When I was in elementary school, I came back from school to help the adults cook. I was thinking: When I grow up, I will never live in a rural area. I will never be like my parents, who spend a tiring day in the mud and water, facing the loess and back to the sky. When I got home, I had to burn firewood for cooking. Not to mention the smoke and gurgling, the firewood still pricked my hands and hurt me.
I don’t want this kind of life. I look forward to the bright lights in the city, the tall buildings and the endless asphalt roads without any mud. I heard that there is a big library in the city with a wide range of books. At that time, I had only read a thick copy of "Xiangdongdong" that my uncle bought for my brother, and then there were only some magazines and short-story books.
I am very timid. I dare not go out of the house after dark or go to the toilet in the yard. I have to ask my sister to accompany me every time. I dare not walk behind because I always feel like someone is following me. I'm also afraid of sleeping at night. As soon as the lights are turned off, adults who have been tired for a long day will soon start snoring. I would be scared whenever I heard the creak of a wooden door or a cabinet, and I couldn't always call an adult. The more scared I was, the more I listened carefully with my ears bent. I was so scared that I curled up in the quilt and covered my head. Sometimes I would sweat all over my head.
I know that I need to study hard without having to say a word from my parents. When I came back from school every day, if my mother had soaked the rice, I would know how to cook porridge and recite the text while adding fuel to the fire. I rarely go to work in the fields. My two sisters help my parents. I am thin and small, and I can only pull a winnowing pipe when farming. There was only one time when my father was plowing the fields and I was pulling fibers in front of him. Not a single ridge came down. I was always torn out of the ridges by the plows, and I couldn't control the direction at all. My father knew that I was not the material, so he rarely asked me to help. When I entered junior high school, my studies were more intense. I did my homework until eleven or twelve o'clock every night, and got up at dawn in the morning to memorize vocabulary words in the woods behind me.
I scored 665 points in the high school entrance examination. I have forgotten the total score now. It was considered a pretty good score at the time. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to apply for a volunteer, didn't understand, and didn't know how to ask. I ended up going to an electronics college in the province, and from then on I started my passionate journey to youth.
I don’t like to join the student union. I think the cadres of the student union just check this and that every day. There is no point in wasting a lot of time. I want to study hard. I have been an outstanding class cadre every year for four years and have been among the top three students in the school several times. I thought this was what I wanted.
Four years have passed in the blink of an eye. The school issued a graduation certificate and a registration letter to the Personnel Bureau of the place of residence. Everyone said that they were no longer assigned jobs, and it would be useless to go and report. No unit would accept them, and besides, they had no connections at home, so they all had to make their own way out. At that time, I was very ambitious. If I don’t want to be assigned, I won’t be assigned. My home is a small city, and there is no point in going back. I want to go to a big city to see it.
My classmates and I went to Beijing just in time for the Beijing Military Parade that year. There were many vendors selling photos of the military parade at the entrance of the subway station. I bought a whole stack of photos and a map of Beijing. Under the introduction of a senior sister, we went to a private school to become teachers, and we were arranged to live in a four-person dormitory. The summer in Beijing is very hot. My friends who sleep at night are afraid of mosquito bites. In addition to covering their whole faces with quilts, they also cover their entire faces with clothes. I can't do that. I admit that even having mosquito bites all over my face can make me suffocate. Although the conditions in the private school were difficult, I still worked that job for two years, and those were also two very happy years in my life.
Later, due to various reasons and because he was unwilling to continue teaching, he went to do business in an Internet company. At the beginning, I saw the company's salesmen going to the computer room to surf the Internet every noon break. I also learned to read the news. There were many things I didn't understand and I didn't dare to ask. Gradually, the business has improved a bit, and I have become familiar with my colleagues. We come together from all over the world, and we can often help each other. Later, the company's network business department was disbanded, and I changed jobs again and again. I can't bear to look back on all the experiences I experienced.
When I was 28 years old, I knew that I would not settle down in Beijing, so I gave in and returned to my small city. When I first came back, I was dissatisfied and resentful about many things. "I would rather be king in a small country." I had to work hard and fight for my own "kingdom."I really agree with the saying "how full the ideal is, how skinny the reality is." Many times, I feel like I'm punching the air with my bare fist. It's not that easy anywhere to live the life you want. .
After we got married, we opened our own store. We didn’t dare to have any luxury when we were naked. We sat on the back seat of Ah Chen’s bicycle every day. Although we didn’t have much money, our life was extremely sweet. When he was more than six months pregnant, Ah Chen decided to buy a house. He said he wanted his child to be born in his own house. I paid the down payment and moved into my own two-bedroom apartment with a loan. At that time, I always silently counted the meager savings in my hand, and then looked forward to when this savings would reach six figures.
After my son was born, I became the happiest mother in the world. We take good care of our baby with daily firewood, rice, oil, salt, diapers and milk powder. Although I did not achieve great wealth during this period, I did have some small savings.
My children are growing up, and I don’t know why but I am getting more and more anxious. I always feel that I should still have a job that I like and can earn some income. I searched hard and tried, but found nothing. I was unhappy. I had traveled thousands of miles in my dream, but when I woke up I was still in the same place. Ah Chen said that my talent was not worthy of my dream. I was very upset at first, but gradually I found that it was true. I would frown unconsciously, and only in front of my children could I forget all my unhappiness. Over the years, Ah Chen has been giving me advice every now and then. He laughed at me and said, "You will be able to receive your pension in a few years. What are you afraid of?" What are you still thinking about?
Only I know that after more than ten years of anxiety, all the lofty sentiments I had at the beginning have turned into dull days. What I wanted was nothing more than recognition of my own worth, but my ordinary self failed to reach the heights I expected.
Actually, as Ah Chen said, there is nothing wrong with ordinary days. Think about it, it’s not bad that we can still live a normal life under the current epidemic environment. Why should we embarrass ourselves? Moreover, as I grow older, I actually like the pastoral life in my hometown more and more. As much as I wanted to leave at first, I now want to have it. The calmed heart accepted this ordinary self.
