I used to think that my mother and I were incompatible. Because we are so much alike. I inherited almost everything from my mother - her looks, her abundant emotions, her dullness, her youthful romance, and also her pride, vanity, indecision when faced with anything with buttons, her lack of direction and fear of horses.
After I started college, I became a child king, leading two or three dozen children. I was domineering, authoritative, and extremely commanding. Every day, I would lead a group of children from the school residential area to climb mountains, cross rivers, climb trees, and catch fish. When I was six, I even persuaded a group of children who were three or four years older than me to climb an oil tank dozens of meters high in a military-run enterprise under my leadership. We climbed along a narrow and open iron ladder, lay chaotically on the curved bottom of the oil tank, and watched the bright moon. I forgot what a child said: "Facing the ground, we are so small." On the way back, I was very proud of this feat. When I got home, my mother's belt was waiting for me. She made me take off my pants and lie on the bed. I could still remember the sensation and sound of the belt hitting my flesh, and I cried my heart out. Later, my mother told me that after beating me, she cried uncontrollably by herself. She didn't know what to do with me when I was naughty. Because she was worried about my next feat, I was sent to school at the age of six, bidding farewell to the happiest six years of my life. That belt was very effective, I suddenly changed into a different person, becoming a compliant child, obedient and listening.
I began to study hard, winning first place again and again, being a good child in my mother's eyes, making her happy. There was a time in middle school when I got tired of Chinese language. I hated reading comprehension, always answering wrong questions, and disliked writing essays because I never had any opinions. In that all-grade Chinese competition, I didn't even qualify. That afternoon, the dim light shone through the small window onto my half-eaten bowl of rice. My mother wouldn't let me eat, scolding me fiercely from the bed. As a Chinese teacher, she couldn't accept such an outcome. She threw her chopsticks and hit them against the bowl, the grains of rice jumping and making me tremble with fear. "Starting today," my mother declared resolutely, "you must write an essay every night for me to check. I don't believe your Chinese can't improve!" That evening, I started writing my first diary entry titled 'Desk Lamp' - "When I want to read, your eyes light up and watch me attentively; when I don't read or work hard, you just sulk and stay dark." Since then, I have kept writing diaries until now, already filling several dozen volumes, although I no longer need my mother's review.
My life after the age of seventeen was all arranged by my mother. She was unpredictable at home, deciding everything and arranging everything. The obedient ones were me and my honest father. My reckless brother was often beyond my mother's control, and it took her a long time to accept this reality.
Every evening, my mother always returned home the latest. She went out for a walk, personally feeling the temperature of the day, and then prepared our clothes accordingly. In middle school, I refused to wear cotton pants in summer because it made me completely lose my street cred. That night, my mother and I had a big argument. She judged others based on her own feelings, thinking it was already cold enough to wear cotton pants. The argument was terrible, the whole building could hear my mother's high-pitched voice as a teacher, but despite my determination to resist, I was ultimately overpowered, and the matter ended with me going to class wearing bulky cotton pants.
Besides deciding on physical things, my mother also wanted to arrange my spiritual world. She carefully selected magazines and newspapers for me, ordering many each year. Despite our modest income, she still bought a large number of books for me.
My mother married late and gave birth to me at the age of thirty-one. My most rebellious early youth coincided with my mother's menopausal period. At that time, I was very disobedient, often resisting my mother's arrangements, and we had constant conflicts. My mother shouted loudly, and I shouted louder. Then my mother would cry and call my father to scold me. But my father often remained silent about my mother's irrationality and tantrums. Finally, my mother would take out a green leather suitcase from the cabinet, crying and fussing while packing things, threatening that either she or I would leave the house, saying she would return to her hometown in Hebei. But this suitcase was always packed and unpacked, never fully organized. The conflicts between my mother and I were always so intense, causing me great pain. I often stood on the fifth-floor balcony imagining jumping down, picturing the various scenarios after landing. I imagined my mother crying her eyes out around my stiff body, satisfying my superficial needs. So every time I lost an argument with my mother, I would engage in such imagination, having jumped off countless buildings, each time her reaction getting more painful.
In 1989, I applied for Fudan University, which was also decided by my mother. Because those days she heard from a teacher at the school who went into business that Fudan was such a prestigious university, and her children must attend top universities. Although my scores were enough, unexpectedly due to special events that year, Fudan did not recruit students in our province, and I had no chance to reapply, thus being blindly assigned to my second choice, an obscure foreign language institute. For six years of high school, my grades were so good that everyone thought I would go to Nanjing University or Fudan University, including my mother who was confident. But fate cruelly shattered my mother's hopes. The disappearance of my Fudan dream was lamented by my mother for many years, and even today after I've been working for so many years, she still dwells on it, making me realize how devastating this event was for my mother.
It is said that my mother's academic performance was quite good during her school days. Her dream university was the one I attended. Unexpectedly, because my grandfather, who lived a colorful life when he was young, served as a doctor in the Nationalist army for a few years, this historical stain caused my mother, whose scores were completely sufficient, to be denied admission to university due to "bad family background". Sometimes, history repeats itself astonishingly. My mother was too weak, too vain, and I wondered if this incident impacted her character: irritable, anxious, lacking security, distrustful of the future and people around her. I don't know the answer.
My mother's life turned out like that, so she imagined me as another version of her, meticulously polishing me, designing me, placing her unfulfilled dreams on me. I was her entire career. Her expectation for me was to continue studying after finishing university until obtaining a Ph.D. But she didn't expect that I started dating in my sophomore year. It seemed like I was resisting her arrangements for years, living a life in university that she couldn't control, carefree and free-spirited. According to my mother's requirements, I took the postgraduate entrance examination, but my results weren't good enough, thus ending my mother's Ph.D. dream.
After graduation, I wanted to get as far away from my mother as possible, to a place where she couldn't control me anymore. I ran all the way to Hainan, and then Shenzhen. Being far from my mother, when I needed to live independently, I realized how warmly my mother, who never let me do housework, had protected my life, but also made me unable to do anything except studying, unable to do housework, unable to get along with people. Facing society, I was at a loss, like a fool.
Being far from my mother, we no longer had the opportunity for fierce conflicts. I started to appreciate my mother's kindness, calling her every week, chatting at length. My mother grew old, losing her former strength. Facing the often delayed retirement pension, she always felt powerless against society. She always fantasized about her childhood, whether to live with my brother or with me, repeatedly discussing this question with my father until he couldn't bear it.
Last Spring Festival, I brought my parents to Shenzhen to live. My mother and I were descending the elevator together, only the two of us inside. I was almost a head taller than my mother. I suddenly saw her almost bald head, her face full of wrinkles, her murky eyes. She was powerless in this strange place, not knowing where to put her limbs, looking very unnatural. She was like a child, nodding in agreement with whatever I said, even flattering me when crying. I looked at this frail little old lady with a strange gaze for a long time, wanting to burst into tears: it was this small old lady who chose my past life, once omnipresent, controlling me, so powerful and invincible. Now she has grown old, facing a society she increasingly doesn't understand, becoming like a child, hoping to gain my protection. Crossing the road, she nervously stretched her neck like a newly born bird, anxiously looking left and right, her body rigid, desperately wishing I would hold her hand.
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