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.

biggest fears

it kinda seems like my life is single-themed. I socialize with a certain kind of people, i keep thinking about these issues, i write about them, i study them, i work for them... if you aren't interested in these things, then i'm probably so monotonous. Hm, I tend to really get into the things I'm into.

People keep asking me, what're your biggest fears? Well, one is that i'd forget things. I already have forgotten a lot. That's why I blog and journal, to try to salvage some of it. I feel like when I forget some experiences, then it's like I've lost that experience itself, and that part of my life is as good as it never happened. Then what's the point of it if i can't even remember the feeling I felt, the thoughts I thought? The other fear is that I only manage to have shallow relationships, that i don't have people who I'm deeply connected to, who are true friends/family/lovers. I guess I believe that relationships, rich meaningful relationships make life significant. I don't have the deep realtionship w/ family that most ppl have as a given, so I have to form these relationships on my own.

I don't know why I'm thinking about this...

tolerance to the extreme

So I can like women who're really different from me in some ways, without judging, holding them to my standards, blah blah blah. But last night, this was on another level... Over dinner, i argued with the woman I'm seeing about whether or not lalas in China who are forced to get married by family deserve sympathy or not. She actually said, "if they can't stand up to societal pressure, isn't willing to sacrifice their life for love, then they don't deserve happiness!" My God she's cold. And I think it's even weirder for her to sit there, talking as if she had nothing to do w/ queerness at all... She said bi's are terrible, can't make up their mind. So when i rhetorically asked her back, what is she then? she easily freed herself from this label, by saying that because she has given up on love altogether, so it doesn't matter what her sexual orientation is anymore. And weirder still, is that after this debate, I could have great sex w/ her... Apparently I can sleep w/ people with bad politics just fine (I still have a limit though. Her bad politics isn't the kind that actively hurts ppl; it's not hateful conservatives).

On New Year's Eve, I met a bunch of real Bu Fen's. And one of them, this beautiful woman Juan Juan, told me that:"do you know, this road we walk, as lala's, will actually be really sad when you walk it to the end." She didn't know I had anything non-Chinese in my life; she was speaking to me as just another, young, Chinese lala, and she told me that her current girlfriend is bi, that bi's are not dependable, that all bi's will get married, and thus she will be alone... but she has made up her mind, so what if she will grow old completely alone? she's decided to walk this road and she will persist to the end. I felt she was incredible, admirable. A few hours later, though, she was hella drunk, and sitting in the middle of the road, crying, while I tried to get a taxi to take her home. She was crying because, she's going to grow old all by myself... To see all this vulnerability in front of me, exhibited by such a strong person, I only wish I could do something to help, if I could offer myself or something... but that's unrealistic.