I’m giving everything I have just to get through each day, but it feels like my life is only moving backward, and it’s breaking my heart. Whenever that happens, I silently look at the sophisticated people around me with cow-like eyes, and think to myself. ‘What exactly is wrong with me?’ Even in my thirties, approaching forty little by little, this life that is not easily saved often feels like the weight of a pair of 50-pound dumbbell on my shoulder.
Yesterday, I went to LA to pick up my renewed passport. By coincidence, both on the way to LA and on the way back to San Diego, the Amtrak trains were delayed for nearly an hour each time due to signal failures, and for the first time in a while, I found myself immersed in that slow, empty stretch of time.
With the unexpected delay, I let go of the grip that had been tightly holding onto my heart and mind, and only then did I begin to feel the sting of the scratches that had formed in my life and within me over the past few weeks.
On a sunny Friday afternoon, people riding the Amtrak with giant backpacks and trunks, returning to their beachside homes, found their families and loved ones waiting on the platform, smiled brightly, and ran to embrace them. That one scene reminded me of just how much I have been missing in life.
Amid those thoughts, through I felt a bit ashamed, my eyes suddenly welled up. ‘I’m sorry, Tao. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for just pushing you so hard like this. ‘ That was all I could say to myself in the end.
Even so, with nothing else I can do, I say to myself once more the words Gogh would always write at the end of his letters to his brother Theo. ‘I will not tire easily. So please, trust me.’
© Text & Photos by Tao Jung