His Holiday

I knew it was not gonna be a happy relaxing holiday for me, but I went. For him.

The two hours drive down there was in dead silence between us. I wasn't so sure whether it's a comfortable silence for him or not. It didn't start well that day or week. I was feeling neglected as he had been declining all my nice gestures for a week and said nothing about his last soccer game or how I was gonna meet him up for the holiday. I had been restrained myself not to be stubborn as I normally would (A big thumb up for that!). It upset me that I couldn't express my feeling about the play I watched that afternoon. Somehow, I just couldn't put my thought in words and it made me feel very frustrated. And his incidental I-don't-know-what-to-say "Okay~" made me feel even worse. I wish I could use a cable to plug from my head to his and everything would be clicked without saying. A lot of thoughts went through my troubled mind during that two hours. In short, I was cherishing the memory of the past and scared the difficult challenging 5 days ahead of me (us).

We arrived before others as they got lost on the way. I have to admit that it did cross my mind that I wish they would have never shown up so that it would be my kind of holiday, but it wouldn't have been his and they did show up in the end. The first two days were miserable. I knew he had a lot of fun, because of others, but not because of me. I felt very lonely, uncomfortable and tiring in his world as I saw The Difference between us. I couldn't help but felt useless and dumb; I couldn't make him laugh; I couldn't make him happy. All I am was a 絆腳石 (stumbling stone/obstacle) to let him have fun. He was happier without me. It was easy to perceive the contrast between his having fun with others and our awkward silence when we were by ourselves alone. I wish I could be stronger, so I didn't have to keep going to the bathroom or pretending to yawn so that I can carefully wipe out my 不爭氣 (unworthy) tears. Stubbornness and competitiveness are just a bad combination for my personality. It didn't help but made me feel even lonely when he said he couldn't understand why I felt the way I felt. Fortunately (for him) or unfortunately (for me), he has never had the need or chance to live in other cultures and to fight his way to fit in using second language. I looked up the vast sky that night with countless stars quietly and thought of the line I once wrote down 13 years ago-

星空中的兩顆星 (Two stars in the Milky Way)
看起來似乎很近 (Seem so close)
其實他們的距離 (But the distance between them)
好遠 好遠 (Is so far far away)

I like all his friends but they also forced me to face up the fact that I am so different from him. "Maybe someone like her would make him happier. She is cool and I am not" I thought, like a 怨婦 (resentful woman). I was jealous of the way they flirted with each other, but I couldn't know what to do or say. I felt handicapped. I don't know how to play with words wittily coz I don't have enough words or common sense; I can't answer a single Trivial Pursuit question coz I don't even understand the question; I don't understand the joke they laugh to death; I don't know how to show my anger when he crashed the car and I don't know how to show my jealousy when he was having fun with her.

In his world, I am handicapped.

I knew I couldn't have avoided feeling this way and that's why I had been always hesitated to take this trip right from the start. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it wasn't any better than my self fulfill prophecy.

"Did you have fun?"He asked me in the end of the trip and thought I did. I guess I did/act well overall to make sure he had a good time during his holiday. That's all the matter, I thought. After all, it's his holiday, not mine. Apart from the first two tearful days which lead me to a very drunk 3rd night, I did end up having some fun occasionally even I was counting days every night. Surprisingly I enjoyed playing Scrabble and Charades even I wasn't very good at it but I could at least make up something sometimes. I am not so sure it's because of the breakfast in bed he made me, my crystals or my stubbornness personality but I had a boost of energy to continue fighting this challenge/battle. What didn't kill you makes you stronger! Now I know the next time when I am in a pure kiwi group situation and feeling handicapped again, I can survive through it and last at least 5 days!