It may surprise my friends today, but I was rather sickly and frail during my childhood. I spent many days out of school, forced to stay in bed while my neighbours and classmates gambolled under the sun. I must have read all the books in my room five times each, and they didn't have any fancy video games during my day. I was always bored out of my mind. My mother must have felt sorry for me, because she bought for me a nice little journal to try and keep me occupied.
I never used it, of course. What would I have written about? How bored I was? Yeah, right.
But now that I'm in my golden years, I find myself changing my tune. This is why I'm sitting here in bed, this leather-bound journal in my lap. I want to write down my story for future generations of my family, so that they can see their history unfold throughout the ages.
I moved into a small house after I graduated from university; my parents helped me to pay for it, since I was still broke from all my student loans. They didn't give me much, but I am eternally grateful to them for helping me get back on my feet. The house was sparsely furnished, but I didn't mind; I was only really home to eat and to sleep. After what felt like a lifetime inside my childhood bedroom, I was in no rush to start spending my downtime indoors.
I loved the outdoors with a great passion. I enjoyed fishing, jogging, swimming ... you name it. The exercise and fresh air must have done wonders for my health, since I never got as sick as I did as a kid ever again. I worked as a gym teacher at the local Twinbrook high school, and I loved it. I'm sure the kids didn't appreciate it when I got them to do the beeper tests, but at least it got the less athletically-inclined ones to run around!
I particularly liked to spend summer vacations in Shang Simla, China. I always chose to stay in a remote mountain village, away from the hustle and bustle of cities like Shanghai or Beijing. In my opinion, I want my vacations to be the exact opposite of what I get in my everyday life. Twinbrook's no Bridgeport, but the industrial sectors and job opportunities really made it a busy little town. I wanted to get away from all that noise, even if it was only for two months a year.
Martial arts became my most beloved hobby. It's less a sport, really, and more a lifestyle, if you understand what I'm saying. None of my previous sports experience really prepared me for learning the art, so it was really fun learning something new. I wasn't very good at it, but hey, no one is perfect.
During my time in Shang Simla, I met and fell in love with a man named Jiang Lu. He was a local merchant who also liked to visit the martial arts academy on weekends. Though I had to return to Twinbrook at the end of each summer, we wrote letters and e-mails to each other constantly. We spent three summers flirting with each other in between training sessions, before I finally confessed my attraction to him.
He admitted to me that he was actually the father of three kids despite his young age, and that he had separated with his wife after irreconcilable differences. I was shocked, to say the least. He had never mentioned any of that! But I wasn't disgusted or anything, like I think he expected me to be. I loved him all the same, despite his less-than-perfect romantic background.
The two of us decided to move to Twinbrook; he wanted to start a career away from the judging glares of the Shang Simla people. I was pretty happy with that decision - to be honest, I don't think my relationship with Jiang would have turned out as well as it did if I had had to move to Shang Simla for it! I may love the place, but I wouldn't have been able to stay there the rest of my life, especially since it meant uprooting my life as a teacher.
Jiang and I lived together for about a year, and then Jiang proposed to me out of the blue in our kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised; I certainly expected a proposal, but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would do it while we were doing the dishes! I love that man, but he's no casanova, that's for sure.
We decided not to have a wedding party; we weren't really interested in paying an exorbitant amount of money for a party, and Jiang didn't want to have to invite his relatives all the way from Shang Simla (especially because some of them were still bitter about his divorce with Jiannan). We had our own private wedding along the cleanest of Twinbrook's rivers, in the midst of the autumn chill. I can still remember the bitter bite of the wind, but Jiang kept me warm in his embrace.
Jiang wanted to 'get a real job' in Twinbrook, but he found it difficult to do so. He moved to town right after the big employment rush, and there were no more jobs for him. He started fishing to pass the time, and found that he had a real knack for the craft. Luckily, the market never turned down fresh fish, and Jiang managed to scrape together some bucks for us by selling off the salmon and whatnot he fished from the river.
"I was hoping the fish I catch could feed us," Jiang had explained to me once while we were tucking into our usual dinner of grilled cheese. "It was just to save some money. I never thought we would be making money off of it."
"I guess we could keep some of the fish you catch," I had suggested. "Maybe I can make grilled cheese anchovy sandwich."
"No," Jiang had grimaced. "You should see the stuff they dump into the rivers. I wouldn't want to eat that."
It was good for us that Jiang's career as a fisherman had started to kick off, even though it wasn't exactly what he had had in mind when he moved here. I had become pregnant, and we would definitely need the extra cash. My wages as a teacher were livable, but if we wanted to give our baby a happy childhood, I knew it wouldn't be enough.
