gehtauchvorbei

[gehtauchvorbei]

What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Love?

I gave up writing after returning to China. It’s been two years.

I remember that in Nonfic senior year, Professor Lee made us keep a blog and asked us to write about whatever we wanted. I was so eager to get out of college and so sad because of the idea that I was about to leave Pittsburgh for good; I was so torn that my end results were so cringy. 

I deleted most of them, but now I am starting to wonder, to try to remember what I wrote. Because I think I’m losing the ability to write. To be creative. To actually live.

What can I write about? About my boring office life at the school where everyone is trying to step on everyone to climb higher? About my colleagues who do not know Drake, Tyga, and Tyler the Creator? About how much I miss Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, and midnight Domino’s? About how I wish I was not the responsible, filial, and docile daughter that I am?

I used to think that I only had the ability to convey sadness. Sometimes I read over my words about D, about Germany, about these summers in Europe and I feel sad. I feel how I felt in those moments and grieve the loss of a life that I so wanted and threw away. But now, even when I cannot name a single happy memory here, I lost the ability to be sad. Life is just plain like how my parents wanted it for me. I stopped writing about sad things because everyday, everything, every moment, I live in sadness like a part of me was left on that airplane that flew me home. It’s no longer a rare case - it has become the new common.

Now every time I say something in English, my colleagues praise my pronunciation. Every time I write something in English, my supervisor tells me it’s authentic. Every time I talk about my experience abroad, my students say I’m worldly. I am receiving so many compliments, compliments I take as insults because that’s how I defined my life before. It was my life, but now I play house to make it seem like my life. A flipped-over version.

I’ve been reading the book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I didn’t get it the first time. Each story felt so random and ended too sudden that it became difficult for me to comprehend. I wondered why so many recommended me the book and questioned whether I should jump on Goodreads and give it a solid 3. 

Then the other day I had a dream. I was studying at my usual corner writing center table at Hillman and suddenly felt half asleep, my face on the big, heavy MacBook Pro with earphone cords sitting on top of my cheeks, a bag of hot cheetos lying in front of me. Then I heard The Hills on Spotify, wanting to wake up and share an earphone with A only to find a cup of extra hot grande soy chai by my side. We talked about whether to get mashed potato pizza or make doboki at home with a scary movie on, giggling so loud over text that even the frat bros sitting next to us gave us the looks. And I felt like I was me again.

And, I think, this is what we talk about when we talk about love.

[gehtauchvorbei]

Reminds me of our 2014 trip to Zugspitze.

North Cascades Washington

[gehtauchvorbei]

Nice for What?

When I first met you, Drake had just come out with his album, ‘Nothing Was the Same.’

I quoted a cheesy line from Connect: ‘You can be whoever you want, even yourself.’ You laughed at me and said: ‘Since when do you listen to Drake?’

You most definitely don’t remember.

You said you didn’t like Drake as much as before. ‘Nothing Was the Same’ was too emotional for you.

We would talk about it for days, at group study, on walks to the library, at Market dinners, over text.

Back then I still had my bangs at an awkward length, and you were this kind of arrogant kid that didn’t have lots of friends.

And I felt special.

My favourite moment was when you came to that one event after our long afternoon of walking in the rain. Out of all that people you knew in that room, you walked straight up to me and stood by my side. Then we prayed.

You smelled like minty shampoo.

Then we started talking about lots of things.

You asked about future. What I wanted to do. Where I wanted to go. When I wanted to settle.

I panicked because you hated the idea of future. Something was not right.

I knew. Because here I am, living the future with just myself and not a single trace of you, a future that somehow realized my expectation.

I didn’t move to Germany. I gave up the language that I had been wanting to learn ever since I was five. And I wish I could tell you all about Vancouver.

How long is four years?

In the world of Drake, it’s three albums, one mixtape, and one EP.

I graduated college, cut my hair, and moved to Canada.

Your hair seems a bit longer now, and you’ve still got that silly smile of yours.

Today I listened to Scorpion. Everyone kept telling me to listen to it, knowing how big of a Drake fan I am, and I finally did.

And I wanted to text you about Scorpion. Asking how you feel about Drake trying to defend himself in front of the world. Asking if that’s why you don’t like Drake — because you see too much of yourself in him.

On some days when I close my eyes, I see you.

You are all I see in all these places, you are all I see in all these faces.

[gehtauchvorbei]

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[gehtauchvorbei]

What we talk about when we talk about love?

[gehtauchvorbei]

[gehtauchvorbei]

Madness Behind Beauty

When I turned around I saw

that I came farther than I thought and I was

alone and suddenly I

feared.

  You are doing a good job—I tell

myself and when I get confused, I tell myself to just

go.

Do yourself Christy you

know yourself.

You practiced how to be a champ and you broke down

once or twice but

it’s nothing now. You live for this

mediocre success, and opportunity has always meant

standing up again at life’s crisis but what if life

is the crisis?

  I trust myself, there is no

opponent—I said it like

a habit and believed it but what if

the enemy was in my mirror?

To receive the attention of thousands, to have

jumped cultures and languages. I am nothing but nothing is

everything I always wanted but

less. I am my own

grave and all of a sudden I

feared.

  When I

look at the photo of my parents who

look at me now, I realize I am

my junior’s mirror and my family’s

star. Last summer I was invited

to speak to thousands of Chinese students.

My legs were shaking and hands trembling but I talked in between

waves of clapping

They praised me for simply

being abroad and asked how I was

this successful. They said I was the model student

they looked up to.

But how do they define success and why

me? I wanted

to tell them about anorexia, fights with my own mind and when I didn’t

have strength to get out of bed.

But I am

their example. How could I say that?

So I told them “even if

you’re lonely and your tears falling,

you need to endure this so stop

crying and rise again.”

I think of it as

a beautified me needed beautified words to justify

my action.

  And in that moment when I didn’t want to see anything I forced

my eyes open because I

feared. And when I didn’t

want to speak at all I purposely

raised my voice because

I, feared.

[gehtauchvorbei]

A Litany for Survival

For those of us who live on the margins of society

trying hard to push in

but instead are pushed back

for those of us who no longer see a future

in this country where

democracy was a trademark and dreams were

supposed to come true but instead

whose heads hang a little lower

mouths turn down at the corners

eyes void of hope but full of

confusion and fear

who don’t want their children feel like

it’s also the death of their future

  For those of us

Who didn’t have the strength to

get up on November 9th

that stayed in bed

and cried

and waited to fall asleep

hoping when they woke up

there would still be hope in unity

and love

and respect

For all of us

this shock and this chaos

we were never meant to accept.

And when slavery was legal we fought

for a land of equality and opportunities

when women’s suffrage was suppressed we fought

to voice our opinions as not only rightful citizens but

also human beings

when health care wasn’t caring we fought

for affordable care act and when

minorities were discriminated we fought

for diversity,

and tolerance

and acceptance.

  So it is better to fight

remembering

we were never meant to accept

[gehtauchvorbei]

The End

You are so nice when you try. And then we would fight. Not talk for days. I see pictures of you with girls. You are cheesin’ hard with a red solo cup, your other hand wraps around their tiny waists. You are in that nice blue button-down of yours, my favorite. That kills me. Then you beg me to forgive, play FIFA with me and let me win. You make me so happy. Then you fuck it up and my inner basic white girl comes out, so I cry on rainy days with a bottle of Rosé. Then you have your playboy ways to make a girl feel special like when I wake up to you and a dozen of roses, and I’m happy again.

You are Tin Man from Wizard of Oz. You get hurt, a part of you dies, and you replace it with tin. Before you know it, nothing is left in you but tin. You are metal and barely living. But still something about that gets me. It is pitiful except it is not. You are not heartless except you are. And sometimes your emotions accidentally get out and they are so subtle, I am mesmerized.

“She’s just a friend.” Bullshit but I trick myself into believing it. You are so good to me, I tell myself when you give me back hugs and stroke my hair, and when I’m dying in the library and you bring me coffee in a mug or ramen in a bowl, and when you always pull the chair out for me before I reach it myself. But how are the actions, the emotions real if you are basically the walking dead? I remember telling you about my Tin Man theory and you laugh, looking away uncomfortably. You know exactly who you are. But in that moment when you finally confirm it, I don’t know if I feel accomplished at analyzing human emotions or mirthless because I never had YOU from the start.

I don’t know if it counts as a relationship. I think of it as we don’t need titles. The corner study room in Posvar Hall. Our earphones blasted Drake. Walks on rainy days. Late night runs. Sushi dates and teaching you how to properly eat with chopsticks. You always distract me from my nightmares and stress because I can’t save myself from the thoughts inside me. Then we stop talking because you want junk food at midnight and I am borderline anorexic or because I see you treat other people like how you treat me. You are Tin Man, and I’m your lady. How can there be other ladies? Then I remember we are not fighting for friends in kindergarten and you are not Tin Man, and I push the thoughts to the back of my head and pretend I am nonchalant. Laughter. Tear. Endless circle.

And we became tired of it. Good morning texts turned into passive aggressive fights. I was angry, half in love with you and tremendously crazy. Then I stopped. I so wanted to have you, so cliché, so pathetic that I believed I could turn Tin Man back to human. I even went to your organization’s board elections, even though they were often long and boring, I sat under stage and looked right at you. You in that blue button-down. And I saw your hands trembling and you stuttered a little. I laughed and thought that was the realest you I had ever seen.

At two o’clock in the morning I think about you. You made me feel important because you coaxed me into eating when I wanted to puke everything out. You saved me from simply not trying for anything in life when I thought all hope was lost, and you gave hope a brand new definition like that cream cheese bagel you brought me from Jersey after Thanksgiving or the tiny umbrella only covering my side of the sky. You made me happy because your warm chocolate eyes shined extra bright when you looked at me. But now when I walk past you on the streets, your eyes aren’t radiant anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I no longer need savin’.

[gehtauchvorbei]

Fernweh.