Suddenly, the world changes.
Cars are gone. No new and old, small and large, funny shaped and good looking ones.
Traffic lights are gone. Red, green, yellow, it doesn't really matter.
Darkness opens its mouth and swallow every detail ruthlessly. All left is a world with colorful dots, moving and shining - like a sweet dream that is so vague, like a winter night with stars that decorate. Like a fairy tale on Christmas eve, joyful and full of hope.
For just a few seconds, she tries to see the world.
Now she sees it, she forgets her existence. Subconsciously, almost out of instinct she puts on her glasses again. Ah, all the missing details are back, sneakily. Old woman smoking in her car. People hurry crossing the street. Steel building. Shadows of trees under somber street lamps. She feels distracted, so she grabs her wheel, pinches her fingers into it.
Silence. Then, the light jumps from red to green. Hitting the gas, she reminds herself about the stop sign next corner and starts to wonder a completely different subject: where to park tonight?
This wonderful moment is then buried, naturally, like many other amazing moments. How long would it take for her to find it again? Who knows, maybe when she is walking in dark; maybe in her dream tonight; or maybe it takes her a life time - and before she is tired at last and closes her eyes, she sees the colored dots ahead in darkness. She then flies towards them delightfully, with a thought shooting across her mind like a meteor. Ah, I've seen it somewhere...she finally murmurs.
When I told you I was thinking of something ominous coming to me, you probably thought it was a nonsense. It sounds ridiculous. But my life is full of nonsensical, unlikely events and incidents. I know that it will come to me as if it is nothing when a bad luck decides to come to me.
回复删除The moment we decided to have a baby, I put my footstep on a thorny path. Never ending misfortunes, pains, sorrows. That’s almost one third of my life. Then other one third of my life was burdensome, lonely, and wandering life. Searching for meanings and answers that perhaps have never existed, after I lost my brother. Think about it. Those two thirds of my life is as long as your full life so far. Yuck! And I just don’t remember the first one third of my life any longer…
So my flashback stopped at the point when I was 13. Maybe I permanently lost the previous years. But I am afraid of digging any further, as it might really be my last moment once my memory trace back time completely.
I decided to sit back, look around, and started to think. So, if I did not have that many days left, what should I do? My business. I need to come up with an idea that will help my son immediately, instead of something that will affect him in a far distant future. My family. I was always frustrated because it is so hard to see my son, thinking of what can fix him. No, it will take forever, so let me play with him and his brother more. You know, for the past several days, I was able to make them laugh more. I also need to go back to see my Mom. My friends. Ah, you are the only one who I can talk about things like this to. Everyone else will think I am crazy because they don’t know the full story. So just in case, I mean just in case... let me leave you my last words. I love you as my “kiddo”, my “buddy”, and my friend, as much as I love my family.
I am feeling better. That thought has been slowly fading away. I realigned my priorities anyways. And hopefully it proves to be merely a real nonsense.
It’s not that my life has been always miserable. I am actually happier than ever because I have never had this many things around me that I cared so much about. I got our little fish and you this year, and maybe soon we are going to have a cat, too. Hahahaha, it sounds like you are a pet! Indeed, you are as cute and lovely as one!
You are like a typical "Cancer" Zodiac people, delicate in mind and sometimes gets stuck in a tragic mindset. But you are one of few people I met that has many sad stories. Some of them got taken down and pessimistic about everything and I felt sorry for them. Alas, life is sometimes cruel and without a hint. I was reading a story by Camus named The Stranger recently. I love it so much that I can see the reflectance of so many people and things.
回复删除Sometimes when I think about myself and people around me, I feel like we are all without freedom. Bound to the earth and do things that are deemed to be decent and proper by the society and not being able to chase our dreams. Or rather, don't have courage to. Because that would mean sacrifice, sacrifice a comfortable social status, sacrifice a life at ease (relatively speaking)...All of the things we do make us craving for our dream more. Then at one point, could be an incident, could be a right time and place, you decide to do something else, something that you have been dreaming for for a long time. Few of us could have the fortune to do that in reality, and without being regretful in the end.
Once in a while I would be amazed at myself, at my presence of the current time and place, and all my thoughts. As if I am looking for some answer inside myself, it would drive me crazy. Now I try to stop thinking about it very shortly. But time just goes by. Time! Nobody can defeat time, and all we care so much now will become ashes with time, gradually, little by little.
I almost feel like 25 is an age for turning point. My previous life is always me being given. I finally have the freedom to do something about my life without being pulled by too much relationships. But I dare not to step out the circle. I want to see the world, not just from a book. I want to experience the pain other people is experiencing; I want to share the happiness other people is harvesting. Different nations, different lives, different stories. I dreamed of having a backpack and travel around the world. One of my friends said to me, someday I will take you to the silk road. I seriously doubt it is going to happen. I even doubt if I myself will be going to the silk road.
See, sometimes bad things are not so bad. If I were to have some disease and have limited lifetime, I would definitely quit the job and go to the silk road, or say another place, a quiet mountain in Japan. But do I want bad things happening to me? No. Then I would lose health, lose my families. It's all about take and give up. That's why Budda's hands are like one palm up and one palm down. No matter what life you are in, even if yours is bad luck or a millionaire's, you always get something and give up some other things. Life only allows you to taste limited of them.
回复删除So enjoy when you can. You can still play with the kids and see them smiling. The smile on kids face - what an adorable thing! That's called hope. Hope, is that you have been lived the life, and you are living your life. So there is no one life that is defined as hopeful and joyful. All kinds of lives are - we were born, we experience, we love we feel the
humanity and the world around it. That's enough...for me...
Back to your bad thought. Just let it be - you never anticipated any of your misfortunes previously, so very likely you are always not going to predict right. But the thought itself gives you some new experience and thinking, makes you treasure your life more, and makes you list out your priorities. I'm glad that I made you feel better - the other day I read a theory about 9 characteristics. I'm the second type The Giver according to the test. It matches me well. I sincerely hope you can succeed with your biz plan. I feel envy too as you are doing something for your family but I dare not chase my dream or be back with my family, or make any change to my current life. If I were you, I would probably not starting a business - that's the difference between female and male, i guess. I would just read him stories and play with him, talk to him when I can, take him to the world when he is older, and be accompany to him till I'm too old to.
I was supposed to go to library to return the books but they close already..lazy UC libraries...see, one thing is never too bad, because then I can write those words down tonight.
To me, thinking of starting a new business was probably due more to my circumstances, not because I am a man. I need to make money for my family anyway, but I don’t want to spend my most productive 8 hours for something that can no longer be my passion.
回复删除So you are a Giver. A Giver… please explain it to me a little more and the 9 characteristics when you have a chance later. I have read some books about personalities and types, so I might have come across before. I think you are, though, at least to me. I wish there are things I could do to make you feel happier. I feel grateful to and sorry for you, because I am not as useful a friend to you as you are to me.
Because I am so out of ordinary, I never thought I could talk to anybody about myself. Or even if there were someone who could listen to me, I would not have thought about sharing my stories and feelings. I didn’t want me and my family to be pitied, nor did I want other people to secretly talk about how miserable and messed up we are, behind my back. Do you remember that Japanese friend of mine? Before you, I considered her as the only other friend I could talk my deepest things with. The main reason was because she and I have no common friends so I would not have to worry about other people. But still, I am hesitant, and she doesn’t even know the tiniest fraction of what I told you about myself. I know how depressing I can be and how my stories can blow some people’s heart.
I don’t know why I trust you so much. But I feel as comfortable as I am talking to myself when I talk with you… and at the same time I know I am sincerely heard by somebody else. If there is anything I don’t tell you about myself, that would be only because I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, too bad, or too sad (or have I done so too much already? Please let me know). I know you don’t judge me but just understands me. I know you don’t pity me but just empathize with me. I know that you feel what I feel.
Looking back this year, you are actually one of the weirdest things that have ever happened to me. No matter how unreal my life has been, it’s been always about getting something or not getting, and saving a life or not saving. I was always fighting against all odds, but the possible conclusions in each chapter were fairly simple.
Do you like fictions? Have you read or heard of story that goes like this? Once in a place where most people lived most ordinary middle class ordinary life, there was a guy who appeared perfectly normal. But inside, he was almost completely wrecked and torn apart. His brain slowly wiped his memories out, and without realizing it, he was just surviving day by day like a soulless machine. A mysterious young lady showed up one day, and somehow caused him to remember his past, though painful, life and helped his long lost sorrowful soul wake up… Ah, then, that meaningless meaning chase game begins all over again. He was thinking, I feel like I found myself again… but why is this happening to me? What for? Who is that girl? Where has she been all along? Why now? What am I supposed to do? What’s next? I have no clue how the story will unfold. It is a truly strange story making me curious yet uneasy. I'll take your advice. I'll just let it be. Rather, I will enjoy every moment I converse with you.
Happy holidays! This holiday is like a normal long weekend to me. Most of the time I'm happy and content but occasionally I feel homesick. Don't think too hard. There are so many questions that don't have answers. When I was in college, there was one period of time when I was very maudlin. I was thinking too much about the answers. I wanted to find meaning after every single thing and I was tired and couldn't fall asleep.
回复删除Now when I look back, I understand that I'm a perfectly normal person. I still think and in my way I'm feeling the world every minute. I no longer dwell too much on sadness and let myself sunk in the bad feelings. I still think of things that make me sad, but I try to outgrow them and become strong and in peace again. So now you are thinking too hard. Life is like a journey, you never know what it will bring you the next corner. It doesn't have to have a meaning behind everything. I tend to think everything, misfortune or good luck ones, as experience, not a hint or a sign or something like that. Some people like to challenge the nature, some people like to do something that impress the world. But no matter what we do, the moment you choose something we lose other options. In Chinese we have a concept, which basically says you never know whether a misfortune is a bad thing or a good thing. Bad and good things can mutate into each others.
I used to be bothered by choices a lot. Now I still do but I think i'm becoming better and better. The outcoming is not predictable and no matter what you choose you can't experience the other options anyways, so why bother? Just make a choice. My new year resolution will be to be more decisive and more tolerant...as sometimes I'm still annoyed by things that I don't like, and I really need to be more tolerant.
Now if you look back, you probably will feel that you have lived a very long life with all kinds of things. You may feel a little exhausted. But that's what all life has endowed on you, you thus have feelings more delicate than others and a better understanding of the world you are living in. I have seen people who are living a good life, full of happiness yet they are still not contented and mourning everyday for adventures. Sometimes I envy you that you have much more understanding of the world, even though you may feel that you rather live a simple happy life. But as always, people who experienced misfortunes will treasure happiness better. Like I've told you the deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain. You are by no means living like a machine. Every tear and laughter has helped to shape your soul - you just haven't realized that yet. Dickenson said hope is a thing with a feather, and so does your soul. You are experiencing your own life now, just smile to the unknowns and misfortunes, and let your soul fly with your hope. Then when you look back you will not feel regretted as you have already found your soul and starts to heal it. Set it free if you could, and don't let the burdensome life weighed down your back. This is to you and also to me (although my burden is nowhere near yours), cherish the moment, the flowers the wind the whispers the sadness, as they are the true world and the true you; and our lives, are for us to experience and to feel - to the end of the journey no one is the winner and what only matters is that you have been to the world and you have been in deep love with the world.