Selfish Me

It is July 4th, I didn’t go anywhere but stay at home doing my own work.

Holiday is not the reason for me to stop my life plans though. I turned down so many friends’ invites….actually I have tomorrow off too, so today shouldn’t be this precious, because “you can always leave it for tomorrow”. Anyway, I stayed at home and completed my mission today. Maybe I am just too selfish to care about my social life?

Last night I passed out at 7 pm and got up at 4am this morning. I suddenly forgot where I was, I even thought I was in China, lying on  the small bed in my University dorm…until 2 minutes later, I realized it is New York City now. I felt so good,  so it is not a dream.

I always think this is a dream, and I will wake up someday.

Thank God it is not.

My life has just started after all these years….everything has changed, but in the way I want it to be.

 

Read Simone de Beauvoir‘s Love Letters to Nelson Algren, she asked: ” Nelson, I love you. But do I deserve your love if I don’t give you my life? I tried to explain to you I can’t give my life to you. Do you understand it? Are you not resentful about it? Will you never be? Will you always believe yet it is really love I am giving to you?”

I do understand. Because I am a selfish one.

When you get every lesson you learned and fight on your own the whole way,  you will never give yourself out fully there to someone.

However, I still miss my little hometown, though I never had a home.

 

When?

On Saturday evening, I sneaked into P’s house in Astoria for a wonderful Brazilian dinner. Then we lay down on her floor and watched a movie. We shared a big box of chocolate ice cream and she told me about her hometown stories. She could make lots of money back in her hometown with her dentist experience instead of being nobody in New York City, but she never regrets her decision: “Now you are down, but it is the precondition for you to go up someday. Do you understand me?”

I do. I gave her a big hug.

People usually start to complain or to give up just after a few steps of trying, “When? When? When I can make it? “Oh sweetie, you just haven’t earned it. Though there are lucky dogs all around, luck never comes for free.

When you feel that you will never make it, you will die in vain, you will never stand up again, you will suicide, you will fall into pieces and you become the biggest looser even have no way to turn back…then your time will come.

That is the answer to “when”.

Believe it or not.

Another Weekend

Another Sunday in Central Park, sunbathing with bikinis and a bunch of brazilian girls. Today was hot,  so were these girls. They were talking in Portuguese and I was eating Brie and Banquet, then somehow I fell asleep…until P (my cute Brazilian girlfriend) woke me up, reminding me it was time for home.

On our way home, we realized that it was already June. I bought some white wine in my neighborhood and chopped some grilled chicken for the dinner. I wrote down a list of some mistakes I made for the last year, and tried to learn from them.

The more I get to know people around me, the smaller I feel I am.Self-achievement is more important than any other thing in the world.

Plus, Summer is the best season to be single.

 

Time, Time

I still remember three years ago, when I fell into the darkness that summer, all my friends and family told me: “Time will bring away all your sadness, and you will get over it someday.”  I didn’t believe it, I was so young and hopeless. However, half year later, that “someday” arrived.

I always know that time will heal a lot of things. I know that today you are madly in love with somebody, and someday you will marry another person. I know that even only time can tell if you’ve made a good decision or not. But all these things sound kind of cruel to me since life is too short. Thus, I always go with my feelings, trying to make everything straight right away…as a result, I fall again,  and again. Then I blame myself badly that “why couldn’t you be more patient?!”, and start to hate being myself.

Time is too strong to fight against…How I wish I could remember all those names, moments, people, emotions…How I wish I could keep something or someone forever…Time is forcing me to accept the fact that life is actually moving on every second.

Finally, it’s all gone. My memories fall into pieces.

For all those questions that cannot be answered yet, I leave them to time.

 

P.S:

1.I worked late and went home in the rain, so the pool was almost empty when I arrived. I enjoyed a whole lane for about 500 meters! Felt like I was really swimming in the ocean.

2. I had a rooftop BBQ with some friends on tuesday night. We had some Canadian beer and watched sunset through the Manhattan skyline…everything in our view was not only about New York City, but also dreams, goals, and a better life…

 

 

 

 

 

Wings

I am not sure if I should write something now. It is already 2 am, on the first day of June.

I just came back from a Karaoke night with some friends. They are awesome people and we had a great time.  Every time when they get something, they want to share with me. I doubt if I am the only one who is selfish in the world.

I talked with a big man today about what I want my life to be. I trust him somehow but I cannot make him trust me, and the problem is that I don’t even know how to convince him to find a way for me.  If he gave me a shot, I would try my best to make it happen. But what if not?

My favorite London girl got a great job. She is a nice girl, hard-working, thinking-ahead, so that is the reward from life. Her happiness reminded me of the time when I got my job five months ago. But now my heart is stray. You know in different stage of you life, you will want different things, and you will always want it better.

To be stray again is a good thing, but I can’t stuck with it for so long. I need to find the light soon. I don’t have much time left, I am turning 25.

Another thing I want to mention is that I remember when I was around 10 year old, one of my friends found a little injured bird fell on her balcony. She saved her life but didn’t want it to fly away, so she took out all its feathers and kept her as a pet. She was glad to have such a cute company and thought it would never leave her. However, one day she told me the bird flew away without a sound, because its wings grew back.

I cut off my wings last year, and I am waiting them to grow up. But I am not planning to fly away, because I know no matter what happens, someone will always anchor me back down… Actually I just want my wings back, so I will become a more complete and a stronger person.

P.S:

I haven’t smoked for more than two weeks already…seems this time I can really get rid off smoking. yeah.

Summer Breeze

I felt summer in the air when I walked out of the class tonight.

Couples of classmates were talking about how to spend the summer since it’s the last week of this semester. But the summer breeze melted me. I just couldn’t wait to jump into the air! With Benjamin Leftwich‘s music on, I walked crossed the street and headed home directly.

The breeze reminded me of my past summertimes. While I was walking, everything around me started to disappear in my memories.

I thought of Europe, the first day when I arrived in Amsterdam, seeing the first sunlight from the window of the flight passage; I thought of Greece, I was wandering along the Kamari Beach, staring at stars, seeking ways of my life; I thought of high school, I was on my way home with all my buddies.We had never left our small town before but started to talk about how big the world is; I thought of my university, how many nights I was walking like this alone, dreaming someday I would get out of China…These were just some moments that buried in the back of my mind, someday they will all be forgotten. Though I still remember the latest summer, the moment when I saw him and I knew it was him.

Summer stories are so cliche. And I always live through it alone anyway.

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone. “(Orson Welles)

So it is just nothing more than an illusion.

 

It’s Time

I had brunch at the boathouse in Central Park today. My roommate and his mother brought me here, and we’ve talked about our lives for hours. It was probably one of the greatest conversations in my life so far. They are typical New Yorkers, I am just a small town girl from nowhere in China, so you can imagine how  much I’ve learned from them.

I always deem that you cannot be a better person just by learning from the mistakes you made by yourself, it is necessary to listen to, to ask for, and to learn from other people’s mistakes, especially when they are older than you.

When we are young, we always think someone is much cooler than us. But what is really cool? Sleeping with 10 guys is not cool, getting tired of working and obsessed with riding motorbike is not cool, horsing around in different bars at weekends is not cool, looking down people who like you is not cool, taking advantage of someone who is willing to help is not cool…but you can only realize that when you get older. Are you really cool when you at your 20s? Time will tell.

So stop judging others. Why do people judge? Because they never have the courage one has.  We judge one because we will never be able to do the same thing that he does.

Once more, I read the letter that I wrote to myself three years ago. Never ever I thought I would come to New York City and the guy who I mentioned in the letter has already gone with the time.

There aren’t no mistakes in life.

There is never a decent guy you can meet in clubs or bars that you could call “the one”.

There is never a decision that you won’t regret.

I will be 25 in three months, I need to get ready. It’s time.

Moody Days

So many things I want to say.

Bought something from Container store and re-organized my room. Finally I have a bed instead of a couch in my Upper Eastside small room. Get another closet empty for extra clothes, get a large shoe rack for most of shoes…books, papers, notebooks, everything starts to have their own space. But my fish died. My roommate said it seemed that Tango (my fish’s name) was fighting for something, but he still didn’t avoid the death. It was my bad. I always forgot to feed him, and we barely talked for a few months. I wish he could become a wonderful person in his next life, and start over a better life. Better than mine.

It’s a long weekend. I visited Kelly, who is still working in the same old place. She listened to me and expressed her solidarity. She is only 21, but could understand all my situation and support my decisions. When I was 21, I wasn’t as mature and strong as she is.  I hope two years later, I could help her with her own business. Because she deserve it. And she will succeed for sure.

Later I went to a friend’s birthday dinner, it was a buffet place with asian food, but I had no appetite. There were about 40 people gathering for her birthday, and she announced that she got engaged with her boyfriend. Some couples around me started to talk about their dream weddings. I was like a wallflower sitting at the corner, hoping no one could see me. Some people started to talk to me, “Hey are you ok?” — “Yeah, fine!” That’s it. They probably thought I was a tedious Chinese. I don’t care though.

There is never a dream wedding for me anyway, he and I will just sign and kiss each other, then travel around the whole Latin America.

I listened to Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s  “Shine” on the whole way home.

If there is a meant to be, there will be a meant to be.

“I hope you find the love that is true,  so the morning light will shine on you;

I hope you find what you are looking for, so your heart is warm forever more.”

 

I will go on. And I will wait.

 

 

 

 

 

Not Important

The other day my English teacher suddenly said: “Hi Cici, you remind me of Holly today!” Holly Golightly? The one from  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?–“Yes, probably because you are wearing black today.”

I was blushed. This is a thing that I am afraid of when I read. Because there is always one character in the book that drags me into her/him, making me believe that some parts of us are similar, and maybe we will have the same destiny too. Like Florentino Ariza, Scarlett O’Hara, Holden Caufield, Elizabeth, Jane Eyer, even Éponine…

I do fancy Holly Golightly. She is brave, beautiful and always knows what she wants. I wonder how life has built her like this at the age of merely 19. But this is not important.

The real meaning of this book for me is when she described her love for Jose:

“After we’re married….When we move to Rio….He knows I’m preggeres. Well, I am, Darling…. I am delighted. I want to have at least nine. I’m sure some of them will be dark—Jose has a touch of le negre, I suppose you guessed that? Which is fine by me: what could be prettier than a quite coony baby with bright green beautiful eyes? I wish, please don’t laugh—but I wish I’d been a virgin for him, for Jose…I’ve only had eleven lovers…Jose is my first non-rat romance. Oh, he’s not my idea of the absolute finito. He tells little lies and he worries what people think….he’s too prim, too cautious to be my guy ideal…I don’t like to see him run because there’s something funny-looking about him when he runs…Love should be allowed. I am all for it. Now that I’ve got a pretty good idea what it is. Because I do love Jose—I’d stop smoking if he asked me to. He’s friendly, he can laugh me out of the mean reds, only I don’t have them much any more…I take his suit to cleaner, or stuff some mushrooms, and I feel fine, just great…the answer is good things only happen to you if you are good…I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.”

She had been looking for her “home” for a long time until she found Jose. But this love was only on her side. Jose left her by judging her like other people.

So Holly can only continued her life alone. Seeking freedom. Floating around the world. And she never found someone like Jose again.

Maybe it is true that something is just not that important.

 

 

The First Day of Summer

Today is the first day of Summer in NYC.

I missed my pool time in the morning, but started this beautiful day from frozen margaritas in a mexican restaurant, midtown east by 3rd avenue. There I met an old friend, a Chinese girl I’ve known when I was in Amsterdam. But she went back to Shanghai for her career after graduation . She only came here for four days this time, but fell in love with New York immediately like everyone.

She wondered how I end up with New York. No, there was no overnight part-time jobs, no biking in the rain, no bitches, no break ups, no suicides, no discriminations, no bar fights…It turned out that I simplified everything and it became a one-minute short story. C’est la vie.

I’ve let everything go already.

Later I went to a 100% five star and “no laptop allowed” cafe: “Grumpy” (high recommended!!!), where I met B. We went to the Chelsea High-line for a small walk before the sunset and talked about “Passion”.  Passion is a thing that might ruin your life. I believe it is ruining my life now. But neither of us could figure out what can we really do with it.

Too bad I cannot go to Montreal with him and his friends. A bunch of them will drive across the border on the Memorial Day weekend except me…Because I am Chinese. I still need to wait for my Visa, I need stamps from China, and I cannot go anywhere at present.

Anyway, I am going get a new haircut soon.

And the moon tonight is exactly the same one as the tattoo on my arm.