I had to get up quite early just to get ready for the flight. I feel mixed emotions, I'm both excited and scared. I can't predict what awaits me in my homeland, the country that I'm from and the person I truly am. You are probably thinking "What could I be possibly afraid of, it's my home". To tell you the truth, I've forgotten Thai,
I can barely introduce myself, because I've lived in China, Beijing almost my whole life, since five to be exact. I can only speak Chinese and I'm extremely worried about how I'll be perceived as and how would the locals treat me. "So, you are twenty now, it's time to grow up" Is what my dad keeps repeating, but I obviously know it very well myself. What's not to know or understand?
The flight leaves in a few hours, but luckily we live close to the airport, yeah I completely agree, it really sucks, the amount of times those fucking airplanes almost burst my eardrums together, I can't even count and it made me go insane. Couldn't even study nor listen to music, because that annoying sound went through all of my headphone layers. I begged my parents for new headphones almost every year, but none of them worked, me and my sister Lalita even got on our knees asking to live further away, but our father never wanted to move, since it was mom's dream house.
Did I forget to mention that I'm probably the only one in my whole family that is unable to speak Thai fluently? I spent so much time studying to get into college, that I even forgot the most common and easiest words to ever exist. I only know a few of them to this day, I speak worse than a person studying Thai for a few hours. It's actually horrible. And the only time I actually asked for help with Thai was the time when I was finally free from all of that work in school but nobody helped me. I wouldn't help myself either to be honest, with all that stress in school I was such a brat and so rude, that I pushed away every person that tried to help me, gladly I've changed now. Since I've heard the news, that we were moving back to Thailand, I started studying every single day. My pronunciation eventually got better, but can't even be compared to the fact that I'm literally Thai. It's embarrassing.
By the way my name is Jing, it means Peace, more precisely - Peaceful. I can write like a confident person because I know people won't read it, but I barely speak in front of people. I get insane anxiety and start shaking if I ever have to speak in front of a group of people or even express my opinion. When I was younger my head would always start spinning, I couldn't concentrate everytime I had to say anything, and I mean anything. Anything, as in literally saying my name out loud. The only thing I can do is express feelings and inside thoughts in a notebook that I do not want anyone to read.
But sadly, that was the problem with me and my notebooks, or books that you could call diaries.
When I was sixteen I found a great group of friends, I was so excited and started writing my feelings in that diary, I used to carry it in my backpack and never showed it to anyone, I can confirm that it was very well hidden and people that searched through my books or just anything in my bag never ever saw it. Or that's what I thought.
Those friends were the best point of my life, because of them I learned how to take care of myself, I learned to be more confident and started speaking a little more than usually. There were four of us in total. We met when we all started high school, they were my classmates and were very welcoming. It was a group project, because I was a quiet kid since birth I had no friends. As expected. That was daily life for me and I've never complained, it was peaceful but a little bit lonely, but that's completely fine, I'm fine with being left alone. Trust me. As I said, it was a group project, the required amount of people in the group was four people, but those three friends of mine couldn't find a last member. But then one of them, the one that I'll always remember the most was this guy - Jai. I'll always remember him the most even with the things that he has done to me, he was the loveliest of them all, of all people In the world. He was the true joy in my life, the life that he suddenly changed. He had a beautiful face, the second he came up to me, something started moving in my stomach. I couldn't understand a thing and got confused, I said to myself "It's probably my anxiety" and calmed myself down a little.
Lost in my thoughts I couldn't hear a thing he said. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers to get my attention and I went back to reality.
"Hey there, can u hear me?" Jai repeatedly asked.
"Oh yeah, sorry I can" I apologised quietly like an idiot. His charming voice was quite calming, that's why I apologised, I didn't want to have a bad impression, even if I don't usually care about that. I freezed and forgot to blink, just blankly started staring at the table infront of me and didn't move an inch looking his way. It felt rude, but that's who I am, I'm not comfortable with anyone, probably just my sister, but I could never admit it to her. She is younger than me and I'd look stupid.
"Well, I'm Jai, nice to meet you" he put his hand in front of my face and waited for me to greet him. I just sat there quietly, started forgetting how to breathe.
"Are you okay, you look pale, do u want me to bring you water, hold on" he quickly grabbed a bottle out of his backpack that was hanging on the table behind me. He put the bottle on the table and waited for me to drink it. I took a look at it, it had cats on it, but didn't tempt me.
"Well I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to join our team for the project"
"I'm Jing" I've finally answered. Even that answer made me crash out in my head, everything I said was wrong. My tone, it was either definitely loud or extremely quiet, so quiet that I couldn't hear myself. I just wanted to cry and run out of that classroom. My whole day was ruined, that calming voice of his didn't change a thing, if anything, it made my blood pressure rise more.
"Well sorry to repeat this again, but would you like to join us, we are short in group members, and it would be great if you could be apart of this"
I wanted to get over it and finally answered his question
"Okay" I completely bugged out. Why did I even answer, I could've just worked on my own or something, this is fucking hell.
Finally, I was forced to leave my seat and came closer to the new group for this project. It was a project for geography, we had to pick out a country and make a presentation for it. THAT'S not the worst part of it, we would need to dress similar to the country's culture, that means i would need to speak in front of a completely new class, a class with nobody that I knew of.
Before picking the country, the people in that group introduced themselves.
"Hey buddy, I'm Zixuan, what about you?" this guy with a cool outfit started the conversation. This whole group was filled with interesting, rich, cool guys. That is probably the worst possible group to ever exist, my heart started beating more, it felt like it'll soon stop and I'll die of a heart attack.
I didn't want to answer this at all, I just wanted to leave, gosh what could be worse than that, I'd rather just die on the spot. Who even created the concept of group projects, get me out of here.
"He's Jing " Jai answered before me, I had a feeling he read my mind or just understood me this fast in some way.
"Wait where the hell are you from? You don't look Chinese" the other guy asked.
Forgot to mention, I have no idea why, but I'm the only one with a Chinese name, my sister's name is in Thai, as-well as my parents. That does make sense to be honest, I'm the only one that isn't able to speak Thai. It's like my parents knew that I'd forget that hell of a language anyway and just called me a name in Chinese that meant peace.
"Hold your tongue, Feng, that's rude"
"I'm Thai" i answered as I was looking down at the ground
From that conversation I barely talked, but after fighting the urge to talk in-front of all my class while giving the presentation I felt a little more relaxed. I started speaking to these new friends of mine and eventually we became close. There was a time where I felt a little something towards Jai.
I realised I fell in love, I felt something that I've never fully understood, my feelings and my heart helped me realise that love exists and that's what I've been feeling since the day he helped me fight that insane stress and anxiety, he for the first time hugged me and held my hand while I was speaking about Japanese culture, I calmed down and finally felt comfortable with the people that weren't my family.
I wrote all of my feelings, all of my thoughts in that diary that I bought after the day that I fell in love, after writing things that have been running around in my mind i realised he was truly my first love.
But then, after a few months, after we became friends, I and those amazing three friends went to have lunch at a coffee shop nearby. I bought a delicious pie and an iced tea. Jai and me shared it and I realised it wasn't so casual, I started to believe that maybe my love for him wasn't one sided. I quickly ran to the bathroom, put on some perfume to smell better for Jai, but when I came back, from far away I saw three of them reading a book. The same book, that was my diary, the diary that I thought I hid perfectly, and the diary I wrote all of my feelings in.
My heart stopped, it broke and was torn apart, I knew that it would never ever get fixed again. My eyes became full of tears. All of them looked shocked and didn't say a word, I ran to them and took my bag and the book back, used my full strength, that even the pages from the diary tore apart, but I didn't care, I didn't look back and ran back home. After this day I didn't go to school for a few months or even once left my room. Lalita tried to talk to me but I didn't answer.
Finally, my parents resigned me to a new high school, where I didn't find a single friend and stayed quiet until I became nineteen. I never trusted anyone again and realised that there is no person that deserves to be called joy to my life.
Well that was quite a lot. This story was probably boring right? It was quite a long time ago, but my opinion hasn't changed and will never change. That's how it is.
Ongoing, written and created by me, tempo:)
Sorry for my English, I'm not that great, u can tell me if you find any mistakes I'll try to fix it as fast as possible.