More Portioned Up than a Children's Birthday Cake

"Wow that's... really unusual for you. A whole weekend free! It'll be nice for you to actually relax for once."

"Yeah... you and I both know it won't last."

"Probably not, no."

This was a conversation I had with my friend Siu Yen a couple of nights ago, when she asked me what I'd be doing next weekend: we were also planning when out next meeting would be.

 My diary is often more or less totally booked out for two months into the future. Every weekend I'm doing at least one thing: meeting up with these friends, seeing a movie with those friends, baking a cake for these guys, having lunch with those guys, and so on. Sometimes I'll have more than one thing going on in the same day, and have to limit my time with one group of people before meeting up with the second group of people (I call this 'speed friending': this doesn't happen often though as it doesn't make for quality get-together times). Now it's started to bleed into my evenings after work, not to mention I have my evening Mandarin classes on Wednesday nights. This pretty much makes me constantly exhausted.

It also makes me very happy.

Back in my school days, I was quite the loner. I was always awkward, quiet, nerdy- just not really able to fit in. When I did have friends, it was only one or two close ones at a time, which were sometimes intense and destructive (as is common when insecure people become too focused and reliant on each other). However, as time went on I got better at the whole making friends thing, and gradually discovered more and more amazing people that I cared about and wanted to keep in my life. The only things that changed were my attitude to myself and life in general.

This fast-paced lifestyle I've gained from hyper-socialising also seems to mean I've gained a weird, restless energy. This weekend one of the things I did was to visit my friend Vicky in Brighton (a fellow efficiently busy person), and at one point she tried to make me sit back into my chair instead of perching on the end of it. I physically managed it, but my efforts only made my friend laugh because apparently I still looked really stiff and awkward. In fact I felt really relaxed in Brighton, away from the shoving elbows and selfishness of London- but apparently my muscles were still tensed for immediate action.

Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. I remember what it's like to feel isolated, and now that I'm lucky enough to know so many amazing people, I'm more than happy to make the effort to give as many people as much of my time as I can. For some people it's not as much as I'd like, but then again there are only so many hours in the day!

A bit of wisdom from Brighton

 I came back from Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium at around half past midnight last night, having visited for the first time as a guest rather than a volunteer since it's official opening on Saturday (it is, by the way, amazing). Once I'd finished posting a few pictures on Facebook, I was just about to go to bed when a message popped up from a friend I haven't seen in a while.

"Are you still in London? It'd be great to meet up again."

And some of my friends still wonder why I try to arrange things so far in advance.