I Left Chicago

before

I almost forgot about this draft, but since someone asked today, here we go.

I recently found out that this is a much better way to stay in touch with people, way better than Instagram or any other social media platforms, and even texting in some cases. The reasons are below:

First, you can actually share your life with people who might care. (Well including those I initially sent the link to while begging them to subscribe)

Personally, I’ve always considered sharing to be something intimate, and it has always felt too intimate to randomly share something in life I found interesting with someone I met once in real life (or never) on Instagram.

The reason why I feel this way is a whole other long essay involving culture, sexuality, and psychology, so I’ll probably save it for another time.

At the end of the day, what I want to say is: It’s never about who sees your posts, but who actually reads them. And that’s the kind of connection I believe is what truly matters between people.

Second, Writing is more powerful than pictures.

One thing I dislike about social media nowadays is that people value visuals (whether in pictures or videos) far more than writing. Logically, this makes sense. Taking pictures or shooting a video rarely requires less more active thinking. And people are lazy, which is an unchangeable human nature.

However, I still believe that writing is the best way for self-reflection, and it’s something that can’t be replaced (at least for now). I used to love writing and kept a journal back in middle school, but unfortunately, I let it slip away for some stupid reasons.

But you know it’s never too late to get back into it. So here we are.

Lastly, I was browsing some cool people’s personal websites and noticed that they not only post on Medium but also have this set up, so I need to catch up and look cool too.

a

Two weeks ago I drove from Chicago to Denver with two cats, two suitcases, two pair of skis, and two boxes of food (because the moving company refused to store them). The journey took me through Iowa and Nebraska, spanning about 16 hours, with an overnight stop in Omaha.

The next day, as I left Omaha and drove through western Nebraska, a cliché question popped into my mind: Who would choose to live here? In the middle of nowhere?

Nebraska’s desolation feels different from other places I’ve been. I’ve driven through the deserts of Arizona, Nevada, and even New Mexico, but this was something else. Those places feel open, untamed, and free. But Nebraska’s emptiness feels more like decay, like time has been stripped away, leaving only an empty husk.

It reminded me of my childhood afternoons, the time of day I hated the most. That slow, drowsy lull when everything feels stagnant, when the sun sets and everything fades into quiet emptiness. I would always tell myself: just get through the afternoon, and the excitement of the night will come.

But in Nebraska, that afternoon never ends.

b

The strange thing is, I shouldn’t be the one asking this question.

My family comes from a place like this. My grandparents never left their hometown. Even when they moved from their village to a small county town, it was merely from somewhere even poorer to somewhere still poor. They once visited Shanghai but never considered moving to a big city.

Most people only have the courage to migrate when they’re young, and often, migration is not a choice but a necessity, like migratory birds heading south, moving just to survive.

When my parents came to Shanghai from a small town, they had nothing. Today, the journey from our hometown to Shanghai takes just four hours by highway. Twenty years ago, it was a 12-hour standing ticket on a crowded train. Ten years after moving to Shanghai, my dad had the chance to immigrate to Canada. He gave it up.

I still don’t understand: when they first moved to Shanghai, was it a choice, or was it survival? If it was a choice, why did he give up the same opportunity ten years later?

I once asked my dad, and his answer was simple: He didn’t like long flights. But ten years earlier, he had stood for hours on a packed bus.

Maybe the real answer was opportunity cost. When you’re young and have nothing, the cost of moving is zero, there’s nothing to lose. But as you grow older, as you build a life somewhere, every choice carries a greater weight. And for someone who has never left a small town in their entire life, what is their opportunity cost?

Perhaps thinking about it this way is arrogant. But one thing is certain: as people age, opportunity cost doesn’t always increase, but the courage to bear it always decreases.

c

My grandmother (on my mom’s side) has cancer.

My mom told me through a text message. She kept it simple: A CT scan. Two sentences.

Yes, she even added a smiley face. Only when I asked, “What kind of illness?” did she reply:“Lung cancer. We haven’t told your grandparents yet.”

After hearing this, I started asking my friends, and I realized almost everyone’s grandparents had been diagnosed with cancer at some point, and almost none of them knew about it themselves. They only knew that something was wrong with their bodies.

So I started wondering: If I grow old and get cancer, would I want my family to keep it from me? But then I thought, I would definitely figure it out myself.

d

No one in my family’s group chat brought this up. It was treated like any other mundane fact, like saying “It’s raining today.” Then, late one night, my mom sent me a message:

Because of the time difference, I didn’t see the message. So she sent the same text again in our family group chat, word for word. That group chat includes me, my mom, my dad, and my younger brother.

My brother replied: “What happened? How is Grandma?”

And the conversation ended there.

That’s when I realized, Grandma’s cancer was already stage four.

e

I understand my mom’s pain. But my first thought was: If we could turn back time, would anything really change?

My mom and grandma’s relationship is a classic Chinese mother-daughter dynamic. When my mom was young, they were poor. She had no happy childhood to look back on. As she grew older, Grandma favored her son over her daughters, expecting my mom to financially support my irresponsible uncle. My parents fought with my grandparents over this countless times, but every fight ended the same way, with my parents backing down.

So I’ve always wondered: Does my mom love my grandmother? Does my grandmother love my mom?

As a child, I thought my mom was impatient with Grandma. But Grandma was always kind to me, which made me believe that she must have loved my mom, too. At times, I even resented my mom for her attitude toward Grandma.

But when I grew up and understood her past, I started asking myself a different question: Did Grandma really love my mom?

f

I’ve read so many literatures about father-son relationships, yet so few about mother-daughter relationships.

Even female writers, when they write about family, often write about their sons, rarely about their mothers or daughters. (I used to love to read work of Lung Ying-tai, especially the one about the relationship between her and her son)

Maybe, in a way, this is a form of internalized homophobia. But anyways, the mother-daughter bond is too tangled, too intimate, too complicated to define.

Before Grandma got sick, my mom would sometimes bring up her childhood. She would say she was always the neglected one, that Grandma gave the best things to my aunt and uncle, while she was always the last to be considered. Whenever she talked about it, her tone was calm, detached, like stating a fact, not a grievance.

Do you agree with most of life’s biggest struggles come down to a single question: Why not me? When you get broken up with: Why wasn’t I the one who got to be happy? When you get rejected from a job: Why wasn’t I the one who got chosen? When you aren’t the favorite: Why wasn’t I the one who got loved?

Maybe and maybe, there’s no answer to that question itself.

g

Five years ago, during the pandemic, I witnessed too many absurd deaths. For the first time in my life, I began to seriously contemplate the concept of death, something I had always avoided due to psychological fear.

At that time, I read Zhi’an’s Farewell, a book that profoundly shaped my perspective on life and death. It tells the story of the author and his late mother. (See? Once again, it’s a story about a son and his mother. Late last year, I read Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, also about a son and his mother. It seems that male writers love their mothers more.)

There are two passages from the book that resonated deeply with me, and I still revisit them often:

Sharing these words with you.

h

Two and a half years ago, I briefly documented my family’s history (which, honestly, is just three generations). Feel free to read if you’re interested.

after

I know you guys are probably curious about my life in Denver, but this is already so much writing, so I’ll update you next week. It’s good, since mountains are my favorite thing in the world. If you’ve read this far, thanks xx