Old Chapter is Coming to a Close, A New One has already Started
You know, sometimes you have the feeling that your life is entering a new chapter, while the one you left behind is coming to an end.
I don’t know you, but i certainly felt it last night after having a dinner with my friend, Ya Ting.
The chapter started with me packing my bags and flied to Nanjing to work in the end of 2006. With me, besides my belonging, are my dreams in China and lost love that i’m not willing to let go. I left my family, friends, classmates, etc. (pretty much everything) behind…
Before long, i have befriended a Taiwanese colleague, Ya Hui. Ya Hui have a Finn boyfriend and they have reached the phase of about to get married. Yet given the circumstances by then, she decided to hold it for a while. Anyhow, we have become very close as colleagues.
After about 7 months, Ya Ting came into the picture, she is Ya Hui’s older sister. By making a decision she will regret later in her life, she joined our company (yeah, at that time, Ya Hui and I are already regreting our decision to work in this company).
It’s Ya Ting first visit to China. She is a gentle speaking lady with a smile that’s always hanging on her face. It’s our most sincere hope that she will find a nice man. She just got out from a bad marriage.
Usually, under a suffering and difficult environment, people in it tend to develop a stronger bond than under any other circumstances (think during disaster or in military camp). That exactly what happened among me, Ya Hui and Ya Ting. Working in that company is no fun, but we found plenty while we three got together.
Things didn’t last long. I quit the company in October 2007 and went for backpacking in Greater China region, during which, i stayed at Ya Hui’s house in Taiwan. In the beginning of 2008, i landed a job in HSBC bank and started a new relationship (I gave up the old one that i tried so hard for so many years in vain).
After 7 months, Ya Hui followed my footstep. She quit the company and went to marry her Finn boyfriend. She just got her simple wedding ceremony done last month in picturesque Switzerland.
A little more than 4 months after, Ya Ting left Nanjing as well, and will start her new life in Shanghai. We met up for a dinner last night and tried to catch up. Over our conversation, to my delight, she got a new boyfriend, a Taiwanese gentleman who has lived in Shanghai for a decade.
After the dinner, it all came so strongly at me that, the story that we each carried with us when we three first met has been updated with a new phase of life. Essentially, we have entered a new chapter of our life and we are lowering the curtain on the old one.
It’s just like, a writer who is going to pen the last sentence on the old story, and a whole new story is waiting, on the next page.
November 7, 2008 at 8:52 pm
what a meaningful and nice post…….i always wonder where is my turning point and next chapter will be
January 7, 2009 at 5:02 pm
i never heard this story. i thought i would get your story when you were in taiwan last time. but i missed it. anyway, good luck.
January 8, 2009 at 6:47 am
Well, at that time, it’s not worth mentioning. But when it reaches certain point, suddenly it becomes something worth mentioning in retrospective.