Written to K, see you after a long time, thank you for being the same as before!

When I was young, I was always with men and women who were more than ten years older than me or the same age as my parents, and I always heard most people describe me as either my father or my mother, as if The pursuit of such self-expectations by everyone in this world is mixed with feelings of dependence, liking or love. Few people believe that these pursuits are mostly "what you want to be" and piecing together their future appearance from these lives with more experience than themselves.

Some of them are caring for my father and give birth to the expectation that "I will also take care of people like my father and take care of me like my father"; some are just and fearless to stand up for anything; Your tenderness, the tolerance of looking at things, and the oppression of never having the appearance of an elder, or just staying beside those people and feeling at ease, and when you are alone, someone will look back and pick you up by your side... What my peers can’t give me, I do Look in those who are older than me, I look up, I believe, until I am exactly who I want to be.

My memory may have broken endless cracks in a period of life that was too oppressive. I often can't remember too many people, things, things. I have the ability to forget quickly that other people don't have, not written down, not photographed, not reminded to review, unless I can't get over it in my heart , most of the other psychological mechanisms will quickly open the forgetting mechanism. So I started to avoid any interaction with anyone I haven’t been in touch with for a long time. Because of the fragmentation of my memory, I often have no sense of reality in front of most people. Everything we did together made me feel like I was listening to them talk about another experience I shared with them.

I can vividly remember what happened 20 years ago, but I can hardly remember many details and many people that happened after the age of 30. If I don’t contact me for a year, my memory will be deleted, which makes me even more afraid Have any interactions with people you haven't been in touch with for a long time.

I don’t remember much about what happened when I met K in Tainan or Kaohsiung more than ten years ago, and I can only slightly recall from the photos I took at that time a few images of K coming to me that year, the broken and broken images.

But I distinctly remember myself being by her side for twenty years.

"I'm not addicted to smoking, I smoke just to blend in with the crowd." I most often follow the people I like and lean against any wall or stop at a corner of the road, smoking a cigarette with them, maybe It's the person I like, it could be an adult I like, it could be anything I look up to and believe in, I often don't know what to say, but I want to be by their side and smoke that cigarette.

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That day K asked me, "Do you have time to accompany me to have a meal in Kaohsiung this weekend?" Originally, she hadn't set the exact time for her appointment with me, so I was too busy to return, so I just said, "If you come in advance, let me know. ”

As for K, who has not been in contact with her for more than ten years, and I used to follow her step by step, the day before we met, I was still nervous and said to her: "But I don't know what to say, I'm nervous, you ask me to answer already."

I couldn't find the picture of the last meeting in my broken memory. I looked back and looked for the photo taken twenty years ago, and I barely remembered her appearance as she was entering middle age and I was just over twenty. I always follow behind her, take the same bus, take the same road with her, take out cigarettes from my bag and pretend to be addicted to smoking together; The line: "Would you like me to carry it for you?" took her hand; I was always eager to make everyone think I like to stand in front of everyone and take charge of everyone's affairs, and she always supports me in that moment. 

I forget whether I still confessed to the men and women I liked when I was young: "I like you!" No matter whether that confession would trouble others or not, I always expressed all my liking so desperately, but I don't Are you sure I've said to her how fascinating she is with the confidence she has and the arrogance that exudes pride? I'm not sure if I could express the peace of mind standing beside her, which gave me the strength to climb up, even though I knew she was not very stable at the time.

Dear K, to be able to walk with you again, to have a conversation without any hindrance or fear, should be something I never expected in my life. When I meet again, I can walk side by side with you, no longer look up at my beliefs. I can no longer follow you like a furry child twenty years ago, and I also see from you that the years have added and taken away from you, all of which make our goodbyes have a new memory.

I said, "I seem to be less afraid of you now."

You asked me, "Then are you afraid of other people?"

It's a fear of one's own beliefs/admiration; it's a sense of unease about the uncertainty of a relationship; it's an escape from the fear of any harm that comes with relationships. These are all the relationships that I had to swipe away from the middle-aged, unpredictable and uncontrollable relationships that I wanted to escape, so that I had to calm myself down a little.

I said, "I think you have always made me feel at ease, so I would have liked you so much as a child!"

Dear K, thank you for knowing each other for 20 years and not seeing each other for more than 10 years now. In your life full of thorns, your peace of mind is even warmer than it was 20 years ago; thank you for sending messages to me. Say: "You are great, you are very serious and hardworking!"; thank you for being a beautiful middle-aged; thank you for growing into what I believe in in the days to come; thank you for helping me verify what I believe in like!

Even though I can't love an adult like you as purely as a child 20 years ago. But thank you for giving me a wonderful weekend, thank you for being together more than twenty years ago, maybe the future may be the same as usual, living parallel lives to each other, and I will make memories of that weekend, that afternoon, and The throbbing of our passionate conversation.

Bless you, dear K. Please continue to be so graceful and so reassuring. When we meet again, I will still have gentlemanly company for you as I did twenty years ago or that weekend.

20221108. Kaohsiung

PS

My memory rift should be some kind of PTSD, but I didn't delve into it, and at a certain moment I found myself accepting a life without much memory. In fact, I also felt a certain lightness. This is probably the reason why I like to write things very much. The words help me remember, and if I forget, I can look them up. But every time I look for some memories, I still have a very strong sense of strangeness.

Figure: 20090102. Tainan. narrow door. Canon EOS 450D