Dear XXX,
It occurs to me from time to time that I should write to you. However, I’m really occupied with this and that, all these trivial things, as you can easily imagine.
I’m writing to you as I always treasure the past times we spent together. I don’t want our former intimate friendship slip away as time goes by, or just vanish in the long distance.
I know I used to seem push too hard. I just set high anticipations on you, like you should have contacted me as frequently as I expected. Actually, this is sort of my problem in personality or psychology, say, once you want to seize something tightly in your hand, it will be easier to slip through your fingers, just like the sand. I’m really such an over-serious person with so many over-concerns, I must say. Nevertheless, I’ve been in Sydney for nearly half a year, and what I see, hear, get through and feel has opened up another window for my entire life. It’s really such a long story for me to share with you here in a couple of paragraphs. All that I want to say is I’m now under way of changes, changes for better and positive attitude towards life. I’ve read quite a lot on psychology recently, and the impact it had on me is immense. (Now I seem to better understand why you were so interested in this aspect before.) I’m learning to be the master of my own emotions; listen to the inner voice, and act to bring growth of inner self. Yes, I’ve already got somewhere, as I can clearly see in my dairy. I’m concerned about what’s going on with you, though you’ve turned out to be so silent since the day of graduation. Can you still remember we always got so much to say to each other, either happiness or complaints, when we went together in university? But you were found totally silent later. What has “stolen” the previous expressive voice of you? You told me that you were learning to be emotionally independent, and therefore keeping distance from all the former acquaintances, but there’s one more question I want to ask you: what do you think makes a good friend? Just think of it. My definition of the friend is the right person who is always over there to listen to you, to really care about you. As for me, to share the feelings with friends doubles my happiness, while decrease my sufferings. Haven’t you been ever suffered from isolation? Or driven by the impulse to speak out what’s truly on you? Or you are simply reluctant to face them up? Does being alone mean emotionally independent? Just think about what I’m saying above, and I’ll be right here waiting for your reply. Ok, I must stop here, as I have to go to catch up the train for part-time job, see you later! Affectionately yours, Joan
Well, I wrote this letter a couple of days ago. To my great disappointment, I haven’t got any reply from her up to now.
As it mentioned, she and I used to be intimate friends, talking over almost everything about our lives, such as personal interests, study, future plan, and the love obsession (yes, at that time we were too young to fall into the trap of so-called love, Looking it back now, I often couldn’t help laughing at my innocence). However, we suddenly turn to be strangers right after graduation. She works as a high school teacher, and I worked as a student journalist in the local press. We were actually in the same city. At first, I made numerous attempts to invite her to go shopping together (our former favorite pastime in common, during which we can also chatting with each other), but she always ignored, saying she was too busy to come out. What’s worse, she often didn’t reply my short-text message or answer my phone, and I called her because I happened to hear that there had been some better job interviews for her (as student journalist, I once dealt with a couple of reports in some local schools), as she seems to have mentioned that she wanted to change for a better job. I was truly angry about her attitudes. I even shouted at her once like: “I’ve always been thinking about you, but look at you, as a close friend, what made you treat me so cold?” Then she explained that she didn’t do it to me deliberately, because she chose to stay alone to learn to be emotionally independent, she simply wanted to keep distance from the past.
I had no other choice, but gave up. As a matter of fact, I felt extremely hurt inside. I even swore that I would never say even a single word with her any more if she remained so cold. In fact, I once discussed it with one of my best net-pals. He pointed out that I gave her too much pressure. I was about to go abroad, such an admiring future, but she was comparatively so depressed in her life, she couldn’t get the bachelor’s degree (because she failed more than 3 subjects in the past four years, but I know she failed two of those due to her boyfriend), let alone a satisfying job. The contrast in life road leads to our gap. He therefore thinks that we cannot and should not make friends any more.
I know many of us prefer to make friends with the promising ones, say those who can assist you in our personal development, especially in today’s competitive society. As an ordinary person, I share the same outlook on life. As a matter of fact, the moment I see a very capable person, I couldn’t help coming up to him/her at once in the hope of learning something and then become as good as him/her someday. Few of us can really resist the temptation to get acquaintance with competitive ones. Priority is often given to them rather than incapable ones. Sometimes, I really find it hard to cut the boundary between being wise or selfish. I don’t know whether this friend of mine has been influenced by such kind of idea, say I should stay with promising ones. As my net-pal indicated that I was likely to have a much brighter future than hers, so she had to choose to keep distance from me. I dare not to ask her like this, as I by no means want to hurt her self-esteem.
She was a capable person when I first got to know her. She got the highest mark in the college entrance examination in our department. She was actually qualified for a much better university. But she always seemed to be out of fortune. That fatal love experience (that boy didn’t deserve her love and sacrifice at all, as he even dumped her after graduation) was proven to ruin her entirely life. I’ve been thinking all the time that if only her boyfriend hadn’t got sick, and hence she didn’t need to sacrifice her time to take care of him before those two exams, in which she had failed... All that I thought was she must had been in despair, and I should be there to help her out, but maybe I’ve done something wrong. What she really wanted was to say goodbye to the past, and my existence was right a reminder of that time period she was struggling to forget. I really had no idea, as I mentioned above, I was enable to confirm.
When I set out for Sydney, she sent me a short message like wish me a nice trip, but she didn’t keep her promise to see me off (of course, it’s made before graduation, when I got my offer.) I lost contact with her ever since, and today is actually her birthday. It was raining heavily outside, but early in the morning, I walked to the local community library to book a computer for just half an hour (after that, I had to hurried off to catch the train for my part-time job). I got access to the chinaren, a Chinese website, where former classmates can leave messages. I sent her my best wishes, and I think that’s the only thing I can do for her. As human beings, we are able to change so many things, but when it comes to emotions, such as love or this kind of friendship, what else can we do except accepting it calmly?
It’s now nearly 1:00 in Sydney; it’s been a couple of months since I last stayed up. I feel the overwhelming bitterness in the course of writing this article, but basically I was happy today, as I also cooked a dish for one of my best friends here in Sydney. She got a cold when I called her last night. I told her that I would bring her some medicine I took from China tomorrow, and her favorite dish as well (I’m so proud that I’m now cooking for myself and make myself even fatter than before). I’m sure she will be very happy to see what I’ve done for her, and to me, nothing is happier than to cheer my friends up…
8/18/2004
