Practice being alone: ​​when I started to love myself

Chapter 12
This letter is addressed to you in the South.

This afternoon I hid in a dark corner of the underground garage with no signal, parked the car, and felt so safe, like hiding underground.

In the dim light of the dashboard, I thought, maybe I should write you a letter.

how are you dearIf I stood in front of you and asked you this question, you would probably answer: "Are you a pig?"

Then I can happily answer: "Yes."

But I'm not with you.

So, answer me, how are you?
Are you OK?I'm fine thank you.You're welcome.

In fact, I have long been used to this loneliness.It didn't destroy me over the years, and it certainly didn't make me.It is just a good partner, taught me how to be silent, how to forget.It also taught me to look after my heart like a fire in the wind.

But right now, I miss you so much.

Life is a process that you keep chasing and searching, and then give up one by one.It's like running towards a high wall quickly, and then stepping back step by step.Because those desires, possessions and pains are not what you want.But you can only say that if you have owned it.

Back to the end, as long as a pen and a piece of paper, I feel safe.

It's just that between the pen and paper, it's not just black and white.There is love and hate, memories and yearning, and our whole life.

102 years ago (an entire century has passed), 24-year-old Lin Juemin left his last "Letter with Wife" to his wife Chen Yiying on the eve of the Guangzhou Uprising.The phrase "I love you so much, even the thought of loving you makes me brave to die", made me know for the first time that pen and paper can end the lifelong love between two people.

He died with the same blood that had loved her.Young and ignorant, I don't know whether such affection is hot or cold.It was only when handwritten letters became antiques in the information-advanced Internet age that I found out that one year after this letter arrived, Chen Yiying passed away due to excessive longing and depression.

It is heartbreaking to read this letter again like this.Chen Yiying must have thought about asking: Why did you bid farewell to me without saying goodbye.

My favorite five-character quatrain "Ask Liu Nineteen" also looks like a text message: "It's getting dark, and the snow is coming. My friend, would you like to have a drink?" Before the pen and ink are dry, I should tell Shutong to hurry up Let's take it to a friend's house.

Bai Juyi was in his later years when he wrote this poem, and his arrogance and ambition had already turned into a night photo of Sima Ren in Jiangzhou. , would you like to come and have a drink with me?Have a long talk and drink wine to keep out the cold.Outside the window, thousands of mountains are snowing at dusk, while the crackling fire at hand and the new home-brewed wine are the warm universe achieved by tacit understanding, and the world has nothing to do with them.

Zhong Xiaoyang, a favorite writer when I was a student, often reveals mature insights far beyond her age in her texts, and the only age-appropriate "Elegy" is a letter written by a girl to her lover in Girls' Generation after many years of separation.

In the letter, she narrated how the two met, got along with each other, fell in love, and parted.Time, like the fog of San Francisco Bay, obliterates the years after the farewell, and also isolates an insurmountable abyss.But she still learned that her rebellious lover finally realized her dream and drifted on the sea to fish for a living.Standing on the streets of San Francisco, she heard someone tell herself with a strange look: his ship is named after you.

Toni, who ran away from his family as a young man to fish for a living on the Amalfi Coast, finally came back to shore, and later told me in a restaurant on the Bund, "Look at the wrinkles around my eyes, these are the wrinkles of fishermen. , we use this to identify comrades." The stubborn girl in "Elegy" is probably the wrinkle in the lover's heart, and the melody written into his heart stroke by stroke. chant.

I love writing letters so much.By coincidence or necessity, I was able to finish my first novel, which also ended with a letter.Because the editor said: write something more, let them be free.

I finished writing the heroine's letter to the heroine on the flight to the south in the deep winter of 2008.Talk about the past, as well as those deep feelings and regrets that were too late to express.Accompany and wait.I got off the plane wearing a down jacket and stood on the hot streets of Hong Kong. I felt that the tenderness and concern in the letter might just be "summer insects talking about ice" to me. Until now, I am writing this letter to you in my thoughts.

It turns out that there is a kind of feeling in this world, which can be spent in silence.

Will you forgive my clumsiness?
Maybe that's the case, writing down is destiny.Each of our journeys are letters waiting to be sent and read.I put your name in the blank for the addressee.

Have you received my letter (heart) yet?
(End of this chapter)