Girl and City

When I first came to Canada, I was six. My parents and I shared one room with no furniture except a double mattress on the floor. We shared the washroom and kitchen with six other tenants of the house. We had a third-hand bicycle, which my father used to get to school (he was studying his PhD at the time). My mother and I would walk everywhere because even public transport was considered a luxury. We’d walk four miles round-trip to Chinatown for groceries – traditional supermarkets were far too expensive. Those first two years also happened to be two of the coldest Canadian winters in recent history. I had no gloves, but I wanted to help mama, so I would always carry two grocery bags, and my little fingers would quickly become pink and frozen. I never complained, but mama knew how cold I was, and on our way home we would duck into a supermarket to warm up. Just inside the doors, they had those gumball machine candy dispensers, and I would avert my gaze because I didn’t want mama to think I wanted any. Without a word, she would give me a quarter. I would look uncertainly at her, and she would give a subtle nod, as if to say “Go on.” I would drag out my time deciding what type of candy I wanted, even though I already knew. I wanted the multi-coloured gum tabs, because gum lasted the longest. I would dump my handful of candy into one of my coat pockets, and all the way home, I would have something to chew on as we walked.

Even though we were poor, my parents didn’t want me to miss out on North American traditions, such as Halloween and Christmas. For my first Halloween, I dressed as a garbage bag. You see, my parents thought that the point of Halloween was to be as ugly as possible. So they cut out some holes in a garbage bag, smeared my face with something black. and I was off. I was a six year-old girl. I could have been a princess, a fairy, a Disney cartoon character, but no, I was a garbage bag. I didn’t care, I was overjoyed that perfect strangers were giving me candy – for free! (more…)

That I’m a little bit boy-crazy (I blame my hormones) is no big secret.
Or is it?

In my head, and sometimes on my blog, I am a little Lady Gaga over boys.
But in real life, I am a stoic mask of indifference. Sort of. I’ve learned to wear my heart on my chest and not on my sleeve. I take love too seriously and am excruciatingly picky when it comes to finding a mate. It’s my own brand of cowardice.

Nonetheless, I will be the first to admit that I cannot live without boys. Because I hate love them.

• I hate love how they offer you items of clothing to warm you up, and hold your extra items of clothing to cool you off.
• I hate love how they anticipate these needs, like when I was getting in the car the other day, and the boy in the passenger seat gave me his gloves because I didn’t have any and the steering wheel was freezing.
• I hate love the incessant teasing, like how every boy I have ever dated teased me because they found my irritation endlessly amusing.
• I hate love how they pretend not to like the girly stuff you rope them into, but secretly they don’t mind that much.
• I hate love how embarrassed they get when their friends make fun of them for being “whipped.” But they don’t deny it, because it’s true.
• I hate love how they fret about your safety, as if you’d be in danger just because they’re not around. Like when my ex-boyfriend used to tsk at my stories of walking around The City alone at night, and making me promise to be careful.
• I hate love how, when ordering in a restaurant, they let you decide what you want first. And if you can’t make up your mind between two things, they’ll offer to order whichever one you don’t order, so that you get to try both.
• I hate love the way it feels when a boy wants you to be his.

I hate love that I love boys.

When I fell in love, I wrote that it felt like I was suddenly seeing the world in colour. Like I had been ignorant all my life of the brilliant yellow sun and the dazzling blue sky. This is it, I thought. This is what I’ve been missing all my life.

I thought I’d never be able to live in black-and-white again. But unknowingly, the colour in my world began to fade, and before I knew it, I was once again living in a black-and-white world.

I want colour again. I want to love again.

In the last seven days, MFL and I have been spending a surprising amount of time together: dim sum, bowling, sushi, movie, arcade, the list goes on.

We have been extremely comfortable with each other, altogether too comfortable, and I am terrified. I feel like I am driving on the highway, speeding past signs warning me that the highway will end soon, and still I cannot stop, I cannot even slow down. And inevitably, I will just drive right into a cement wall at 100 miles an hour.
And I will die, because that’s what happens when you drive into a cement wall at 100 miles per hour.

One day, he texted me asking if I wanted to get some sushi after work. I ended up forcing LDB, one of his friends, to come with us because I didn’t want to have dinner alone with MFL. All night, I acted as if LDB and I were super close now. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe to make him think I had a life that didn’t involve him? Maybe to make him think that he wasn’t the only boy I was close with? I honestly don’t know.
But of course I wasn’t that tight with LDB, despite staying at his apartment the night of my birthday celebration and talking till 3am in the morning. Nothing compared to the history between MFL and I.

Not two days later, MFL asked me to go see a movie with him. After making him jump through some hoops, I finally agreed. That night, we somehow found ourselves in a bookstore, and I made him read “Where The Wild Things Are” to me. One time when we were dating, we had gone into a bookstore and I had picked out a children’s book and made him read it to me. He was extremely reluctant, but eventually he gave in to my demands. Then, for a Valentine’s Day gift, he bought the book and replaced the character’s names with ours (it was love story between two dogs) and added a poem onto one of the pages. It was a really thoughtful gift. Anyway, making him read “Where The Wild Things Are” to me was extremely reminiscent of that memory.

When he dropped me off that night, I turned around and said, “I’m glad you’re back.” I had meant to say “I missed you” but I didn’t have enough courage. I could see something on his face, a sort of curiousity, but I didn’t explain and left it at that.

I have been debating back and forth between telling him how I feel and ending this tormenting friendship. I have never been so indecisive in my life, and to such extremes! What I can’t decide on is whether I do, in fact, still love him. A few months ago, I read this on Michelle’s blog and saved it. It’s a good summary of my internal turmoil.

…do we ever fully move on? Is there a little piece of our heart that is left behind after the rest of it has been put back together again?

A billboard on a highway…
A song on the radio…
The hint of cologne on a crowded elevator…

…brings you back. Even if only for a second, you can feel it. Your heart isn’t completely whole.

We are fragile. Just breakable girls and boys.

Is it just the feeling of being whole when I’m with him? Am I meant to feel that way? Does everyone feel that way about their first love? Am I breakable or am I broken?

Do you remember my tweets about hating Post-It notes?
This changed my mind.

And instead of associating it with the hateful Post-It notes I write every day at work, I was reminded of the Post-It notes MFL used to leave in my locker, when he wanted to cheer me up but had to leave school before me. Another haunting to add to the “ghost sightings” list, I suppose.

(more…)