Someone once asked: what exactly did you plan that year?

Someone once said: you, a drifter, are a sickness.

Someone once said: “at thirty, one stands firm”—what does that mean? What does it prove?

It’s all in the past, yet it truly passed through our memories.

Then tell me, at thirty, whose prime has been thrown into disarray?

Before thirty, I was like a child—no family, no marriage, perhaps not many responsibilities. My parents were still healthy, no need to be with them all the time. But I was slowly growing tired of the same old days, piecing together bits of language and storing them in the same place. It really is a laughable thing. Going out and stepping out—the world is big enough to splash our dreams around freely, yet small enough that once you part, it’s hard to meet again, or never again. Absurdities will slowly fade away like a dream. As time passes and thoughts mature, we gradually gather enough courage to go see the life outside.

After thirty, I want to grow up, start a family, get married, have a child, and bear those responsibilities that were too heavy to carry—old ones at home, young ones too. No longer living only for myself, no longer able to sit all afternoon with a coffee, zoning out, soaking up the sun, watching pretty girls, no longer free to grab a few books and hit the road wherever I please. So all that remains is to pack myself up, send myself off, and finally pay the bill—then it just becomes a question of who pays, one person or two.

And now, I go wild, go crazy, infatuated with every place, every city—people, objects, scenes; what matters most are those moments.

Sometimes, what we wait for isn’t a person or a thing—it’s time. We wait for time to change us. Leave a little room for the past.

From that year on, I saved 1 yuan a day, kept it for a whole year, then spent it all on lottery tickets at 2 yuan per draw—which worked out to just about a year.

END

2014/06/08