A Message from an Old Friend

I enjoyed reading the book The seven habits of highly effective people last night, didn't go to sleep until almost midnight. So, this morning it's kind of hard for me to get out of bed when my alarm clock rang. After press the alarm twice off, I reached out for my cellphone, to check my wechat and my QQ, as my "wake up shower". There is a message from XQ, my best and olddest friend whom I still keep in touch with. She said: "Today I read one more time of the letters you wrote me when we was in college. We talk about dreams, sentimental relationships and life. I miss the time. WX, how are you now?". This message made me completely wake and energetic, and a little bit melancholy.

I have been known her since the second year of middle school. I still have the impression that she came through the crowded classroom (since there are about 60-70 students in our class) and came to my desk to discuss questions with me. We had a great time that year, with several other good friends, most of which I had lost contact in the river of time. At that time, she is not the closest one to me. And we had only being classmates for that year, 1996-1997. Friendship is not a rational thing, I guess. We are at two class next door for the senior year, fortunately the same big dorm. At that time, two girls share one twin bed. She is my bedmate. I don't have much memory about that time. I just knew that I didn't focus much on my study on the second year so I focused on my study for the last year. I still remember that her home is close to school, so she usually go home and brought me the vegetable pie at Feb. 02 according the the lunar calender.  At the end of middle school, I got admitted to No.1 high school, she didn't do well during the entrance exam for high school, she studied at a high school at our home town and later transfered to No. 2 high school.

We started to write to each other at that time, but not that much. I had the busiest time and the darkest three years in my life for high school. I just focused on study, which I think now is a bad thing caused by our education system. Finally I got the admission from my university. While XQ chose to stay for another year at high school and gave herself a second chance for the entrance exam for college. I remember I wrote to her to endure one more year and work hard, I would wait for her in college.

When I was a sophomore, one day I received a letter from Sanya, Hainan, the beautiful island so far that it is always in my imagination. It's her. She was admitted to a associate school in English major. At that time, we didn't have cellphone yet. So we wrote a lot, we talked about everything, study, dream, life, future, the initial love from hearts. At that time, I had a crash on one person and got no response or negative response. This thing bored me for a long time. So before the graduation, I set all the letters from that guy on fire, as well as all the others from my friends, including hers. In my defense, I wanted a farewell for the past and started a new chapter of life. While she kept all the letters I wrote to her. Now it became a valuable fortune of our youth.

This year is our ten-year anniversary after graduation. Maybe she also got emotional sometimes. Now she is a mom to a pigeon pair of twins, living on the island Hainan, far away from home. I am also far away from home. I called her from time to time, but she was always busy when I called her, with her store, her kids, her life. So I didn't bother her that much. I thought that we had missed out a lot in the lives of each other.  But her message is a reminder. The austere and splendid youth had been here, in our lives, and we were the witness for that of each other.

所有跟帖： 

• Excellent writing. It reminds me of my best friend in college. -~葉子~- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/28/2015 postreply 17:12:07

• Such a beautiful writing.Sweet memories of youth&friendship. -婉蕠- ♀ (766 bytes) () 05/02/2015 postreply 19:06:02

• Thank you for pointing it out! -文心21- ♀ (0 bytes) () 05/04/2015 postreply 07:27:46