I'm a girl. This journal is almost 10 years old, when I started it, I called it Almost 21. Before that, I had a journal called Soap on a domain that no longer exists. Some things have changed since then, some things haven't. I always wanted to be a writer. I live out that dream here.
Like a beacon, Catherine emerges from some point in the crowd.
"Are you going in?" She asks me.
"I'm not sure. I've still got assignments to do. Is anyone in there?"
"Hmmm, no, not really. Only Rowie, I think."
"Oh. Are you going in?"
"I don't know - have you seen the queue...? I'm not waiting in that!"
I followed her gaze across the impressive queue, trying to figure out where the end of it might be.
"Wow," I said to Boy as we continued on our way, "the queue was nowhere as big as that last year!"
A year ago today. It is one of those days I remember well. It holds one of those memories, that I will remember forever.
Boy picked me up to take me to university in the morning. Mark had been in the car with him, and Boy had been weird in the way he had greeted me. No hugs, just a casual hello, and then a bag of gummy lollies thrown into my lap in the back seat (Mark was in the front). We had just started going out.
By the time we got to University, I had been annoyed, and had left them to go to my lecture with a simple goodbye. On my way there, I looked back, and he was gazing after me.
(I will remember this, because of what he told me about it later: "That day when I dropped you into uni, and you looked back as you were walking away to your lecture, I thought to myself - wow, she is so amazing, and so beautiful, I can't believe she's with me.")
I was annoyed throughout most of the day, and did not make an effort to contact him. I thought that he felt he was too cool to be with me around his friends, thus his nonchalant acknowledgement of me in the morning. (Later he apologised and claimed that sometimes, he didn't know how to act around me. I decided to forgive him, given we had just started going out and he wasn't used to having a girlfriend around).
After the lecture, I ventured to End of Days with English Mark and Jonno. We drank some beers, and spilt some, and drank some more. Then we moved into the supposedly exciting area, where there were shoot-the-human-target-with-water games set up. I tried in vain to convince Mark that he would be ravishing as a target.
It had been a few hours since I last saw Boy, and the annoyance was beginning to wear off with the tipsiness. I began to miss him, and all of a sudden, I couldn't wait to see him. He had called me before to say that he was at Dwayne's and would be around in a couple of hours. When I saw him walking past outside, I ran excitedly to the edge of the fence, and called out to him.
He came over, and kissed me through the fence.
"How do I get in?" He asked urgently. (He says: "When I saw you in there, I thought - I need to be in there right now!")
"Umm, around that way, I think. There's a queue now."
"Okay, I'll see you soon."
Then he was inside and walking past without seeing me, and I grabbed him and pulled him out of the crowd, towards me, and we stood on the table top for a while, him holding me, drinking and watching people throw sponges at drunk targets, before making our way up to the bar.
"I should be in there." I say to Boy, as I stare at the same party a year later. Bittersweet emotions wash over me. Suddenly, I want to cry.
Wishing that I could be in there, reliving the past; knowing that I can't, because I don't have the time, and because so much has changed; thankful and happy for the change, yet, at the same time, sad and fearful of what more changes the future might hold.