Some Things About Growing Up
Part I
Gate of the Magic World
How to play:
Step 1: Find a dark hallway. Like the science wing in your elementary school with cold grey tiles, endless closed doors, and a room with three shelves of animal specimens, skeleton modules, and many other once-alive things you don’t recognize.
Step 2: Close your eyes. Keep quiet.
Step 3: Do no be afraid of the darkness, even if you can almost feel the chill that harbingers the imminence of those phantoms with blood-dripping hair and ugly, pale faces. Though unable to see anything, your imagination is running wild. You feel the phantoms stretching their bony arms towards you and their teeth close to your neck. But do not be afraid. They won’t get to you because they aren’t real.
Step 4: Walk slowly. One step at a time.
Step 5: Feel it. Open up your mind and heart. There will be one step, among all other steps, that creates a different sensation. You always imagine that step to be the one where you can hear wind and smell the faint scent of grass and flowers that are spiraling around a gate. Your friend, K, on the other hand, always feels resistance when she takes that step; she has to lift her foot to go over the gate.
Step 6: Step over the gate and open your eyes. Everything looks the same; it’s still a dark hallway after all. But you have already entered a world, an invisible parallel universe where magic exists, that overlaps with reality.
“Look, it’s a garden! Look at those tiny fairies!” I exclaimed, pointing at nothing in particular in the dark.
“Yes I see them! Hey did you see that? Over there… the School of Magic!” K said, and our eyes lit up. We strained our necks and looked beyond the cold walls of the science wing. A castle towered above the horizon, across the field where the flowers grew rampant.
Lunch Break Wars
Venues:
· M’s residential district
· A never locked, empty apartment in a really high residential building next to M’s residential district
· An underground parking lot
· A even darker and deeper underground parking lot for two-wheelers
Weapons:
· Bamboo sticks
· Little white rocks that are meant for indoor decoration
· Anything throwable but won’t cause much damage
Rules:
No more than three teams; the third team should only exist if no one wants to be on the same team with R (a.k.a. The Lone General).
Don’t take those homeless kittens away from their mom and put them under a car, EVER AGAIN—yes I’m taking to you, X—they are innocent civilians.
When trying to break into that tall residential building by watching the residents type in the code at the gate, or if caught by those meddlesome guards, we work together. But after that, enemies are still enemies.
It’s rude to press every level’s up/down button so that it takes a very long time for the enemies inside the elevator to get to their destination because there are residents waiting for the elevators.
K and Yang, the only girls, should always stick together. Remember that time when Yang went under a broken fence and the metal scratched her scalp and she couldn’t stop bleeding? Yeah, if K were there with her she probably wouldn’t be so scared and run too fast and hurt herself. Right, Yang? (Truth: I simply just tried to squeeze myself through a fence under a broken metal bar, and I scratched my scalp. For some reason I didn’t cry, no, I wasn’t even scared; or maybe I was just trying to act super calm in front of my worried buddies. That day I was asked to stand in front of the whole class, the best example of this-is-what-you-are-going-to-get-into-if-you-don’t-behave-well. But somehow I was really proud of myself, for being brave, and being alive.)
The Truce
The day K and I found the ladder that led to the top of the tall residential building, we all forgot about all the wars that were going on between us—temporarily—and climbed up like a group of young scientific explorers. I got to the top and a huge empty space was presented before me. That moment, that place, were just breathtaking and inexplicably beautiful and relaxing. The sun was burning in the middle of the sky warming up our hair, and the wind cooled the air down a bit and twirled around our shirts. I walked over to the edge and looked down as the world expanded beneath me, watching cars moving like blood traveling through the veins. For some reason I just had a sudden urge to step onto the edge of the building. Then I started howling, “Heyyy, I’m hereeee, can you see meeeee!” And we all began doing the same thing. Afterward we just talked, laughed, and walked along the edge. We could get ourselves killed if we took one wrong step. But we didn’t.
Part II
Since I was in third grade, my family hadn’t been in its best shape, partially because my parents’ investment in an entrepreneurship never worked out the way they wanted it to. I began to hear arguments outside my bedroom while doing homework with K on the phone. She must have heard some yelling, but she said nothing, so we simply pretended like nothing had happened. When I hung up the phone I just sat in the chair, unmoving, feeling the muffled voices of my parents filling up the room. I was young, but nonetheless it was obvious that my parents were too different from each other to get along. To me my mom was fire and my dad was a black hole; he hid his emotions deep, deep inside him, avoided direct conflict, and simply just silently sucked all the passion and energy out of my mom, leaving her fragile, tired, and volatile, an empty shell incapable of feeling what she was supposed to feel, such as anger and hatred.
I once assured myself that maybe it’d be cool to have a divorced family; I could show others that I was tough and that I didn’t care. But the fact was I did care, and I hated to have a broken family leaving a blank space in my life, my eternal incompleteness.
When I was in fifth grade, mom told me that K’s parents were going to have a divorce. I went, oh K never told me about that.
Yeah, why didn’t she?
But I didn’t ask, just like how she never asked about my family; people had the right to keep secrets. So one day while we were walking together, I told her, “K, you’re the strongest, the most independent person I’ve ever known.” She gave me a faint smile that I didn’t quite understand, but clearly at that moment, she knew that I knew what was going on in her family. And that was it; we never talked about it again, not after the divorce of her parents, or after her father married another woman within two months.
The Notebook (Front)
I was probably in sixth grade when my mom started giving me a few bucks per week as pocket money. I bought a pink notebook with a code. I was reluctant to buy it because pink was girlish, but this was the only decent notebook that could be locked. I desperately needed a lock because concealing a part of myself sounded cool, and I guess unconsciously I realized that there really weren’t many people left for me to share intimate things with except for K, who actually had gone through things much worse. So I decided to write diaries from the front of the notebook, and pass the notebook to K so that she could share her stories too.
Page 1
Dear K,
A human being is such a complicated thing, don’t you think? The emotions human beings possess are too complicated; why can’t they be simpler?
Tell me, will a friendship between a boy and a girl become… “first love?” Or maybe… maybe there is no love in this world at all?
Page 2
4/22/2008
Dear Yang,
Today was both happy and sad. Want to know why? Please keep reading!
This afternoon I had an English mid-term exam. Although last night I had prepared well, I still didn’t have the confidence to get a 100, because I lose points in the writing section every single time. “Ring ring ring,” the bell rang and I submitted my exam paper, but I was really anxious, so I ran to watch Miss Bao grade our exams. Surprisingly, I think I’ve gotten everything right on my writing section (99% probability)! I was so excited; can’t wait to let our teacher grade my exam.
Suddenly, I had a bad feeling, because tomorrow is Wednesday, the day I hate the most; we not only have Chinese mid-term but also have art class. That’s so unfortunate!
I hope tomorrow will be a short day, hope it won’t affect my luck of the whole week!
Almost immediately, I realized that I wouldn’t get answers from K about love, people, and just life in general. It had always been my idea to write diaries and always been me asking myself about things that didn’t make sense to me, such as the relationship between my parents. Had they ever loved each other? What was holding them together and what was breaking them apart?
I felt helpless when K responded my try-to-be-more-implicit questions with an account of her mid-term exams. However, at the same time, I secretly admired K because she was tough; I tried so hard to act cool but it turned out that I was just as emotional—maybe more emotional—than other girls. I wondered how K managed to be happy and carefree despite of her parents’ divorce, stay calm even to the point of nonchalance, and just… hide her emotions and never talk about anything that made her sad. She was strong, so strong that I even suspected her ability to feel anything.
Do Something.
Unlike K, I was angry, unsatisfied, and always eager to prove my braveness and integrity by representing the voice of the unhappy, and by doing things that none of my classmates dared to do. When we were practicing letter-writing skills, while all my classmates wrote letters to teachers to thank and praise them, I wrote a letter to my English teacher, accusing her of hitting students’ heads, and another letter to my P.E. teacher who simply made us stand under the scorching sun for forty-five minutes almost every single day. I wrote, “YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE A TEACHER.” These were harsh words, but I wrote them without feeling guilty or unsure.
One day, when lunch time was over, our Math teacher was saying that if we didn’t come back to the classroom on time, she would close the door. Z, a new classmate who was expelled from another school because he always got into fights, was feeling depressed. He just sat with his back against a pillar, his head between his knees. I went, “Z, are you coming to class?” He didn’t respond. When Math teacher ignored us I was pissed. Why didn’t she come here and stay with Z for a little while? Why did she want to punish him when he already looks devastated? Feeling unjust and angry, I sat down beside him and went, “Ok, let her close the door. I don’t care.” And that made Z look up. He didn’t smile, but I knew he was just trying to act cool. So we played right along the corridor by our classroom. We even waved at our classmates, some of whom looked jealous and the rest just glanced at us in contempt. Yeah, teachers’ pets. My mom was called to school. She reprimanded me and I cried. But again, I felt so alive because that was what life was supposed to be like, standing up for what I believed to be right, being true to myself, and most importantly, becoming a person who would be remembered. Yes, not loved or hated, but remembered.
The Notebook (Back)
Since writing diaries wasn’t very fun, I had other ideas. From the back, I decided that K and I should write a story, a story full of magic and adventure.
Background:
Two (crossed out) Three (crossed out) Five (crossed out) Eight kids from Planet X (crossed out) different planets come to know each other at the School of Magic. They have discovered something evil that is threatening the entire school universe. They shoulder the responsibility of saving the universe and
Characters:
Yang:
Name: Icy Indigo
Planet: Planet X
Info: A righteous person who stands up for her friends.
Strength/Ability: Defense
K:
Name: Autumn Frost
Planet: Planet X
Info: Best friend with Icy Indigo.
Strength/Ability: Mind-control
As our story got out many classmates came to me and asked to be included in the story. Again, I wrote most of the story because it was always me who wanted the world to be full of adventure, taking risks and making sacrifices, and of course, magic. I wrote about sticking together as a team and never ratting anyone out even though we were all in critical situations, about the world under the ocean, about ignoring the rules of that world to save a dying friend, about standing before our friends to take the damage of some evil magic, about being not afraid.
This world—the reality—wasn’t enough for me.
Part III
I spent six months at an international language school in Singapore by myself at the age of 12. I didn’t know then that it would be the end of my adventure, but luckily I had used my time well. I gamed until three in the morning and skipped classes the next day. My best friend and I stayed in the mall after curfew, and always took the shortcut back, adventuring to a hill that was located between the mall and our school. Without any streetlight, everything was pitch-black. There had been rumors that a girl was killed and her body was dumped there. But still we walked along the trails, with music blasting from our phones to keep our spirits high enough to feel less fear.
There were also bad times, such as the time when the entire dorm hated and isolated me, the time when I didn’t call my parents for a week and they almost went crazy, and the time when I told Y I had had a crush on him but when he said he still liked me I lied that I didn’t anymore. But for the first time, I felt free and invincible. I even stopped writing, leaving all my imaginations of adventure and magic behind.
And then my mom came to live with me after I went to an official middle school. This time the student body was 99% Singaporean and I didn’t think my classmates wanted to talk to me. But that didn’t bother me at all because I didn’t mind being left alone. The real problem was at home.
My mom was undoubtedly depressed. She felt a constantly overwhelming pain in her stomach but the doctor said there was nothing wrong with her. She also had really bad mood swings, especially when I got bad grades or when she caught me sneaking out of my room to use her laptop after midnight. And I even saw her cry; in my memory my mom had only cried once, when her grandmother passed away. I thought something was wrong with me, something about my attitude, my incompetence or stupidity or reticence that she always scolded me for. Sometimes I had the feeling that maybe it was better if I could just disappear. I imagined myself running away in the middle of the night like a cool ninja, or living with my friend whose apartment was just a few blocks away, or just, you know, being dead. But imaginations stayed as imaginations, because no matter what happened, my mom was still my mom; I couldn’t bear to do anything to hurt her.
Therefore, I stayed to listen to mom’s venomous words reminding me how useless I was, to watch her frown or rub her twitching stomach or raise her hand to hit me, but I was no better than she was; I simply chose not to respond, which made her even angrier. But it was hard to pretend that I didn’t care; how could I not care when she screamed “You stupid pig,” or when her whole body trembled when she held her hand close to my face trying so hard not to hit me? I cried in my bed every single night, and burying my head into the pillow, forcing out silent screams. Sometimes I got up and wrote in my notebook. “Mom I hate you,” I wrote, again and again until that page went black. Sometimes I read silly stories about young love just to get away for a while, or Chinese martial art fictions about swordfight, righteousness and honor. And I opened a blog and devoted two years in writing one single story. I wrote like a maniac, about my imaginary world full of spies and killings and ninjas and time-travel and deaths and beyond-deaths.
But I hadn’t realized how self-centered I was until I came to America at the age of 15 when mom told me that she and my dad had stopped holding hands when I was still in her tummy. Then it just dawned on me that for the entire two and a half years my mom spent in Singapore, my dad was never there for her emotionally, and also physically most of the time. To mom Singapore was a prison, a place where her daily routine never went beyond preparing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and buying groceries at the nearby supermarket. And she was all alone, with no friend and no family, as the best years of her life slipped away.
But understanding the situations doesn’t mean the pain will go away. I will never get married and have kids, I swore to myself after having witnessed how marriage and kid ruined my mom, me, and my family. I understand it’s not always the case for others, but I just don’t ever want to risk taking the responsibility of having a family. I mean, why should we get married in the first place? If we really love each other and trust each other, what’s the point of getting married and bind ourselves with a contract? Should we stay together even if we don’t love each other anymore? If yes, will we ever be happy again? If no, then isn’t getting married in the first place the worst decision we’ve ever made? What if I fall for someone else when I’m married? Should I stay faithful because of the contract and because every other option—cheating, getting divorced—is plain awful? There is just so much uncertainty lying ahead of us that the oath, too heavy with responsibilities and promises, can never be spoken with a hundred percent certainty. And if I have a kid, years of my life will be devoted to raising that kid; I must have something better to do. And what if my kid isn’t bright enough? Will that be my fault?
So, yeah, no marriage and absolutely no kids.
My mom has asked me a few times whether it was her marriage with my dad that influenced my pessimism about marriage. I always say, “not entirely.” Truth. And when she asks me to forgive her capricious behavior back in Singapore, I always say, “there’s nothing to forgive.” Again, truth. But another truth is that she has planted the idea of the fact that I’m never good enough so deep that I don’t think it will ever go away, since it’s slowly transforming from an idea to a reality. The situation came to its the worst in my senior year of high school; I was lost, I didn’t know what I wanted, so I gave up without even trying. My parents were satisfied since they never really expected me to do anything extraordinary, but I was devastated. I couldn’t accept that I was another failed investment of my parents, a waste of their money, a hopeless kid who should have just stayed in China and lived a dull life.
I have become quiet and stayed quiet, a completely opposite person from who I was when I was little. I think about K often, and keep up to date about her daily life through the posts and pictures she uploaded on WeChat. She is doing great. She is happy, optimistic, the girl I have known since the very beginning. And every time I go back to China, we meet up and talk, but we never talk about anything beyond superficial things because I know she won’t understand my life and I probably won’t understand hers. We are on different paths now, carrying with very different notions about life.
I’m also glad that her family didn’t destroy her—in the past she must have felt sad about her biological mother leaving her and angry at her dad for the divorce, but now she is okay; her father and his new wife are sweet and very in love. On the other hand, I tend to notice and feel a connection with people who are, or at least pretend to be, quiet, low-key, and more or less broken. A few years ago, I fell for one; our relationship stayed platonic because it was just too short for anything else to happen. Then I just knew, that all broken people can do to each other is hurting each other, like two cracked glass bottles clashing and ending up with less bits and pieces. But I haven’t forgotten him; when the room goes dark I think of him and all the what-ifs. There’s no one like him. And eventually he has become an idea that I compare other people with, a reminder of things I should or shouldn’t do if I fall for someone again (which I haven’t), and forever a phantom in my dreams.
The birthday wish I give to K every year has one line that never changes, “get a cute, kindhearted boyfriend soon.” But God she looks so innocent; I can’t imagine her holding hand with another boy. And even though she hasn’t found one yet I’m already starting to worry about the breakup she will experience sooner or later. Yeah that’s me, always thinking about the ending even before everything begins. Maybe K is different; maybe she will happen to love someone who loves her back equally. Maybe they will never stop loving each other. Maybe there is no ending for them after all.