Author: horseman69

Lost Distance

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I bought a train ticket to her town. In days I will see her again, after 4 months of involuntary separation because of school and life, I finally get to see her face. It almost feels like I’ve been in space for an awfully long time, and now, I’m given a chance to breath. 

In space, there is literally nothing. No sound, no touch, no smell, except for the glowing stars in your sight. You see the colors of the stars, but fail to touch any. A long distance relationship isn’t easy, it’s just as hard as breathing in space. 

It’s an odd feeling. Does it create more bond? There had to a better way than this bitter approach. I don’t think anyone chose to be long distance lovers, and I think all of them are chance-takers. Whenever they see a chance, they jump for it without second thought. 

I feel like something will break in me when I see her again. I doubt anything will change in me dramatically, but like standing in the ocean, you could sense the current about to rush onto your body. You know it’s the fruit of the bittersweet that yield only rarely. 

The hands that choke me are about to be released from my throat. Will I cry when I see her again?

Photo credit: i.pinimg.com

Parenthood

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If you are under the guidance and surveillance of parents, then I’m telling you: they are really inexperienced. 

All parents are parents for the first time in their lives. What do they know? From reading a book about parenting? Let’s say if they did read a book about parenting and knows how to handle you when you were born, but what if you came out to be a troublemaker that caused all kinds of bizarre situations for your poor guardians… well, now they just have to improvise a way to get you to 18.

Why are parents looking into their kids’ diaries and phones? Is taking a peek into their children’s lives that satisfying? Yes, you may not believe it, but if they love you and support you without dropping you by the orphanage, they are deadly worried about you whenever they get a chance. 

I asked my mother, who raised me up all by herself for my father’s absence about the reasons for the odd actions of parents, and she told me nothing I could put on this blog. She can’t explain it either. But I know the reasons. 

If life were a tortuous road to Rome, if you were destined to walk for 1000 miles to finally reach the destination, your parents would want you to walk 900 less so you could reach that goal in an easier, safer and faster manner. They want you to surpass them, want you to be better than them. (That is, if you’re not an orphan) 

So walk slower, because you only walk to Rome once, and who knows how much longer you’ll have a GPS in life?

Photo credit: nacoa.org

Dark Marks

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The words we say define us, moralize us. If a person is a blank piece of paper, then his/her words will color him/her.

In a society where people believe in hearsay, it’s dangerous to let out misinformation about ourselves. It’s easier to be described as “unappreciative” than to be thought as “considerate.” The negative views of a person could devour him/her, it’s like having a dark marker blackening all the good qualities of him/her, then all people can see in that person is darkness.

I dislike one of the social norms these days—exposing a celebrity of committing an immoral act, therefore destroying their lives completely. We’re poisoned by the fact that we praise and suck up to those normal people with commentary nonsense then cursing them to go to hell after learning about a bit of their real life like headless chickens. Even myself who just wrote the last sentence is influenced by this norm as I hold prejudice against people I’ve never met on the ground of some evidence I’ve never seen.

Is this where we’ve fallen to? Are we just dark markers marking everywhere heedlessly?

Photo credit: hope1032.com.au

You are Alive

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In a difficult situation, rather than recognizing my own mistake, I tend to look for the wrong in other people. The inertia of others would oftentimes disappoint me. However, I don’t think anyone is really wrong. 

Sometimes you don’t see the flaw in yourself. My best friend Ce is just like me, he often tells me that he is disappointed by this or that person. As an outsider to his problems, I see the flaw perfectly—we place our expectations too high. With a high expectation, feeling disappointed becomes easy. 

This scenario doesn’t just apply to Ce and me, it’s a situation that everyone is facing right now. With the raging coronavirus, limiting our freedom and space, one can only feel disappointed from the news and the inertia of others. However, I urge you to think about life, to appreciate the fact that you’re alive and well and not the medics who wear only scarfs on their faces to fend off the virus.

To be more content with your current situation means that you have to have a low expectation of other people. Just be glad that as of this moment, you, while reading this blog, you are breathing and may have a chance to see tomorrow. 

Photo credit: wallpapertag.com

Weakness

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Humans are weak. We’re not born to be the fastest runners, the strongest lifters, nor the most adaptive creatures. An infection could kill us, or a virus, even a fall that happen to hit your head. It’s weak to be human. 

I had this toothache for three days last week. It was the infamous wisdom-teeth that everyone has. As soon as I mention it to someone, they gave me the deepest condolences. Everyone would likely have the wisdom-toothache at some point in their lives. Humans share the same weaknesses. 

Pain medicine kept me alive. In those three days, the toothache took away my nice sleep, my patience, and my pride to be human. Advil, Tylenol, Advil, Tylenol again… Every 4 to 6 hours, I had to sedate myself to keep the pain in an unreachable box somewhere in my head while it is ready to burst out of the box at any second. 

Fortunately, my surgery was moved up by the dentists as my teachers negotiated with them, begging for them to treat me earlier. The wait might take 5 or 6 days before the time change. Knowing that I couldn’t overcome a little toothache, that my survival depended on luck and sympathy, I felt so weak, and so rotten.

Three hours before the surgery, I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything. “Not even Advil?” The mere thought astounded me. The wait was painful. Without using the pain reliever, trying the hardest to distract myself, with a swollen face… 

On the way to the surgery, I wondered what people did to their wisdom-teeth before, you know, before all this technological madness. Did they just suffer? Did they die because of a toothache? 

Humans are weak.

Photo Credit: mystrengthsandweaknesses.com
Music Credit: Music written by Daniel Licht, from the show Dexter, Music played by Symbiose Piano
This song happened to be played while I was writing this blog, I thought it fit the mood

Best Asian Parent

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My mother is the best asian parent ever.

She always wanted me to be good at everything, and if not, good at something in particular. 

Ever since my childhood, she had been pushing me to be great. 

Therefore, under her influence, I signed up for the concert band and the ping-pong ball team of my elementary school. I started doing all these things, and then I just stuck to it for years.

My childhood was filled with practicing tenor horn and table tennis, and I did that for the whole six years of my elementary school life. 

Not to brag, but I was placed the third in a city-wide table tennis competition, and after 9 times of examination and evaluation of the China Conservatory of Music, I was considered to be on the highest level of performing tenor horn. 

Now that I think of it, I’m very impressed by the old me. It’s amazing what my mother pushed me to do. Now that I think of it, she gave my old life so much more colors than an ordinary kid’s. Looking back, I just think of so much more my mother has taught me, how she would buy bundles of English or math test materials, then make me take them and go through and answers together. I remember her putting a big question mark on the side when there is a question wrong, because I always argued against the answer key. I remember how she made me recite ancient books of poems and passages that the recitation of it to a teacher would have given me a recognition. It meant reciting multiple books of poems and recite them in a single time. She tested me, gazed at me every time when I struggled to find the right words — it was so painful. It was like she knew I had some kind of talent and wouldn’t have been like that to me if it weren’t for that gift I had. Now that I think of how much heart my mother has put in me, I never want to disappoint her again.

Oh, how I love my mother. But now I cannot ever go back, she isn’t always going to tuck me in at night.

Photo Credit: onlinelabels.com

Nostalgia hits hard

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Nostalgia isn’t just a feeling, it’s a crash of emotions that befalls you when it’s the most unexpected. Not just homesickness, but a mix of remembrance and sadness, as you’re only nostalgic when you are not home, stranded, helpless.

Nostalgia may be a current of water. It flows from your head to your stomach, then back to your eyes, uncontrollable, rolling out like a waterfall. Sometimes you don’t realize its existence until your mouth takes a sip of that salty drop.

You’d laugh at your woe and call it odd, but the current will not halt. So I comfort myself. Don’t cry, child, for you don’t have time for it now.

Nostalgia is more than a feeling. I hope whoever has it can return to their loved ones in a short while. 

Nevertheless, will you still miss your home, if your lover is stranded as well?

(I’m a Chinese international student in the US. Because of certain policies that were made for the coronavirus, I cannot go back home. I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to meet my family and friends. The uncertainty is a real menace, it’s eating me alive. What if something happens to someone whom I love while I’m overseas? What if at the end of the day I’m left behind as the only one living? The uncertainty is killing me. I hope everything goes well in China, I hope there’ll be an antidote for this madness. I feel really helpless and overwhelmed because there’s literally nothing I could contribute to better the situation, I could only sit and watch the number of infected and deaths go up and wish that my circle of people has nothing to do with it. It’s truly rotten when you are a spectator of your fellow countrymen’s deaths. 

I just hope things go well. I’m praying for a change.)

Photo Credit: phys.org

August 27, 2019

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“So I did my calculations, there are 93 days before Thanksgiving, 93 long days until I can see April again. To those that don’t know April, she’s my companion…”

I read Hemingway’s A Fairwell to Arms a couple of days ago… ‘They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they kill you…” They do kill you, I’m telling you.

I didn’t care for writing any journal yesterday. Tired and dulled by all the handbook rules they were announcing last night, I went to sleep quickly. I need to get out of this place, maybe I’ll get kicked out so that I’ll see April back in China again? But deep inside, I know I’m not going to do that. Men are selfish.

I really miss April.”

Because of the virus now I can’t go back to her again. It’s basically the same scenario all over. But this time, I’m willing to get kicked out for her. (not saying I will and definitely not confessing to anything)

I really miss April.

Photo Credit: aprilgame.itch.io

Some thoughts about the Wuhan Virus

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A deadly virus has spread throughout China. With now 76 people killed, tens of thousands being possibly infected, death festers upon negligence and ignorance. Some fools choose to travel, knowing they’re infected with this crazily contagious virus. More and more innocent people, children, are dying for that idiocy. 

I’m anxious. Checking the updates on anything related to the virus has become my new habit. The ones I care the most about are in China, and tomorrow they could be dead… all because of that damned negligence. 

But at the same time, I feel sad. What are the infected supposed to do? Sit down and die? How can you blame anyone when the whole plot is sad, when it is your townspeople you’re talking about, when it’s your friends and loved ones’ lives on the line. 

Now I’m in dispute with myself. I don’t know what to write. Thinking that you’re lucky, that you’ve escaped the virus, that the deaths of other people are irrelevant… I don’t know what to think. 

At first you’re in shock, then relaxed, thinking that they’ll have the cure developed by tomorrow… isn’t it the 21st century? Then anxiety hits. You start a journey looking for the antidote for the virus, but there’s no antidote for you.

It’s the Chinese New Year. After a year of struggling, most people finally get some rest. Families get together, friends gather… and boom…

My hometown in the same province as Wuhan City, where the virus first started to murder. Now the province is under lockdown. For that, I pray for my family. 

My mother hasn’t been healthy for a few years. I worry for her well-being, now that a deadly virus walks the earth. My sister feels ill, I hope it’s just a cold…

However, there is a silver lining. And how can one go on without faith?

Today, the first step toward curing the disease with vaccination has been initiated. 

Ok. 

photo credit：gfycat.com

Becoming

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Today is the last day of my childhood,

Tomorrow I will be an adult.

It means I’ll have more freedom, I’ll be able to buy more goods, drive (in China), book a hotel room…

By ascending to that place, it also means leaving some of my old life behind. Things will be renounced.

It’s a different world that I’m about to touch. Letting go is always easy, when you put a title on yourself and pretend to be someone you’re not, you become that someone.

But this time, I am willing to change, and I’m excited for the upcoming changes. I guess that’s what growing up is.

OC

photo credit: pm1.narvii.com