My brother wouldn't get off to the platform. My mum had hurriedly rushed onto the train, hands clinging onto packages of expensive diapers. Well, everything was expensive then. She yelled at my brother to follow her onto the train. He didn't budge. She let go of the diaper packages, ran off the train to carry him on, but by the time she had turned around, the train doors were closing.
Please stand back from the doors, a female voice said, probably. Beep beep beepbeepbeepbeepbeep, likely. Watching through the rectangle train windows, the lonesome packages of diapers flashed by like a decaying film reel nearing its end, never to be seen again.
The diapers were transported to Sydney, perhaps. Or in the other direction. Who knows? As the world turned, the diapers would still be on that rubbery train car floor, in the exact spot my mum had left them. Stationary. Meanwhile, my mother would be tearing open a new pack of diapers, awaiting the occasions when she would break out this story at gatherings to genuine laughter. Or, for me, genuine loss, when I first heard this story as a child.
Some fifteen years later, another expensive package is put onto a train. Some million dollar box of ideas. Worth some train-car-full of Irish Pounds, Australian Dollars, Hong Kong Dollars, United States Dollars, and probably a meager handful of Chinese Yen. Maybe more.
My eyes are lightly shut and my face is helplessly placed onto my school bag. My nose stings as though I had selected a smidge too much wasabi. For a moment, a fine criss-crossed electric mesh lies where the cartilage in my nose is supposed to be. Bulging teardrops pummel my closed eyelids.
I had never cried or felt so distraught before returning to university. Experiences I know I am missing tremble through my mind.
Observing my parents arguing.
Feeling my sister's footsteps resonate through the carpeted floor as she peeks into my room.
Listening to the crackle of water hitting a hot pan while my mum stir fries bak choi.
Smelling nothing, because my nose would be acquainted with my house's smell.
Tasting my history.
Each frame - lost, because I have my own reluctant, clunky film reel to shuffle through.
I'm supposed to make my parents proud. They invest in me. I'm supposed to graduate with research experience, a gleaming resume, average grades, and a plan. Like my applications say, with my determination, creativity, and independence, I'll go to graduate school. I'll contribute to science and perhaps earn some awards and respect. I'll be confident, gregarious, and optimistic. That's what my applications say. I'm a mature adult. I'm qualified. I'm responsible.
I don't want to be.
I want to have the circadian rhythm of my six or sixteen year-old self. The early mornings cutting paper snowflakes, walking to a track meet, having cereal-and-an-egg for breakfast, playing with Barbie dolls, checking for snow days, snuggling in bed and watching sunlight exhibit my sticker-covered bedside table, merely having breakfast, reading an easy book...and the evenings of wooden beds, 8 o clock bedtimes, honey bananas with Hundreds and Thousands, sweaty 7-mile runs, Lego and Play-Doh, 10 o clock bedtimes, and a generous lack of responsibility.
Sure, I'm still in a sanitary bubble that separates me from the cruel real world. Perhaps because of this, I'm still trying to cling onto my mother's wrinkling hands; I'm grasping at every nanosecond that flies past me when I am with my family. As I reflect on this, I wonder what made my childhood and teenage years seem so unrealistically flawless. My own laptop? Sketchbooks? Barbie dolls? Potato chips? Money?
Yet when I left at 2:10 pm on Tuesday the 8th of January 2013, and while on the train from Newark to Trenton, tears welled up in my eyes because I was leaving my mum - even if only for a few months - and one meagre hug could not express how much I rely on her, respect her, need her, and love her.
My mother: the inventor, the chef, the homemaker, the enforcer of laws in the household, the businesswoman, the advice column, the storyteller, the nearly-everything. Her downfalls are her inability to bake desserts and only basic understanding of English, as she grew up in China.
These are the glimpses of my relationship with my mum, and my perception of her. When I miss her, at least I can recraft the scenes of when we lived together.
