For the first time in a while, I am back in New York City.
We drove here to attend a wedding for one of Haru's friends, and oddly enough I have very mixed feelings having returned to the place where I spent my undergraduate collegiate years.
I do not have any lingering attachments to any person in this city in particular. While I know for sure that I have friends who are still living here (is it more accurate to call them "acquaintances"?), I do not feel any desire to meet anyone.
Therefore it is slightly ironic that Haru has a laundry list of friends to meet up with and I do not, even though I am the one who has lived in this city for four years. So it is perhaps odd that our positions are reversed coming back to this place.
Though, inherently, it has much to do with the differences in our personalities.
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Since the very beginning, I have been an introvert.
Although I have improved on this slightly over the years, this aspect about my fundamental nature has not really changed.
In fact, it is probably the case when I am most stressed that I desire to withdraw the most back into a shell. And indeed, lately work has been stressful. I've been putting in very many hours, and in fact technically I am not finished with my summer work yet even though the next academic year has already started. Perhaps I am partially full of regret (or frustrated?) that there was no vacation for me this summer even though many of my peers had the opportunity to take one -- though it's not like it wasn't my fault for not making time for one in the first place -- a work-o-holic personality of mine to blame. Therefore, there is no break, and I will start this second academic year already several days behind and mentally exhausted.
So going to a wedding this weekend with Haru isn't exactly my idea of a vacation.
Especially when I have a big presentation to give next Thursday, and medical school already started this week (which I've been skipping to finish summer work).
I think those are the stressers weighing on me right now.
You know that feeling where it feels like everything will feel better if you let it out and just cry? Like a sense of catharsis will come if you just let everything out?
I was feeling something like that on Wednesday.
I didn't quite cry though.
I have a very odd relationship with "stress". Most of the time, I don't notice it building inside of me, almost as if I'm unwilling to accept that I am stressed. I have to pause and think very objectively about whether I am or am not stressed -- and sometimes I conclude from a third-person perspective -- "oh, so I must be feeling stress right now."
I got comments from my classmates yesterday that I lost weight over the summer.
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I really regret not making time for a vacation.
Being an introvert, my idea for nice vacation would be a whole lot of silence.
In fact, my favorite time at work is maybe at 8 o'clock in the morning when nobody else is in yet. I like how peaceful it feels and how nice it is to have all of the space to myself (and still be productive).
I think this notion extends to what kind of vacation I would like as well.
And in fact, when I was going to school in New York, my favorite thing about the city was the city itself.
I liked wandering the city as an anonymous single person, the coffee shops, parks, and streets. I liked eating by myself and having places to go by myself. I liked having an endless amount of time to myself. And back then I had quite a lot of time to myself since those years were the ones I was struggling with our long-distance relationship.
Of course, I like spending time with Haru as well, since we are dating, but my fondest feelings about New York City are mostly time that I spent alone.
That's introversion quite at its extreme I suppose.
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Earlier this evening Haru and I drove to Brooklyn to have dinner with one of Haru's friends
(technically a double date) and furthermore chill around their place.
Incidentally, we all went to the same high school -- except Haru and co. are two years older than me -- and furthermore part of more sociable/popular circles than I was. So I knew Haru's friend -- except I hadn't seen them in person for perhaps five years.
And in a sense I've probably been secretly dreading meeting them again.
Oddly enough, I have a better time interacting with total strangers than people I'm mildly acquainted with.
Why?
Perhaps because I have an easier time constructing a persona for a new stranger.
There's no inconsistencies in character or behavior.
I have the most trouble interacting with Haru's friends -- and in particular high school friends of Haru -- probably because we have so much of a history.
And furthermore Haru talks too much about me.
I get self-conscious and unsure how to act.
I feel like the bar gets raised really high, and honestly I don't do well when the expectations are high. My personality is fundamentally defensive in the first place, and I don't like having my insides seen.
It is especially troublesome when Haru tells other people about me, because apparently other people get the impression that I'm really witty or have interesting insights about X, Y, or Z, except when I'm prompted about things such as my contrarian opinions or resume-like things that I am doing for school/work, obviously I'm no good when it comes to having an audience at a cocktail party.
Pillow talk is pillow talk.
The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon for instance.
Observations are observations, and private musings are private musings. I simply prefer to share those thoughts with people who are close to me. It feels jarring to take those things to more public places.
Though frankly this is just an excuse.
I just don't wish to be judged, and I don't like to have any spotlight.
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So it is difficult.
And in the end I'm just really quiet, and probably really awkward.
They talk very fast.
I think even if I wanted to say something, it would have been difficult to interject.
And then furthermore I'm not exactly an ordinary person.
I'm a millennial that doesn't use social media, watch TV or netflix, or follow any kind of music or pop culture. So therefore automatically it is difficult for me to connect with people.
Frankly my life is kind of consumed by work and studying.
The introversion is self-perpetuating in a sense.
Introversion
Author
lychee
[- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀
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