2025年年初，我受航长的邀请参加每周一次的启发聚会（一系列帮助人了解基督教信仰的课程）。我那时住在下关，每次路上要花一个半小时，但我无比庆幸自己参与其中，因为在那里我认识了对我非常重要的一群好朋友。3月时我还信誓旦旦地告诉他们我懒得搬家，每周这么赶路也无所谓，转头4月1号我就已经住进了三文笔村的新家。我有了自己的沙盘工作室，也有了与朋友们更频繁的相聚。我们在聿敏家打鼓、跳舞，在航长家聚餐、欢唱，在Raymond家喝酒、畅聊……我的“闭关”状态渐渐褪去，被友情的连接所填充。6月的一天，我和姚瑶约好了吃午餐，她早上临时问我能不能再带一位刚认识的外国朋友一起，我随即就答应了，并不知道自己命运会因此发生翻天覆地的变化。在这个愉快的下午之后，我和小九每天都会见面，每次见面聊天聊到不想告别。两周以后在一个聚会上我邀请小九和我一起跳舞，我们两个十分笨拙地相拥跳舞，一不小心就踩到对方的脚。那天告别时我意识到，我要恋爱了。第二天小九来到我家问我，虽然我们的未来充满了不确定，我是否愿意和他开始恋爱。我们的故事就这样在懵懂的心动中开始了。
At the beginning of 2025, Hangzhang invited me to join a weekly Alpha gathering (a set of structured lessons for learning about Christianity). I was living in Xiaguan at the time, so getting there took an hour and a half each way. Even so, I am incredibly glad that I kept going, because that was where I met a group of friends who would become very important to me.
As late as March, I was still confidently telling everyone that I was too lazy to move and perfectly happy to spend all that time on the road every week. And then, almost as soon as I had said it, I moved into my new home in Sanwenbi Village on April 1.
The move gave me a sandplay studio of my own, but more importantly, it brought me much closer to my friends. We played drums and danced at Yumin’s place, gathered for food and singing at Hangzhang’s, and enjoyed homemade cocktails and conversation late into the night at Raymond’s. Without my really noticing, the “retreat” I had been living in slowly came to an end, and friendship began to fill the space it left behind.
Then one day in June, I made plans to have lunch with Yaoyao. That morning, she asked at the last minute whether she could bring along a foreign friend she had just met. I agreed right away, with no idea that this small decision was about to transform my life.
After that lovely afternoon, Joseph and I started seeing each other every day. Each time we met, we would talk until neither of us wanted to say goodbye.
Two weeks later, at a gathering, I asked him to dance with me. We held each other and moved around very awkwardly, stepping on each other’s feet more than once. By the time we said goodbye that evening, I knew I was falling in love.
The next day, Joseph came to my home and asked whether I would be willing to start a relationship with him, even though there was so much uncertainty ahead of us.
That was how our story began: with a shy and slightly confused kind of excitement, before either of us fully understood where it would lead.