My every belief and desire
I think it's no surprise or coincidence that yesterday, while I was making tracks around Gainesville in my old stomping grounds, I was struck by waves and waves of nostalgia that crested and crashed over me, all at once like fits of uncontrollable laughter and shuddering spasms of choked up tears. These simultaneous peaks and troughs human emotion met and nullified each other, creating within me a blank and emotionless mute for the duration of the day. With every twist and turn I took down memory lane, I was confronting each and every one of my triumphs, each and every one of my failures. And slowly, as this chorus of haunted memory reached its crescendo, it culminated in the awful symphony of "what if" that's been much too familiar to my ears.
What if I had tried harder?
What if I had actually been challenged and developed real ambition?
What if I had had the capacity for self-reflection in my teens that has been so instrumental in my adult development?
What if I had developed a damn backbone?
What if I had just given a damn?
I suspect that I will continue to repeat these contemplations every year until the day I die, with increasing severity. With any luck, I will be that much wiser for it.
In other news around town, there's been another death in the extended neighborhood society since I've been gone. There was this quiet Chinese couple who lived down the street from us, the Shus. They were friends with my parents; how they came to know each other, I don't quite remember. Maybe they went to school together, maybe they were from the same hometown, something like that. In any case, they've always been around, even as far back as our days in California. When we relocated to Florida, they somehow ended up in Florida too. Again, I was too young to remember any of the specifics; I doubt my parents ever really explained everything to me anyway. In any case, all four of them were struggling in academia at the time, and had to work hard and study harder. Both men were working on PhDs. Rather than shell out a ton of money to put me in day care, I was placed under the care of Mr. Shu's mother, who was living with them. In hindsight, it must have been really awkward for them to have to be struggling students and also care for their parents, but that's what happens when you combine the American Dream and traditional Chinese responsibilities. I spent so much time in their apartment while not in school. Truth be told, I was normally bored as all hell. I didn't have any friends where they lived, and they had nothing at all for me to do. I am not exaggerating: they did not own a TV or any other sorts of distractions as they were as of yet childless. Granny Shu probably berated the hell out of them to have a child. If anything, though, they probably saw what my parents had to deal with and made the wise decision to put off child-rearing.
In the end, it's all about timing. When all the degrees were got and all the jobs were secured, Mrs. Shu got pregnant quicker than you can say "Trojan!". They had a son, the big(ger) bucks started to roll in, and it was time to buy a house and leave the apartment life. Long story short, our families bought homes right down the street from each other in a brand new development. Ironically, at this point the amount of involvement between our families began to drop off. I saw them every now and then whenever the Chinese families in town got together to have dinner and reminisce about the old country, but other than that, we went our separate ways. As I got older and started to feel the call of college applications, my parents mentioned them and their professions in the hopes that I would glean some guidance from their experiences. They are biomedical and chemical engineers, respectively, but my parents urged me to steer clear of chemical engineering for apparently no reason. However, it eventually became clear that Mrs. Shu had developed lung cancer, and everyone was basically certain that the cause of the cancer was through her involvement in chemical research. I don't remember how far it had developed, but I remember hearing that her chance of survival (keep in mind this was over 5 years ago) was about 40%. I took it all with a grain of salt.
When I went home this month, my mom told me that Mrs. Shu had finally passed on from complications of her lung cancer.
All in all the news hadn't really affected me much. I think I grunted acknowledgment and went back to what I was doing. Her family was having a wake that night, and my mom asked me if I wanted to go. I didn't have anything better to do, but I opted out of it anyway; in my mind, I had reasoned that I would end up feeling awkward and eventually start to resent everyone there for my restlessness. It bothers me now though that I thought that way. And I don't know why.
What if I had tried harder?
What if I had actually been challenged and developed real ambition?
What if I had had the capacity for self-reflection in my teens that has been so instrumental in my adult development?
What if I had developed a damn backbone?
What if I had just given a damn?
I suspect that I will continue to repeat these contemplations every year until the day I die, with increasing severity. With any luck, I will be that much wiser for it.
In other news around town, there's been another death in the extended neighborhood society since I've been gone. There was this quiet Chinese couple who lived down the street from us, the Shus. They were friends with my parents; how they came to know each other, I don't quite remember. Maybe they went to school together, maybe they were from the same hometown, something like that. In any case, they've always been around, even as far back as our days in California. When we relocated to Florida, they somehow ended up in Florida too. Again, I was too young to remember any of the specifics; I doubt my parents ever really explained everything to me anyway. In any case, all four of them were struggling in academia at the time, and had to work hard and study harder. Both men were working on PhDs. Rather than shell out a ton of money to put me in day care, I was placed under the care of Mr. Shu's mother, who was living with them. In hindsight, it must have been really awkward for them to have to be struggling students and also care for their parents, but that's what happens when you combine the American Dream and traditional Chinese responsibilities. I spent so much time in their apartment while not in school. Truth be told, I was normally bored as all hell. I didn't have any friends where they lived, and they had nothing at all for me to do. I am not exaggerating: they did not own a TV or any other sorts of distractions as they were as of yet childless. Granny Shu probably berated the hell out of them to have a child. If anything, though, they probably saw what my parents had to deal with and made the wise decision to put off child-rearing.
In the end, it's all about timing. When all the degrees were got and all the jobs were secured, Mrs. Shu got pregnant quicker than you can say "Trojan!". They had a son, the big(ger) bucks started to roll in, and it was time to buy a house and leave the apartment life. Long story short, our families bought homes right down the street from each other in a brand new development. Ironically, at this point the amount of involvement between our families began to drop off. I saw them every now and then whenever the Chinese families in town got together to have dinner and reminisce about the old country, but other than that, we went our separate ways. As I got older and started to feel the call of college applications, my parents mentioned them and their professions in the hopes that I would glean some guidance from their experiences. They are biomedical and chemical engineers, respectively, but my parents urged me to steer clear of chemical engineering for apparently no reason. However, it eventually became clear that Mrs. Shu had developed lung cancer, and everyone was basically certain that the cause of the cancer was through her involvement in chemical research. I don't remember how far it had developed, but I remember hearing that her chance of survival (keep in mind this was over 5 years ago) was about 40%. I took it all with a grain of salt.
When I went home this month, my mom told me that Mrs. Shu had finally passed on from complications of her lung cancer.
All in all the news hadn't really affected me much. I think I grunted acknowledgment and went back to what I was doing. Her family was having a wake that night, and my mom asked me if I wanted to go. I didn't have anything better to do, but I opted out of it anyway; in my mind, I had reasoned that I would end up feeling awkward and eventually start to resent everyone there for my restlessness. It bothers me now though that I thought that way. And I don't know why.
Labels: existentialism, home, in memoriam
posted by Nate @ 3:50 PM
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