Feeling pretty good

Yeah, I know. My recent blogs have been boring. I sorta block my feelings out of the blog and only talk about what I have done in daily life. But who care those things? I guess my readers are more interested in whether my inner-life still experiences turmoil as before, whether I am still the old sensitive self.

To some extent, I still am. No day passes by without me questioning myself, "What's the point?" But then my busy schedule just carried those fleeting thoughts away. I feel lucky that I am surrounded by a bunch of supporting friends. These are the friends to whom I told about my depression about two years ago. It is a little eerie. What if I did not have that episode of depression? Does it mean that I will be friendless now? Seriously, revealing my vulnerability two years ago is still paying dividends. I trust them much, and vice versa (3 of them actually made my friends blog list). A good analogy is gambling. You have to put the ante on the table. If you do not, you are not to win. I was pushed to join the game, and now I see the benefit of being open to friends.

Still no girl in my life. It came so odd. When I break up with Yuphen, I thought the sky was so open that I could meet great girls. Now eight years have passed, and I am still as sexually-deprived as ever. The other day I was attending (actually observing) a campus event called "Full Moon" for the first time (The event is for senior males to kiss freshman girls. But hey, a lot of sketchy graduate student observers). Feel pretty horny (Congressionman Mark Foley, thanks for the term in your scandel. I have to look up the dictionary to know what I mean). It is good to have a girlfriend. I think I am lonely, no matter how much I want to deny it.

Another thing bothering me recently is the health of my Niangniang. I really really want to go back to China this November (I am going to make a decision by this Friday). Think about what she has done for me, there is just nothing I can do to repay that. Yes, my family produced my flaws, but they also prepared myself in facing those flaws and striving ahead. I almost feel that they are a constellation of stars, far away but always watching over my shoulder, emotionally distant but also give me unmatched blessings. What if I lose one of the stars? Well, my life won't change at all. I won't even be emotionally depressed for too long. But I know, once a while, especially when I am lonely, if I look up to the dark sky, I know something is missing. Everything is stil the same, but everything will be different at the same time. That's the irony. So I want to see her before you pass away.

My sensation sometimes will tangle with the past. The other day I saw a butterfly on campus, and I told myself, "It is a deja vu. I saw this before!" I think hard, and then everything is back. I was a kid, with Yaya and Niangniang. We had a garden. In the summer, the small white butterflies were everywhere. And dragonflies too. Yaya planted all sorts of flowers. They were all blossoming. I even saw a humming bird once, I swear. The grape was also growing, and sometimes I found snakes. As Yaya said, snakes liked the the shadow of grape ivies. I took of my sweater and chased the butterflies. When getting close, I wiped it at the butterflies. Their wings would be damaged. I tried to kept them alive in small jars, but they would be all dead within one day. I sometimes also got dragonflies, but they were much harder to catch, as they changed directions rather unpredictably. Sometimes when the butterflies were parking on a flower, I would sneak by and catch it by the wings with my two fingers. My fingers would have those white powders from the wings, and Yaya said it was poisonous....

Damn it! Sometimes I feel that my memory was my burden. I could remember things so vividly that invoking my memory was too costly in my busy schedule. But I know they are always there. My past is my present, and my memory is my treasure. Whenever I feel so out of touch with my folks back at home, one small dose of memory usually is enough to warm my heart and wet my eyes. It reminds that I have been there, lived a life, passed through those amazing people, but never formally said "Thank you". I know, some day, I will shoot a documentary (Have you seen "7 up"? I want to make one like that), or write a book, and I know to whom they will be dedicated.