a city, a life, a different person

舍不得... 我好舍不得呀。为什么又要走了呢？I know that I can't stay forever here. I know that I don't want to give up my other life, which is, I guess, my official,permanent life at Harvard. But to leave all this behind...?! again... The dozens of times before where I've moved in my life, I could care less, because I was only leaving behind bad things, or things I didn't need. But I guess this is a sign that my life is getting better. Really my life is quite happy and fulfilling as the years go by. 我真的已经很幸福了。 能在短短的四个月里,找到这么多真心朋友,找到爱我的人,找到我的母语,找到我的祖国,文化,和那么多深深地埋在我的童年记忆中的事。
I'm afraid that I'll lose this person I've found in myself again when I leave this city. We've been counting down the days... it's now 3 days left in this city that I've come to feel like home in, in this country that I've gotten reacquainted with in the last 4 months. I can't bear to leave. XA made me a silver bracelet for my birthday. She does jewelry crafts and she made it herself, this bracelet with two interconnected dots. Xu Jun has practically moved into my place, leaving occassionally for work and for her grandmother's funeral events. I saw about a dozen people on Saturday, for the last time. Even the group that I first met in Shanghai, the group that i am the least close to, said that they will miss me. I know it's impossible to actually do it, but Xu Jun keeps saying that maybe, one day I'll find her showing up at my school, to come find me... (and the funny thing is that, I've never told her which school I go to).
My pot of 水仙花 (flowers that bloom during chinese new year) has bloomed over the last few days. It's right on time. I get to smell this delicious, festive scent before I leave this little home of mine.
I keep saying to people that I will be back, maybe in as short as a year, if I come do my thesis research here. That's the only comfort. This is not like Ghana, where I may cry upon leaving, but in reality I won't go back... cause that's not my place, I was just a traveler passing through. But this place has a permanent connection to me, we're connected through the umbilical cord, and I KNOW that this is only the beginning, the beginning of lots of trips back and forth, between two places I simultaneously call home and can't join together.
Even typing all this in English feels awkward, like by processing my thoughts into English, i'm already separating myself from this world. What if, Boston will be such a different environment that I lose touch w/ this self I've found here, again? This language has just started to become instinctual again, and now I might not get to speak it, for a long time. All I have to bring back with me of this world is tons of Chinese movies, that I can hole up and watch on my own.
And the scariest thing is, I fear that I can't cry. I think all these things in my head, I dread the eventual departure, but there's that tiny uncomfortable, sour feeling in my chest that i can't grab a hole of. What I want IS that feeling. But it's so small and shadowy. It may sound funny, but I fear that I've shut down my emotions too well. I can't be like my cousin A Yu, who burst into tears when I was leaving her at the airport in Fu Zhou, when I went back to see my family one more time last week. She kept saying on the car ride to the airport that, don't make her cry, don't bring up the fact that I'm leaving. And still, in the end, her feelings came out so strongly. But I didn't have that kind of feeling. I don't want to leave her either... but why can't I find that in myself? When's the last time I cried? The second time that we got together, 3 days after we met, Xu Jun cried because of me, because I will be leaving in 2 weeks. How could she so bravely throw herself in? how does she have so much emotions/feelings/love to give out? I can only say, I'm moved, by her. But I can't help her... There's not much I can say to comfort her when she's drunk and really sad because she fears not ever finding someone to happily spend the rest of her life with. I tell her that quote: 不在乎天长地久,只在乎曾经拥有 （Ccare not for forever, but care only that you had it once--very awkward translation). but I don't know if i can convince myself even of that.
Ai, why overprocess. I will have plenty of hours on the plane, in a COUPLE of days (God!), to be in shock and be sad and feel that terrible, sour and bitter feeling in my chest. I've decided, I don't like planes.