Day 109

At what point does something important to you no longer become important?

The moment I realized I was waiting for someone who would never come back, I promised I would never triage another minute of my life waiting for someone else.

April 23 has been a date that i've looked forward to since last year. It was the birthday of my best friend that has greatly enhanced my life for the last couple of months. This kind of friendship was like no other - the kind of friendship where you spend a chunk of your day spending time together, the kind where you relate to each other in a way most others can't, the kind where you would travel across the state to go see each other for no other reason.

This friendship was something I had put a lot of effort to. 15 credits of class, eSports matches, extracurriculars, networking, project managing, and a part-time job didn’t stop me dedicating time everyday to this friendship. Overtime, the receptiveness suddenly died gradually. Daily interactions would become weekly, and even when I did make the time of day, it would be cut short so that this important friend could move around in the midst of company. After living through this pattern for a while, April 23 was a day that I wasn't looking forward to anymore.

Coincidentally, I was to do a project on safety for a class that was due the very same day. My theme was on triage,
the concept of assigning medical care based off the urgency of the need of treatment. The day before the 23th, I was asked on a blind date. I had an entire plan mapped out for both of us to work on my project while also finding time throughout the day to get to know each other. For that day I had to make a choice; I was torn between waiting the next day for a chance of getting some sort of invite to a birthday event of some kind or
spending the day to myself to work on this project and do the things that should be important to me. In a way, I was almost conducting my own triage. When I woke up on April 23, I set my phone to Do-Not-Disturb, mailed a birthday present that I wanted to deliver in-person, and went to NYC to conduct my triage project.

On the way to meet my blind date at Central Park, I took a couple of snapshots at this fountain landmark that caught my eye.
This was the fountain at Josie Robertson Plaza. The place was somewhere to ponder my thoughts about this friendship. In my head, I came up with all these thoughts about how much I hated the one-sidedness, the lack of appreciation, the lack of closure from a cease in communication, the betrayal - it all made me upset inside. Releasing every pent up emotion I suppressed for a demanding 4 months came out and I instantly felt like I lost 10 lbs. I was still somewhat angry, but I felt so much more replenished about this pending issue from this weird therapy called processing your emotions. From there, I went to meet my blind date and work on my project.

The date went as good as can be. The weather was perfect, my date and I got along well, and the project was a big success. The feeling throughout the day was very fulfilling because, for the first time since my move, I went from spending time on birthday friend who stopped showing up altogether to spending time for me. On that day onward, I was the most important thing to me. The view on birthday friend changed into one of bitterness. The person most important to me became someone who no longer deserved it. And to be put in a paradox of waiting for someone that means a lot to you against you wanting to move on with your own life left a sour taste in my mouth. This new triage asserted that I was always my own priority, and anyone that challenged that did not deserve my involvement in their life.

The day I was graded on my project, I got an A and a life lesson.