Lost memories                                                                                                                                      by Chieh Wu    2/5/04

 

 

I want to capture this moment as I sit in the center of Hub by myself. I cannot count the time have I endured the longing of visiting my home. Penn State, a forgotten memory I have once ran away from. Was it the illusion of my past I needed to relief from? Return did I to encounter my soul mate Cristina, whom had promised to marry another man? or to beg my ex-wife for forgiveness of my past? I ran to Spain to be away and to hide, yet now I see my past with my eyes open wide.

 

            Suddenly I realize it was not Penn State I have missed all these time, but the memories that has passed, the events that has occurred and the people I have loved. Now that they are all gone, Penn State means nothing to me. This saddens me for what I needed is no longer just a flight away, nor a place to visit, but simply a memory I desperately try to recover. As I walk through the campus, I felt so alone. I felt like an old actor standing on a dark empty stage with his eyes closed; trying to reenact the best scenes that meant something to me. The play had changed, the actors had moved on, yet I just won’t walk away.

 

            I once mentioned how the more places you have loved, the more places you will miss. And no matter where you are, you will always be missing somewhere else. Because that somewhere else had become a part of you, but you can never be a part of that somewhere else simultaneously. But now, what is the point of that somewhere else if nobody is waiting for your return?

           

            I wonder, might this madness be simply proof I needed for my existence? Like a desperate prisoner carving his name on the jail cell before his termination. Yet should he choose an eternal life of solitude without love? The very proof of his existence? Life without love must be the essence of hell itself.