even a good train of thought to compare the quality of our lives like so.
Regardless, I had a blast and this event kicked to life some friendships and strengthened some that were not as strong before, and for that I am eternally grateful.
=====
There is another friend group that I have, though as time passes it feels as though we grow more distant. They are the friends of my ex-girlfriend. Only last summer did I hang out with them no less than three times a week, and I'll be damned if that wasn't a fun summer. However after the breakup the physical act of even being with them was difficult. It was always obvious that they would choose her over me, but it didn't lessen the blow.
For a while this had me feeling really low, but as I met more and more people in my life, I found that maybe they are not the close friends I was looking for. Their entire culture and dynamic is incredibly different from mine, and while I had dismissed this as my fault in the past, I know now that I just don't agree with some things that they do.
They're all great people and they mean well, but they're probably not (and they haven't been) the people I want to spend time with the most. I blindly assumed that because they were friends of my partner at the time that they would be what I need, but that has changed after some introspection and critical thinking of myself.
=====
This all sounds good and all, "Wow Kevin had a epiphany, he must feel great," but that couldn't be further from reality. Writing this feels difficult because it feels like I am speaking poorly of the people I really did consider my closest friends when I mean anything but that. I still care for you all and I do enjoy hanging out with you!
- Kevin
August 20, 2018
more thank yous
To my Vancouver Ultimate League (VUL) team,
Thank you so much for being such an integral and exciting part of my summer. Playing ultimate with all of you has done wonders for my health in general, and I learned so much about the game and myself. Everybody inspired me to do my best on and off the field and I know I've made some truly amazing connections this summer.
You are all some of the coolest and interesting people I have ever met, and all of you are really good at ultimate. I won't forget the evenings spent at some random park in Vancouver and the post-game dinners that usually followed.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I hope we will all play again this fall season or next summer season! Congratulations to all of us for somehow winning our division!
Love,
Kevin
=====
While I was working last Saturday, a woman approached me asking if we still had any of the Jump 50th Anniversary t-shirts left. Funnily enough she found me in the exact location they were located and she showed me some designs that her son had sent to her phone. I helped her find several in medium and as I browsed through piles of shirts looking for sizes she told me a bit about why she was buying them. She said that her son is really into anime and that recently he's swapped his favourite from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to Boku no Hero Academia. After saying this she asks me if I watch any anime, to which I responded with the white lie, "Yeah, a little bit."
The woman asks me if I have any favourites myself and to be honest, I couldn't think of any so I told her that it changes from season to season. She talks about how she wants to get involved with what her kids are interested and that line really resonated with me. I thought about saying something like, "I wish my parents were like that," but I don't think I'd want to change anything about my parents. I was just really happy that she was genuinely invested and supportive of what her kids enjoyed, especially when it's something "unorthodox" like anime.
So thank you, random mom at UNIQLO.
=====
Quick post tonight as I just wanted to get these experiences off my chest and onto the page. Thank you for reading, and you will hear from me next post!
Thank you so much for being such an integral and exciting part of my summer. Playing ultimate with all of you has done wonders for my health in general, and I learned so much about the game and myself. Everybody inspired me to do my best on and off the field and I know I've made some truly amazing connections this summer.
You are all some of the coolest and interesting people I have ever met, and all of you are really good at ultimate. I won't forget the evenings spent at some random park in Vancouver and the post-game dinners that usually followed.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I hope we will all play again this fall season or next summer season! Congratulations to all of us for somehow winning our division!
Love,
Kevin
=====
While I was working last Saturday, a woman approached me asking if we still had any of the Jump 50th Anniversary t-shirts left. Funnily enough she found me in the exact location they were located and she showed me some designs that her son had sent to her phone. I helped her find several in medium and as I browsed through piles of shirts looking for sizes she told me a bit about why she was buying them. She said that her son is really into anime and that recently he's swapped his favourite from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to Boku no Hero Academia. After saying this she asks me if I watch any anime, to which I responded with the white lie, "Yeah, a little bit."
The woman asks me if I have any favourites myself and to be honest, I couldn't think of any so I told her that it changes from season to season. She talks about how she wants to get involved with what her kids are interested and that line really resonated with me. I thought about saying something like, "I wish my parents were like that," but I don't think I'd want to change anything about my parents. I was just really happy that she was genuinely invested and supportive of what her kids enjoyed, especially when it's something "unorthodox" like anime.
So thank you, random mom at UNIQLO.
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Quick post tonight as I just wanted to get these experiences off my chest and onto the page. Thank you for reading, and you will hear from me next post!
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