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Meet your best friend after 2 years. Plan to go to a local korean restaurant near her college. Restaurant is in a slightly dingy area. Ask another friend to come with you. Find out that your abusive mother does not want to let you go to the restaurant, nor is she okay with a guy friend accompanying you. (You are all 19 btw - and this is your first time going somewhere unsupervised by family in 2-3 years after living in house arrest your entire life). Mother insists to drop you off to your friends' college, and parks her car outside the main gate to make sure you don't leave the premises. You and your friends try leaving through the staff gate, but the guard informs you that students cannot enter and exit through it. You have to get to the restaurant by 4pm - a package is arriving there for you. A race against time. Back at the front gate. Friend goes out alone to check where your car is. It is right next to the gate, facing the path through which you're supposed to leave. He books an auto rikshaw and asks the driver to pick you up from inside the premises - smart. Wear your friend's jacket and use the hood to hide your face. Best friend changes out of her kurta, wears her mask and ties her hair up. Perfect disguise. Get in the auto rikshaw. Guy friend sits on the side facing your mom's car. You and Best friend sit on the inside and hide yourselves. The auto rikshaw starts running and passes your car. Mom looks at the rikshaw exiting and does not recognize you. Laugh. loudly. Look at your friends. Put your hand up to your chest and feel your heart beating wildly. Try your best to not shake your legs.
Reach the dingy area swarming with other students. Procure the package. (it contains gifts from your sort-of-ex-boyfriend. It is complicated and you dont have the time to feel the storm raging inside.) Speed walk through the narrow paths and look at the neon lights. Best friend remarks that she feels like she is in a Wong Kar Wai film. Enter the restaurant. You never knew a place like this existed in Delhi, hidden away like a secret. Laugh to yourself nervously. Take in the ambience. Korean pop music blaring in the background. Students talking and laughing loudly, some of them slightly drunk perhaps. Take your phone out and hurriedly click a blurry picture so you don't forget this moment before scurrying after your friends. Find a place to sit and wait for your order. Take deep breaths. Look at your friends again. Feel warm inside. Let the feeling soak in until your phone rings again.
Jan 20, 2025
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Apr 23, 2024
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Bar? Alone at a bar, nothing to lose. Event? You mean networking opportunity with no shackles. Dinner? Small check that you get to decide.
Feb 18, 2024
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Always a nice surprise, and the rush against the clock to debrief before the first person gets off is exhilarating. leads to cutting to the chase and leaves you happy for the next couple hours
Feb 7, 2024
Top Recs from @mah1mas_swamp
it's one of the few instances where I love technology. Last year I started sending letters, drawings etc to my (now ex) boyfriend and friends and I would wake up everyday and track the thing that I sent out π it's genuinely so thrilling and fun to me for some reason. I've been keeping tabs on the snail mail that I sent to my pen pal everyday and it makes me happy every time the location updates. My love is closer to reaching her!
Apr 14, 2025
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make a time capsule! and if you journal, then read some of your older journal entries :) try to listen to music you listened to when you were 12, even if it is silly or bad, and try to feel how you felt then. Welcome to adulthood!
Jan 14, 2025
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Kathleen Hanna I love you!
(Eau D'Bedroom Dancing by Le Tigre)
Apr 2, 2025