That Monday, my morning was the same as always. I wake up at 8:30 in the morning to the sound of my alarm and lay in bed for about fifteen minutes. Even though it's the winter break, I have made it a habit to wake up early. It fools me into thinking I'm more productive when I start the day earlier.
Creeping out of bed, I try not to wake up my sleeping cousin, who is crashing at our place for the holidays. I shower in the master bathroom and proceed with the rest of my morning routine in the bathroom adjacent to my brother's bedroom. There's a system for everything in our house. Shower in this bathroom, brush your teeth and blow-dry your hair in that one. Efficiency is the ultimate goal.
Whether nature or nurture, I live by this creed as well, as a frequent multi-tasker. I catch up on my favorite blogs with my laptop on the bathroom counter, one hand scrolling down the page, the other blasting the blow-dryer at my head. On one of the sites, I find a review for a new YA book titled "Legend." I'd heard about it before but it hadn't quite caught my eye, despite its overwhelmingly positive reviews. I've never been much of a dystopian fan.
I had noticed before that the author had an Asian name, but for some reason, something clicked in me that morning that hadn't before. Marie Lu. That name was remarkably familiar. I looked up mree, an artist on Deviantart whose work I had admired as a pre-teen just starting middle school. My hunch was correct. The artist I'd admired as a child was now a published author.
If that weren't unusual enough, something else happened that night.
As if high school were repeating itself, I was forced to skip another friend's birthday dinner due to family obligations. In the past, I would have written another emo blog post about sacrificing my social life. At this point in my life, I've learned to treasure my time with my family while I can.
We originally planned to go to a Korean restaurant after my brother's tennis restaurant, but it turned out that the restaurant was closed. We went instead to my father's favorite noodle restaurant nearby. By chance, I chose the seat that faced the glass door. The restaurant was built in a way that half of the walls were made of glass, with a frosted stripe running across the middle that gave the customers some privacy from onlookers outside the restaurant.
We ate our dishes, talking about school and work and life, when I looked up and saw his face behind the glass, outside. It felt as if my heart had leaped up and rammed into my throat.
The moment lasted probably less than second, but I will never forget that moment. I knew from Facebook how he looks now, ten years older, but I still would have recognized that short spiky hair and eye-smile anywhere. He was walking with his family, presumably after dinner. He just happened to look into the restaurant as he walked by. He didn't see me. But even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered. Our paths had crossed once, nearly ten years ago when I was still the girl with the Hello Kitty hair tie who made a point of being cold to the boys she had a crush on. He would never remember me. Nobody recognized me anymore anyways. I'd grown my hair long, I'd cut my bangs blunt, I'd lost my tan. Every time I come home from break, people tell me I've gotten prettier or more beautiful, but all that confirms to me is that I am no longer that girl in tennis clothes with the crooked teeth and browned skin. Did they all think I was ugly back then?
If my life were produced by Hollywood, I would have run outside... and said what? There was nothing to be said. The ultimate truth is that we do not leave equal impacts on each other's lives. I might be a pebble grazing the surface, and you might be the asteroid who leaves me with a crater. Ten years later, the pebble is a grain of sand, but the crater is still there. A memento.
