Pressure on the bus

I had never been so eager to talk to somebody, anybody before. Was feeling so stressed that I could feel something at my heart and could imagine the stress level not unlike real substance up to my throat. I was going to scream at anybody at any moment or breakdown and start crying. Stress from the concert this saturday, stress from worrying about getting the banner and programme booklets printed right, stress from X-Windz for 3rd of August, stress from that physics module problem... The thought of practice later did not soothe me. More stress.

When I saw Yihao on the 151 bus this evening on the way to the studio, there was an overwhelming urge to walk right up to the front where he was sitting with his unicycle and talk to him. I could not ascertain right away that it was him though, so I did not go forward immediately. However, the more I looked, the more I was certain that it was him. Besides, that pressure within me was increasing by the second. I didn't know why, but I had to talk to him. Each time the bus stopped at a red light, I told myself that I am going to walk to his seat, but everytime I chickened out. At one particular junction the bus stopped particularly long, as though knowing that I wanted/needed to walk to the front of the bus, yet I still chickened out. Finally I overcame the embarrassment of walking down the aisle in front of everybody, overcame the fear that it is not him and thus embarrass myself, I walked straight down the aisle, bent my head down and called his name. It took a couple of seconds for him to register my face, but then he broke into a smile and I took it as a cue to settle myself beside him. We made small talk and although it was only for a couple of stops before I had to get down, I felt better inside. The pressure inside had lifted slightly, just because I talked to somebody.

Then I had some commercially made cheese and sugar bread for dinner.