Will I live in the real world someday?

When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother, What will I be

Will I be pretty, will I be rich

One day for a walk, this string of lyrics suddenly popped into my mind, as if a little girl really asked a question in her heart. But the singing voice is very beautiful and mature, more like a memory of the past - oh yes, it's Aoi Teshima's voice. Buried in the deepest part of the favorite playlist, if the virtual space will also accumulate dust, it will probably be beyond recognition.

At that time, I talked with my friends about parting and about coming back from that unfamiliar and wider world. I'm leaving Tengchong next week, leaving Yunnan, a place I haven't left once in more than 20 years. I sometimes think fiercely, because of this, I'm going to do the opposite, I'm just going to leave the house and re-inflict on my mother the betrayal I couldn't do when I was seventeen or eighteen, make her sad, let her She had to let me go.

But my only hesitation is that I seem to really like this place, and I've confirmed over and over again that this is a corner of my life that will stay.

I remembered that when I was a child, I liked to watch "The Seven Fairies of Joy", when the gods made mistakes and were demoted to the earth, and the mortals made mistakes and were sent to Yunnan, I was shocked, so my home turned out to be such a terrible place, even the wicked master Jia is so afraid of being sent to Yunnan . After growing up and still staying here, for more than 20 years, there is often a kind of self-consciousness of small local people, and I have encountered many people who thought they were sent to Yunnan, so I had to wish him a successful return to heaven as soon as possible.

But in fact, this is also very unreasonable. It is more like the child who was panicked and confused because of the TV series. He developed a sharp tongue and finally waited for this day to deliberately take revenge, but he did not grow up mentally at all.

It wasn't until I was nineteen or twenty that I had the first opportunity to go to places like Shanghai and Beijing. Walking on the streets full of dazzling array, I feel intimidated, nothing is familiar to me, and those who are curious are not cared by the people who come and go. It did feel like a little girl at the time, shy about not having a good dress to wear, hurried through the crowd, ducked into a breakfast shop, relieved, and immediately taken aback by the prices on the menu. It seems that she is in the middle of the little girl that Teshima Aoi sang about and her complete growth, and she is no longer facing her mother, but a strange society.

The familiar singing sounded in my heart again, ethereal: What will I be, Will I be pretty, will I be rich.

A novel scene that seems to never be forgotten is "Beautiful World, Where Are You" Eileen chats with her sister Lola, who asks her some questions about career plans, family relations, etc. "What's the next step?" Eileen said she does not know. So my sister seemed to have the upper hand, smiled back at her and said: One day you will have to live in the real world. Eileen returned to the apartment that night to find her friend Alice writing her book on the sofa. "Alice," she said, "I'm going to live in the real world someday?" Alice snorted without raising her head, and said, "Oh no, absolutely not. Who told you that? ?"

"Alice, am I going to live in the real world someday?" It sounded like asking down a rabbit hole that didn't exist. But Eileen did get the best answer, and arguably the scariest one: You don't live in the real world; you can't live in the real world. It's a blessing as well as a curse.

To say something cunning and rhetorical is that the character Eileen is itself a fictional character, a fiction, and she really does not live in the "real world" - our world, the world we think is the real world. But in her own story, she clearly lives in a world that is more "real" than anyone else, so why stress to her that one day she will have to live in the real world.

But actually I understand what Eileen's sister is saying, that world is a replica of the world we live in, no different. As long as you don't consider "reality", your next plan, and your long-term future plan, you are not living in a "real world".

Similar situations keep happening. I also have a sister who is graduating this year. She sent me a message some time ago, expressing her inner anxiety and fear. The general idea is that I’m about to graduate, but I feel like I can’t do anything, and I can’t become a teacher as my parents expected. Even if I’m ready to plunge into society, I feel at a loss when I’m defeated by the fact that I can’t find a job.

What can I tell her, emphasizing to her like my sister Lola in the novel, that one day you will have to live in the real world? This is not my opinion. I'd rather be her rabbit hole and tell her that there is a more free world that seems unreal but real, where you live and do what you love and are good at.

Because I really think so and want to live in it all the time.