I walked around where I lived today. It felt so…strange. I wasn’t familiar with it. I really don’t know what sparked the floods of tears tonight, and the memories. Was it the love, the nostalgia, or the pessimism? I was told not to tell a soul, but so many things have happened that I can’t keep it to myself. What she said happened two years ago was really, in fact, five. Five very long, very hard years…So much has changed since then. A plan gone wrong, one little mistake, left our family in debt over these years. I was working on my own, by then…yet I too had to tighten my belt. It’s a family thing. My family was devastated. We’re still feeling the effects to date. I was lying on the floor, looking out of the windows. My mother was sitting beside me, cross legged. I got up, pressing my fingers on the glass, measuring the space between the full moon and the star closest to it. The North Star. Bringing my fingers together, It stirred up a memory… Walking along the ocean pier with Vin. Walking with her in Mei Foo park. Staring out the windows while eating Doritos. Playing on the swings. Cycling along the park…Going back eight years. The conversation is always the same… Vin: Hey look, it’s my moon! Me: And…where is it…Yes. There’s my star. Vin: Its funny how whenever they’re together, so are we. Me: it’ll always be like that, Vin. It’s just how it should be. Vin: Not too far apart. The days. The memories I remember. They’re flooding back now. Sitting on the bed at my house, a sleepover. Showing each other drawings we’re proud of. Our little book of fashions. Tongue poking out the sides of our mouth as we meticulously cut out every single one, then glued them, in preferred groups on that red and black bound book. I still have that book. I remember where we sat, and what we wore. I remember for every single drawing, another memory. Hundreds. And another memory. I’m back in my first Mei Foo house. In the balcony and looking out, I saw my first shooting star in Hong Kong. My dad’s started drinking again. He hadn’t drunk for almost 15 years. My parents went to look for a new house. I don’t quite know what our budget is, because I haven’t been told. But the house they looked at was 4.3 million. What surprised me was that my dad told me this bit of information. We don’t talk about life. About business life. We talk about what’s on TV tomorrow, or perhaps about my cat. But not ever life. It’s funny. I was on the floor, and I had a cheestick in my mouth. And I was remembering. And mom was telling me about the situation. I feel that buying a house…we’re not ready yet. Give it another year, until all the problems go away. They say this June, but I doubt it. They are so positive. I understand their positivism, but it’s been five hellish years. Don’t they remember when we had dinner out on weekends? Don’t they remember having the car, and living… It hurts. We’ve managed but it hurts. I can relate on this plane, because we’re all just surviving, really. I asked her which side of the family I inherited the pessimism from. She couldn’t, and didn’t answer. She told me I had seen nothing. Perhaps I haven’t…But then perhaps I have seen it all. I wanted to be cruel. She says to not tell anyone. And I respond by saying that there’s no one to tell it to. I don’t want to let people know we exist this way. I had to tell her that I was tired. I’m a fighter, but you can only fight for so long, and so hard, before you collapse. The closest thing my mother knows is family, growing up in a family with 18 brothers and sisters. I can’t stand family. Well, I can, but at the same time I can’t wait to get away. I feel claustrophobic. I’ve never been treated right. Treated as another person who has an opinion. They’re discredited. I wanted to hurt her. What mattered to her was family. So I said ‘wouldn’t it be great if someone you never knew was your cousin just died and you’d inherit everything?’ Immediately after the look on her face was so sad, I softened the blow… I can’t hurt people. I can’t. I said ‘But only if it was someone you didn’t know, ever.’ It made me cry inside, to see her so fragile. She left Hong Kong for a reason. Hong Kong is the sort of place where if you live here, you can’t wait to get away. Once you are away, you never want to come back, and if you do, you don’t want to leave ever again…It’s a cycle. It’s a painful cycle. Vin is leaving. She’s leaving. Her parents live in the US along with her brother. She’s grown up so fast, she’s become responsible. She asked me for cleaning up liquid for her birthday present, and I don’t know if she was joking, but it made me cry to see her… Yes, she’s happy, but yet she’s caught in this cycle. You can see it in people’s eyes. They look so lost. But then the eyes glaze over, and you no longer see surrender, you see steel. Life’s like that. You want it open, but tis closed shut. Open means vulnerable. Shut means you’re scared. And aren’t we all. I don’t know where I’m going with this. I think I’m just here, with my nostalgia, my pessimism. The love, it waited for me in the form of an sms. And though linked with nostalgia, and my tears, it calmed the pessimist in me. May I say… Bambi could not wait to rush into the stretch of open field, so different, so wondrous from the thicket that protected and sheltered his flanks. His young soul couldn’t wait to see it all, yet his mother told him to wait. Perhaps, I can wait a little while longer, too.
posted by: newbie (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (9:51 am)
*huggies u* a lil longer =)
posted by: newbie (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (9:58 am)
always
posted by: VodkaB (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (10:10 am)
Reply to: newbie
:)
posted by: VodkaB (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (10:10 am)
Reply to: newbie
=)
posted by: me (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (7:58 pm)
i shall wait with you too
posted by: VodkaB (reply)
post date: 05.21.05 (9:00 pm)
