captain's log for commander kissette

i know how much it sucks to drive on a rainy friday night in manila. now, i wouldn't go as far as to have someone stab me as an alternative to disappointing a loved one, but i guess it's a generational thing.

i consider myself an expert on being a complacent lover and the complications that come with it. i have a hundred percent success rate of ending relationships because of it. i live with the regret of missing countless opportunities to step up for the women whom i committed at the time to love. so it pains me to see it in others.

the original plan was selfish. my original plan was to rectify past broken hearts by being the friend i failed to be during the aftermath. the objective was to be present, be grounded, hold space to process grief. since i can't travel back in time to fix my own failings, i sure as hell am going to make it my mission to make someone else's present better.

time machines may be fantasy but generational whiplash feels real. wait, so sharing locations are a thing now? wait, wordle every day? wait, we can listen to the same music simultaneously? i already don't feel like a proper millennial, so i felt terribly lost in time. but this is how duty calls, and i promised to do my best to play the role properly. besides, it didn't feel like a chore.

days pass, and i'm increasingly getting more than i bargained for. holy shit, this wasn't a simple task. data points upon data points. the cake, the basketball player. remember this, remember that. we don't mix food, we hate her now. a simple list won't cut it. eleven piercings, 185 deadlift. we need an entire library's worth. taylor swift, shrek. it was a lot to remember, but discerning the patterns were easy, i've seen it somewhere before.

so it seemed there's no getting away from this.

i kept reminding myself - know your place, know your time. but it continued. before sunrise to beyond sunset. i started entering second homes. i started traversing unfamiliar roads. i can't be thanked enough - all in a day's work, i think to myself. but that was a lie. it didn't feel like work at all. it felt familiar.

there was an intuitive resonance, an invisible string. the okaerinasai became just okaeri. the smell of waxed canvas became intense vanilla. the government name became three titles and the true birth name. the workaholic in me still saw it as a job to be done, but that guy can't be trusted to discern the bigger picture.

this wasn't part of the original plan. i was only supposed to do it just for myself. but no, my caregiving started to become actual care. i wasn't doing it for selfish reasons anymore.

that's when it hit me.

i didn't travel back in time to fix myself.

i travelled into an alternate universe to meet myself, in her.