Life is Somewhere Else?
I am by nature a direct and frank guy, and hence tend to think this world a black-and-white one. When being asked my personality, I have never had hesitation to tell that I hate gaudy or insincere socializing. The friends I like, I will cherish them like crazy; those not, I seldom bother to talk to them.
I never felt there was anything wrong about it until I got the phone call in this forenoon. It’s a phone from afar, from the sister of my boyfriend. She talked
to me openly and gently with the result that I wept on this side of the line, and I just couldn’t help it. She asked how it was going with my study, and then
changed the talk to my boyfriend. I had no idea at the beginning what was her purpose of calling me; after all, we had only met once up so far.
But as later the talk went on, I figured out that she knew one thing or two about the recent situation between my boyfriend and me. And she even knew that we had a big fight last night. But she didn’t say all this out at the beginning, but
instead chose to talk other marginal things. She told us how her parents, which
is also my boyfriend’s, brought them up, and, correspondingly, how their ways
of thinking had been influenced by their parents.
She told me that they three children never learned to speak out their mind. Most
of the time they would just prefer to be reticent whenever they are misunderstood, or have something in mind, for their parents once said that if people really
cared about you, they would read your mind. She said that though there are two
sides of this way of thinking that you just can’t say it is really good or bad.
But how she wish that she, my boyfriend, could be different once in a while.
So she asked me to take care of his brother. Whenever misunderstanding happens,
deal with it and learn to compromise. She said that my boyfriend went back home during holidays, when mentioning me, he never say anything downsides about me
. Even now talking on the phone, she said, he never thought of me a bit negatively. But he had his own hardship. He just didn’t say it; and when he had rows with me, maybe he also felt hurt, but he’d rather bury it in his heart.
Earlier this year he accepted a new offer. The pressure coming from work becomes
more and more intense. She said that she began to worry about him, for every time on the phone he always sounds tired, which never happened before. She said
she knew the stress on my shoulder was no less heavy than him. SO she came to
phone me, told me that we should learn to understand and support each other. Two
people meet, get to know each other, and then live together, is not an easy
thing. And a family, a harmonious family can’t be possible without both sides’
devotion.
I held the phone and couldn’t prevent my tears from running down my cheeks. But
I knew, and she knew, that it was tears coming outside of the innermost heart.
I feel I was like a spoiled child. Whenever there is a conflict coming up, I never know how to compromise. I take for granted that it’s my boyfriend who should
surrender first, no matter if he is the wrong side. I was born in a family that
had rows always, so that since young I learned not to comprise like my mother did. For time and time again she got nothing but hurt when she did so,
But I forgot one thing, that is the man in front of me is not the man in front of her. They are different. The man in front of me never cheated on me, never set
me aside going out gambling, and never spared his efforts to provide me with as
nice a study environment as he can. Why can’t I see all these earlier so that
all the pains I inflicted on him may have spared? Looking back to the past is like looking at myself in a mirror, in which I see how hot-tempered, and unreasonable I was. I feel ashamed of it. I feel that I behaved like crazy in order to remain the so-called dignity. I feel that I was like a simpleton, having the life,
the man, while complaining how life got on my nerves and how the man vexed me with no pity. But now from the mirror, I see none but myself, the ridiculous one,
standing there grueling and spoiling my boyfriend’s and mine, and our life.
But maybe there is still hope. I haven’t screwed up everything yet, after all he still cares about me, and his family still care about me. Her sister said on the phone that both of us have to learn to make our family easier and more pleasant to live in. But don’t worry, she encourged, there is no need to tossing to and fro for it all day long. Time itself will teach us it. But while so, we stillshould learn to face squarely the things such as our difference. Dodge them is no good. To see the difference is the first step to live with peace and harmony.
I remember one writer once said: life is somewhere else. Now I think he/she said
out a universal truth. How silly I was once that I always imagined that life would be different for better, if I didn’t stay with this man. Life is somewhere
else, life is somewhere else, how badly I should keep it in mind from now on. It
is a lesson, and a good reminder of those ludicrous months and years.
