22

思乡

I always do a birthday post. My livejournal (blocked in China) can attest to this. It's become a personal tradition for me, this looking back at the year and thanking God and all that good stuff.

This year is no different, but dissimilar in so many ways. For instance, I'm not milling around the Triangle, nor am I even in the country. I am China, seeing things I've never seen before and experiencing life in a profound way, with a little too much introspection, fear, and a false sense of enlightenment. Sometimes, I feel like I haven't learned anything at all, and other times it's as though life seems so unimportant that I can't really process why I'm worrying so much.

This is also the first year I haven't received a birthday card with five dollars in it (when she had it) from my Grandma, signed with love and showcasing her gorgeously meticulous penmanship. I started saving birthday cards that people have given me when I was around 14, so I have a few from her at least. I'll cherish them, and maybe someday I can use her as an example of true penmanship online in the future. For a woman who read fairly slow, her perfect penmanship shows that, even though literacy was not a guarantee during her youth, one can take pride in what one produces. I'm realizing more about her, now that she's gone, than when she was alive.

I know that one day I'll stop hurting so much.

With that said, this birthday is bittersweet. I'm away from the people I love most, but I'm so grateful to be alive another year when death could have taken me so many times. I'm grateful to have these experiences, although I'd trade them in a second, and I'm proud that I can do something that no one else in my family has done before.

But right now, sitting in my dorm room, not going out because of yet another stomach ailment, I'm seeing things darkly. This is probably the first time I've ever written a post on my birthday that wasn't filled with jubilation and triumph and all those good feelings. This year is more solemn.

I hope when it's daybreak on my birthday (it's midnight here), I'll have a different attitude, a healed stomach, and more zest than I do right now.

Love you all.