I will have the lovely dinner with flower 40 tomorrow night. I really love to chat with those women who used to my mother's colleagues, though there are only one left in the same company.
Let me introduce this club flower 40 to all you guys and then you would know one of the important things in my life better.
Aunt Belinda, Carol, Sophia, Joy, and My mother Sandra are the founders of this club. I joined them a few months after the first dinner of the club when I was 14. Then Aunt Frances joined us when I was about 17 according to my vague memory. We would have dinner together every 1 or 2 months in fabulous restaurants and sometimes have desserts after formal dinner and chat until midnight. I am 21 now, which means I know these fabulous and interesting aunties for like 8 years. They are all thoughtful and kind of watching me over when I was a teen. They are all women with great capability and jobs. Whenever I heard the news that we are having dinner together, I would be really excited. I would abandon almost all the date or schedule I had and make sure I don't have anything to do in the early morning after.
You might say "then what are you going to do tomorrow that make your day awful besides having the wonderful dinner with those adorable aunties?" No, the dinner is awful enough. Let me remind you 3 supporting clues that make tomorrow an horrible day.
1. I really like those aunties, who were my mother's colleagues.
2. I met my only boy friend in the company trip held by my mother's company.
3. It's the first dinner I would have after I came back from Stanford, which can roughly translated as the first dinner after I became single after 2-year-and-8-month relationship.
Is it clear now?
I really like them. They are like maturer friends of mine. They share some innermost things with all the members. When you are close to somebody and they are willing to share their life and opinions without faking it, it's really hard to hide something from them. Okay, at least it's really hard for me. Because I like friends to be mutual. If a person who I don't consider as a close friend tell me something personal, then I think I have to do that, too. Recently I think that's something good because I won't owe others, but also something bad because I always hope the person will do the same thing but it's not always true.
When I started my first relationship (okay, I didn't think of the "first" before, it's like the one), that's the first time I hide a secret from them for 1 dinner, which means 1 or 2 months. I just said I had a boy friends, but not too specifically. Then of course they can guess that he is someone they knew. I felt really guilty not telling them at the time. After the relationship is settled down, I decided to talked about this whenever the next dinner would be held. When I was in the relationship, we sometimes talk about it and they are all more supportive than my own mother. I really appreciate that.
Tomorrow, I think I have to talk about this. The original topic is the Stanford experience. I can easily fill all the time we have during dinner by how wonderful ALC is. I can talk about that for like 6 hours for sure. That's one minor part of the painful part tomorrow, which is talking about the best times I have ever when I miss them this much with complication and know really well that everything has changed and would never be the same. What if they ask me whether I met some guys in ALC? (They are open-minded) I am sure I have something to say, but how about not mentioning my lovely boy friend? How about not mentioning the wonderful guy in ALC but no longer is?
I saw some episodes in SATC season 2. When the second time Carrie and Mr. Big broke up because Carrie found out what they want from this relationship are quite different, I felt like being punched. I knew what we wanted from a relationship is quite the same. We need somebody that we love to support ourselves and also have great times until we are seniors, right? Compared to their problems, I think the reason I had is... However, problems in different relationships can't be compared. It's only if we have the same thoughts about them and the same ways to face or solve them. That's what I have so far.
In conclusion, the main struggle is that I really want to tell the truth when I don't know whether I can handle telling it when I am not that sure about it and still figuring out what do I want from a relationship. It will be a painful night for me to choose or balance between truth and hiding the truth in front of important persons, but never telling the lies. Moreover, it would be an exhausted day to try to think everything through in the time I get before dinner. Good luck, Rita. Be yourself... hopefully.
