Lost Stars - Adam Levine.
I suddenly thought of this song when I planned on writing this article.
Actually I was going to write this three days ago, which is last Sunday.
It was the day when I received the news. Both the bad ones and the good ones.
I failed AIESEC. Failed hard. I spent days preparing for it, several days for the form, one day for the discussion and nearly a week for the third round: Teamwork. I had days and nights of not sleeping, not studying and completely immersed in AIESEC’s project.
I had my fears. I talked little. I exchanged little. I had few ideas. I had few friends.
I rarely voiced my ideas.
Actually if you look really carefully into it, my failure is something natural. Something expected. Yet I’m still sad, and disappointed, and depressed. I had high expectations of myself, even sometimes so ridiculously high and seemingly unattainable. So it’s just natural that whenever I fail something, I understand why, yet I’m still like a plastic bag meeting a heavy rain. Soaking wet and useless being.
I seek affection from people. I hide from conversations about the competition. I pretend that I’m okay. I refrain from telling everyone about my progress.
I talk to someone about my real condition. I talk to someone else about my unstable state. I talk to another about things unrelated, just to keep myself out of my own depressing thoughts.
I had sleepless nights. Unstable periods. Impossible-to-show face. Badly hurt stomach.
I stayed up late that night, the night I received the news. I thought about my whole way to AIESEC, my performance, everyone’s performance, my Belbin test, my Evaluation form, my few words to the assessors. I thought about things lingering in my minds for days but never able to pop up into deep thoughts. I thought about what I deserved, and what I didn’t.
And I tried to accept it the way I accepted every loss of mine. I tried to correct myself the way I correct every mistake of mine. I tried to raise myself up like every other time.
I’m not saying I’ve succeeded; in fact, everything about that failure keeps coming back to me at times, when people are talking about their clubs, when my team starts chatting on Facebook, when someone I knew through AIESEC suddenly talks to me, when I look at some certain names in my phone contact. Getting rid of AIESEC thing is not easy, and I don’t plan to, though at times it hurts.
Because, no matter how clichéd it is, joining the competition helps me gain the experience. I know how to do things. I know how things work. And though I fail, I have that confidence that the next time I try, I’ll win.
And that’s all about the me of Sunday and the me of several moments now.
I came home on Sunday. I came back to Hai Duong, the place where my heart lies no matter where I go. I came back to the place that makes me cry whenever I think about. I came back to the place that has my dad, my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law, my grandmother, my cousins, my cat, my everything. I came back to the place where I feel I’m alive.
Hai Duong is not large. Hai Duong is too small compared to Hanoi. But Hai Duong has its own freedom feel that everyone can sense. I love the place where hardly no one out at noon. I love the place where the number of people going at the peak hour is incredibly small. I love the place where my home lies, the place which I know almost everything about, the place I hold dear.
And two days in Hai Duong helps me feel alive.
My period’s back. After 20 days of tossing and turning on bed, of worrying about diseases, of incredibly stressful work.
My Hai Duong’s back. After 20 days of boredom in Hanoi, of the stress and the fast living pace.
