A month has passed since I moved away from my ex.

On most days the feeling of independence is empowering. I don’t have to worry about anything or anyone other than myself.

But there are moments when I’m in a restaurant and I start reminiscing how it felt like to have him sitting opposite me. We wouldn’t talk about much other than what to get for dessert. Maybe if we dig further back we would be finding a spot in a crowded food court in Trinoma. Or one of the more intense memories I have of him… is feeling so sad to see him on the other side of the Quezon Avenue MRT platform. How I wanted the weekend to wrap up quickly so we could be back together again in our tiny apartment on Scout Rallos.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

I didn’t really feel “Summer Friday” today. I went to work and jumped right into my inbox which was swarmed with emails. While it’s fantastic to be “so busy” coordinating shoots, scheduling edits, and writing scripts… I’m really just trying to SURVIVE. Get by. Produce the best work possible on a silly, broken heart.

Lethargic is the best way to describe what happened before gym. But I dragged my feet over to 100AM and lifted weights. I even ran into a common acquaintance. I took my sweet time working on back, shoulders, and core. I tried to execute exercises I learned from my dragon boat teammates: flutter kick, leg raises, leg touch, heel touch, and planking.

Dinner was at Menya Musashi at Raffles City. This was where I went from happy and fierce to sad and emotional in the span of five minutes. Looking at my bowl of ramen and my extra side dish of four chicken kaarage WHICH I CAN NEVER REALLY FINISH ON MY OWN. I would usually share this with him… or he’d pick a few pieces from my side dish. Or he would try my soup… even if his soup was the same. He just needed to try my soup.

The idea was to visit the National Gallery Singapore but I decided to move that to tomorrow so a friend could join me there. I took the train home listening to Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande like a normal 3o-going-31 year-old gay man.

On most days the feeling of independence is empowering. But today I lost to all things sentimental.