 |
Today commemorates the completion of the first eighteen years of my life, the first eighteen years after leaving the safety of my mother’s womb. Yet it also marks the beginning of the nineteenth year, and, by our culture’s seemingly arbitrary placement, the beginning of my adult life. Today marks my entry into the hallowed ranks of the grown, of the experienced, of the adult. It also means that my childhood is now, by all means, over. The innocent happiness, the ignorant bliss, the thoughtless giddiness is, by definition, gone, relegated to random moments of synaptic motion, to memory. And so, on the verge of this brave new world that awaits me, I look back, look back at the life I’ve led, the childhood of eighteen years that has, for what it’s worth, made me who I am. This is the story of my life.
I don’t remember much of my earliest years – everything I know has been told to me through stories. I was born in Xi’an, China, the eldest child of a young Chinese couple. My father was a graduate student in Northwestern University in Xi’an, my mother a manager in a local chemical plant. It was at this point that the first major incident happened: my parents left me. At the young, impressionable age of two, my parents obtained Student Visas and left for America. I, thanks to the wiles of the U.S. Immigration agent behind the counter, was not granted a Visa. And so, for nearly two years, I was separated from my parents by an ocean.
In hindsight, I realize that this separation was far more than just physical. I was deprived of the two people who have, for the other sixteen years, given me everything. Even if it was just less than two years, I think that deprivation has made the greatest impression on who I am. I’ve always felt a certain shyness with my parents. I don’t share with them my personal life, my social life, as much I should. I often feel awkward talking about life with them. They give me advice, and I take it and try my hardest to use it, but there’s always a certain disconnect, a certain emotional distance whenever we have the deep, life conversations.
My parents would often tell me a story about when I was two-and-a-half years old. They called me, and my grandmother, who was taking care of me at the time, picked up the phone. A few minutes later, my parents asked for me – they wanted to talk to their little boy. So my grandmother called me over to talk with them. I said no. Why would I want to talk to my stupid parents after they left me all by myself in China and were living the good life in America?
But a year later, I was here. My parents, who collectively had $180 in cash to start their new life, had more or less established themselves, and so I arrived into a relatively stable environment. According to them, one of the first things that I asked them, one of the first words I said to my parents after eighteen months of silence, was, “Dad? Where’s our car?” The car, it turns out, was in the parking lot of Detroit International Airport, outside the city I would spend the next five years of my life.
The apartment was called Deroy, 5200 Anthony Wayne Drive, a highrise on the campus of Wayne State University, where my parents were doing their graduate work. I went to nursery school, where I learned my first English word, “elephant.” My first, and nearly only, friends for these early years were two girls, daughters of my parent’s friends. We didn’t exact get off on the right foot. They were two peas in a pod, and I was the new kid who barely spoke English. I remember complaining to one of the their mothers that they were speaking English again, and I couldn’t understand.
Elementary school started too soon. I cried on the first day, I threw up my first lunch, and my father secretly came by the school four times to make sure I was okay (I wasn’t). But I learned, and I learned quickly. My English problem was soon not a problem at all. I memorized how to spell the most words in my kindergarten class. Mrs. Cameron held this game every year where each student had a ring of index cards with words he learned to spell, and the winner had the most cards by the end of the year. In first grade, the evil lady in the front of the room, whose name I cannot remember, gave us daily grammar problems. I graduated ESL in record time, and even passed into the advanced reading class. Like any young immigrant, English came quickly and easily.
And at the same time, I grew closer to the two girls, as close as three young children can get. My mind is filled with random memories – images that, for some inexplicable reason, stick out to me today. I remember the Lego pirate set we put together; I remember watching cartoons and playing house – I was always the father and the son (at the same time) – while our parents laughed and played cards in the living room; I remember playing with barbie dolls; I remember the rabbit we picked up from the park and the time I swung a golf club and hit one of the girls in the neck; I remember the Sega Genesis; I remember the Easter egg hunts and the birthday parties and the Christmases; I remember the playground outside of Deroy and the Chinese school and the brand new library down the stone path; I remember the myriad of toys in the basement of our godmother’s house; I remember Amber, another family friend’s cat; I remember the garage sales and church sales; I remember orchard-picking and the accident on the way back, where I cried as our brand new car lay smoking on the side of the highway; I remember trips to California and Florida and Northern Michigan, where the stars littered the sky, innumerable and starkly beautiful. These were memories I cherished, memories that defined my childhood.
I feel like this segment of my life, until I was eight, tempered me. Being with these two girls molded me, softened who I could have been. I was young, innocent, and curious – ultimately unknowing. There was no awkwardness to taking baths with them, to sleeping in the same bed with them. We were little kids who knew nothing of cooties and the pubescent awkwardness that would eventually have its day.
This was also the time I found music. My parents bought me my first piano for my fifth birthday, and I played it. But, like most young children, I grew restless. I grew weary of the repetition, the forced practicing, the seemingly pointless daily regiment. But I stuck with it, I allowed my skills to increase, allowed the music to grow on me. It was the beginning of a love, but one I would not discover for nearly a decade.
The next major shift in my life coincides with the next big move: New Jersey. In May of 1998, I moved across the country to 112 Main Street, Little Ferry, New Jersey. It was a day-long drive, but we moved into our new apartment all the same. It was a strange new environment – suburbia. My memories here are not so bright. I don’t know why, but my impressions from the short time in Little Ferry all seem to be shaded, covered in some strange darkness. Here was where I met Spencer, the little boy three years my minor with whom I played baseball in the yard and went trick-or-treating. The short year I spent in Little Ferry, in hindsight, feels like far longer, but it really didn’t make much of an impression on me. The next summer, we moved to Montville, 6 Lancaster Avenue, where I have been since.
Fourth grade in Montville was a strange, new place. I was the new kid on the block, but I made a few friends quickly. In Miss Briganti and Mr. Miller’s class, I closed out my Elementary school years in a blur. Between Pokemon and the Magic School Bus I picked up the trumpet, played baseball, acclimated to a new environment, and entered the immature, pubescent years. There was the vacation in France, a trip to Washington, D.C. But, ultimately, these were the years of cooties and unreasonable grudges. These were the years of girls against boys and “Ew…girls…” These were the years of snowball fights and walking home from school.
Then came middle school, which was one long phase. Here, “Ew…girls…” became hushed crushes and embarrassing gossip. It was also here that my love for reading exploded. I consumed fantasy and science fiction novels, reading at a book-per-week clip. I may have been labelled a nerd, but if I was, I never knew. I was a quiet kid, never lonely, but with few friends. SIxth grade saw me switch to French horn and watched me excel academically. Seventh grade saw me at CTY for three weeks and watched me become a big brother. But eighth grade, eighth grade was where I began to change.
EIghth grade was when I established my best of friends, created my first website, began to discover my passion for music. I began to come out of my shell. It was also when I had a crush on a girl, the girl who’d become my first girlfriend. It was my first year as an older brother to Andrew, the little whirlwind of a boy who taught me love. In the end, It’s fair to say that eighth grade was a landmark year.
Looking back, I realize how static my life was between fourth grade and eighth grade. I lived in the same place, I met new friends and kept old friends, but as a person, as a pre-teen boy, I didn’t change much. My interests, my hobbies, my habits stayed relatively similar. Despite the massive change in the world after September 11, I stayed more or less the same as a human being. With the power of hindsight, I can narrow the turning point down to a short period of time: band camp.
It was the third week of August in 2004, and there we were, in band camp. It was the seniors, honestly, that did it. Two brothers – twins – and two section leaders, along with the rest of the band, that pulled me straight out of my shell and showed me the world. I don’t mean to give it that much credit; there was certainly a coincidental combination of a series of events: my first girlfriend, the beginning of high school, etc. But I feel that the first week I spent at Fairview Lakes YMCA was particularly significant. I learned what life was meant to be, what life we were meant to lead. High school grew old, my girlfriend quickly became my first ex-girlfriend, but the Field Corps never, and probably will never leave my heart. This was the activity, the group of peers, the man who led them, that truly changed me.
And as a result of fall of freshman year, I became far more social, far more personable. I had a solid group of friends with whom I had sleepovers, played RPGs, had fun with. My friends in Field Corps became a second family. My family at home fussed over Andrew and they loosened their grip on me, giving me more freedom. By the end of freshman year, I was a far different boy than a mere year before.
But there really are not enough words to express what the band program at Montville High School did for me, as a person, especially my two years as drum major. I gained a sense of ownership over the program, a sense of passion and love for a group of kids that sometimes seems absurd. I will never forget the kids who made up the band my senior year, the group with whom I shared my heart. They taught me what it felt like to be truly proud, to be empathetic, to be a leader. I have never shed as many tears, never laughed as much, never thought as much about one thing as I have for this program. And I would not be surprised if I never will find another activity, another group that means as much as this one has.
Much of high school is too recent to reflect upon, but I do know this: I grew over its course. I’ve fallen in love and had my heart broken, I’ve had great responsibility, I’ve learned how to live. I’m sure my understanding of what high school did for me will change in five years or ten years, but I do know that it did a lot. If anything, it brought me to Yale. I have many strong memories from the last four years, but I’ll save that reflection for my 21st birthday.
And so that was my eighteen years, the eighteen years of childhood and a general lack of responsibility. Eighteen years of freedom, happiness, and tremendous growth. Eighteen years that led to who I am today. I am by no means perfect, but these past eighteen years have created an individual I am happy with, that I can stand living as. It’s created a man who I can respect and who I can have confidence in. Looking forward, I can only hope that the next eighteen years of my life are just as valuable, just as meaningful as the last. And they should. The rest of my education, marriage, family, my first child, my first house, my first real job – there’s a lot to look forward to, and I feel that the last eighteen years have prepared me well for the next eighteen.
And so, on this nineteenth November 12th I have seen, I extend a word of appreciation first and foremost to my parents, my grandmother, and my brother, who have given me everything I have and taught me everything I know. To my best of friends, you have made the past few years truly transformative and truly remarkable. I will never forget any of you, and I will always cherish our memories. To my teachers, especially the select few I formed a relationship with, words cannot express how you’ve shaped and molded me. Some of you are like second fathers to me. And to every single person who has touched my life, in one way or another: you may not know it, but there is a piece of me you are responsible for, and I appreciate it. Ultimately, I can only hope that the next eighteen years will be touched by friends, teachers, and people who are as fundamentally good as those who came in the last.
|
Hey Tim,
I prefer to comment here because I dislike facebook. Impressed that you’re so open and direct about your entire life. That’s an admirably long entry — now I feel like writing a miniautobiography of my life too. Anyway, hope you had (are having) a nice birthday.
-Sherwin
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
well slightly belated
:P
[...] years ago today, I wrote a post recounting my first eighteen years. I talked about my childhood, and what I thought I knew about [...]