It’s another time being ready for another trip.You are like reading a book when you are traveling. To explore, to learn, to feel, to embrace, to open your mind.
This time will be finally the one that I have been dreaming of, the roadtrip from San Fran to Chicago.Same as the trip that Sal and Dean took in the book On the Road, the road is life.
Every time before a new trip starts, I think about more. Think of those places I have been to, those people I have met.
After all these years, I have the fear of loss. Most of time I have nothing to loose, but now the situation starts to become more difficult. It’s true that one day everything will be gone, leaving a broken heart. If it is hard to take the loss, can we just stay in our own cage?
The first day of the fall. I saw leaves falling the whole way to my office in Brooklyn. The sun is so beautiful and everyone is wearing jacket and a nice smile.
I started to think of those days when I was at college. There were a lot of trees in my old campus, I liked crossing among them and looking up. I enjoyed feeling the sunshine down on me. I was too young and full of dreams, even though I didn’t really have a friend at that time.
Anyway, I am flying to San Francisco this Wednesday to visit my gal S. She just visited me in New York and I am going to visit her back, while I’ve always wanted to go to the west coast, and that is also Jack Kerouac‘s “Frisco”. So I told my mum about it. She said : “Oh you will be so closed to home then!” Then I realized that after being in so many places in the world, San Francisco is the closest place from home- only a pacific ocean in between. Speaking of home, it was Chinese mid-autumn festival last week. That night I was still walking along the Park Avenue, staring at the moon above. Chinese people always say that the biggest moon of the year is on the Mid-autumn day, so it means family reunion. Chinese people also say that the moon is different if you look at it from difference places, like the one hang above your hometown is always the most beautiful one- But I never believe it, so I couldn’t wait to leave home.
One of my cousins from my hometown asked me how much is the new iphone 5s in US. I really don’t care. He cared because it might make him think that he is following the world trend. For many times I want to explain to himthat this is not what you think about the world. The world is only big as long as your heart is big. But you cannot expect anything. Because his whole life has been and will be trapped in that small place, a new version of Iphone becomes the only thing that could make him feel better. It has been so long and so far, I start to loose patience when I talk to my friends at home, and even explain to my family about something that we used to be happy talking about. I even forget what is the concept of “HOME” and “HOMESICK”. Compare to the big universe, this season is just another fall. Just like you wink your eyes, and everything will be gone.
I change my mind that I am going back to China for the Chinese new year. I decide to wait until next Spring… or Fall.
I say that because I still don’t like myself that much. I am too heartless and too weak to go home. But I am also doubting whether I can really trust New York City to be my shelter.
Yes, I am 25 now. It was not a pleasant start so far.
But maybe it is OK, life is like this.
I just want to share another Chinese song here. I don’t really listen to Chinese music but there are still some great artist. Crowd Lu is my cousin’s favorite singer and this song is for everyone who get involved into an unrequited relationship.
“Unrequited” is a word that has been wrapping me for ages.
This song is called “Kick Me Away”
Lyrics:
I don’t curse at anything anymore, I act exactly like a straight-A student
The Photosynthesis is cleaning out all dusts from the room,
so you should probably like me for that;
I start to read, I start to do some research on zodiacs,
because I want every conversation to be great with you
This is my last weekend of being 24 year old. Next Tuesday i will be 25.
25. Twenty-five. What an age. I have been existing for 25 years in this world already…that is a long time. I am getting old.
I’ve never imagined how my life would be like when I am 25. I wrote the 25 year old myself a letter three years ago while I was staying in Brussels. Everything has changes, but I am still not as good as I thought.
Somehow I am getting terrified. I hope this weekend will go on forever and ever. My mum sent me some pictures in which I was ten years old- that was the age my mind changed. People I met that year, places I visited that year, friends I made that year, have all posed a life-time influence on me. And they are still affecting me now.
On my 21 year old birthday, I was on the flight from Hongkong to Amsterdam– it was a one-way ticket because I knew I wouldn’t go home in a few years unless my dreams come true.
On my 22 year old birthday,the first real boyfriend in my life broke up with me and I broke my leg afterwards. I was lying in my small bed in Amsterdam and decided to move on.
On my 23 year old birthday, I was in Athens. I finally visited those god and goddess’ temples I’ve been interested in when I was a kid…I stood in front of Athena‘s Pathenon, wishing that I would never leave Europe.
Then I was 24. I was in New York. I drank with some strangers in the bar next door and went home drunkily. I was not happy, I wanted to escape from the reality and changed my life badly…
And now. What’s new?
Still waiting in the same old place. Still waiting for the “freedom”. Still waiting for the date that I will come back home. Still waiting to be a better myself.
Nothing goes well and easily– this is life, isn’t it?
You told me thousands of times about the true meaning of life. I told myself about it too. So I tried my best to toughen up and smile.
I thought I’ve always known about “the life”. About the lightness and heaviness of being. About some people’s lost and win. I shut down myself, locked the door, in order to go with my life in the way it was supposed to be. From the moment when I was tired of a floating life (not in a free way), it was the time to change.
However, no matter how hard you try to change yourself, the reality is the reality.
I am sick of waiting. 10 years of waiting for that plane to take off, 5 years of waiting in that row for a moment to come… Every time when you think you reach that place, the door closed.
You’ve done nothing but waited outside the closed door.
Is that true? Is that my freaking life about?
I am so done with it…I want to give up. Please. Tell me to be stronger…Who could come and tell me that?
I still remember that night, when I was only a five year old kid, Mum and I went back to that old apartment. Standing in front of the door, I was imagining who I would become after ten years, and who I would be come after twenty years. Then I was kinda shocked by myself, because I was only 5 and there was a long long long way to go.
But I will be 25 in one month.
Hey 5 year old me, can you believe it? That 25 year is coming very soon, and this long long long way is over!
I am so scared.
Looking back at my life so far, there was a big change every 5 years. Like the year when I was 10, I went to Hongkong and Thailand, that was my first time took an airplane, the first time I realized that the world is much much bigger than my small hometown. Like the year when I was 15, I studied crazily hard and dreamt of Europe every second in my life. “I will leave this place” became the only sentence I wrote in the end of every single journal. Like the year when I was 20, I finally left college, discarded all my unhappiness and moved to Beijing to prepare for a life abroad.
Every August is a milestone, marks how far I have gone.
But this time, it is not in a good way.
I start to hate being myself badly. I don’t think this is the 25 that I want myself to be.
So many things I haven’t done, I’ve lost too much…and I don’t even want to think about how much I have gained.
I start to feel lonely when I miss my dead cousin badly.
Her birthday is coming, if she was still alive, my relationship with her family would be much better.
We were very close relatives before, but now there is a huge gap that will probably never be filled.
If she was still alive, she would have a beautiful baby, and she might marry that good-looking young boy who was fond of having fun with us all the time.
If she was still alive, she might have made the most of money in her family and even flew to Europe or USA to visit me. She would share the same fashion and beauty products with me, and taught me everything about how to be a wonderful woman…
She always encouraged me because she was alway brave enough to chase the person she loved.
She has left me for almost 8 years…but I’ve never missed her this badly.
During the week while I am waiting for my on-hold books to arrive at the nearby library, I found some Chinese books on my smartphone to read. There’s something that killed me from a famous HongKongese writer. She points out that
“The more one travels, the more one becomes heartless. He is easy to get into any crowd, get along with people from different ground, meanwhile he is easy to get out off any network he builds. If you are an emotional and kind-hearted person, you probably cannot stand a floating life because you cannot stand the sadness of farewell. Once there is a person being on the road for a long time, no doubt he is cold inside. He is getting used to saying goodbyes, and he has no need to share.”
Holly Golightly, who is from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was full of tears when she rejected to her husband when he came to New York to take her home. “Goodbye Doc, I love you, but I am not the Lulamae anymore… ” This scene constantly reminds me of myself. For how many times I have told my old friends and my family that I am not the one you think I am anymore, so I walk away.
Watched a short video from Ted’s Talk tonight, a Taiwanese woman was explaining to the audience the beauty of Chinese Characters. Everyone seems impressed by each strokes of single character. Somehow it grieved me. That is the language I grow up with and understand the most, the only language that I could call “native” no matter how long I’ve studied in English and Spanish.
However, I’ve changed my name, my lifestyle, my network, even have been trying hard to avoid people who speak the same language as me. Sometimes I even don’t have any chance to speak Chinese for a couple of weeks. But I need this change, and I cannot help myself.
It has been a long time since I left home, I’ve forgotten too many things. My beloved hometown will be evaporated from my mind soon or later.
I can’t return, though currently I am still not sure if I will settle down in New York City (that is why I need money, money is always the resolution). I won’t return.
After all, I am just one of the heartless people. I am much colder than you.
What's Your Road? 