Chapter 10 Chapter 6 Mother

After 10 months of training at tennis school, I went to Japan to play a match.As soon as the game is over, I can go home! By this time I had no problem communicating with ordinary Americans.Foreigners like my name because it is simple and catchy.My therapist, who had an Italian girlfriend who knew a lot about Italian culture, asked me if I was of Italian descent.I told him that I am an authentic Chinese, and he said that he felt that my personality was a bit like an Italian - I could talk to you well in the first 5 minutes, but suddenly I turned my face when I said it.Simple, straightforward, good-natured, these are the typical characteristics of the Italians.After listening to it, I wanted to laugh a little.The Italians he mentioned are a bit like those from Wuhan.

The meals in the online school are nutritionally balanced and scientifically matched, but one side nourishes the other. As a native of Wuhan, my favorite is Hubei cuisine (I also like the equally fiery and strong Sichuan cuisine).When I think of my hometown dishes with various styles and strong flavors, I can't help but move my index finger and salivate.Don't talk about dinner, just talk about breakfast.Wuhan people call eating breakfast "too early", and outsiders go to Wuhan, and those who have the conditions pay attention to "too early" when they go to Hubu Lane.But in my opinion, "too early" does not necessarily have to go to Hubu Lane, and eating a bowl of fried bean shreds at a street stall may not necessarily taste worse than decades-old shops.Wuhan people are "too early" and have a lot of tricks. The hot dry noodles mixed with sesame sauce are fragrant; the deep-fried noodle nests are golden and crisp; Fresh bamboo shoots and diced meat; paste powder soup should be eaten with fried dough sticks, the thick rice noodles and crispy fried dough sticks complement each other; in addition to these, there are glutinous rice chicken, heavy oil roasted plums, egg flower rice wine, beef brisket noodles...

My mother said she stuffed the sausages by hand and hung them on the balcony waiting for me to eat them when I came back.Across thousands of rivers and mountains, although I can't eat it in my mouth, the familiar aroma has already drifted into my dream. I miss home. When I was competing in Japan, my mother suddenly called me overseas, saying that someone had introduced her to someone.My parents were classmates in high school. They fell in love and got married very early, and their relationship was deep.My mother is weak by nature, and my father takes care of everything in the family.Suddenly, when he lost his husband, the spiritual pillar collapsed.After my father's funeral, I traveled across the ocean to the United States, and my mother lived alone, enduring the double grief of losing her husband and being away from her daughter.Grandma and uncle were afraid that she would not be able to get out of the shadow of her heart, and hoped that she would come out of her grief as soon as possible, so they kept asking someone to introduce her to someone.My mother is beautiful (my father is also handsome, and my family members are all good-looking, only I was born with the "shortcomings" of my parents), and I am young, so remarriage is also a natural thing.

At that time, I asked my mother, how do you feel about that person?My mother said that he is not as handsome as his father, but he has a good personality.I replied to her: "As long as you like it." When I hung up the phone, I suddenly felt lost: Am I going to lose my mother too? I don't know whether I am too simple or too mature - my only thought at the time was: I don't care if this man treats me well or not, as long as he treats my mother well and takes good care of my mother, I will accept him .I compete outside all the year round, and it is impossible to stay with my mother for the rest of my life in the future. Of course, it would be great if she could find someone to spend the rest of her life with.I have my own life and should not interfere with my mother's happiness.As a child, if my mother put all her energy on me, I would feel very sorry for her, it is a very selfish behavior.

But subconsciously, there is another kind of sadness like being abandoned. The house where my family used to live was rented out in order to repay the debt.Now, Mom is about to form a new family with someone I don't know.The complete, beautiful family I once had disappeared so quickly without a trace.The happiness I once had was wiped out in just one year, leaving no trace of happiness at all.I know that my mother is not mine alone anymore. I knew that this day would come sooner or later, what was supposed to come would come, but I just didn't expect it to come so soon.Baba had been gone for just over a year before his place was taken by another stranger.

When I got off the plane from Japan, my mother took my uncle (I always call my stepfather uncle) son to pick me up.I looked at her blankly, and my mother's expression was very unnatural.That day, my mother took me to live in my uncle's house. My father left on November 14, 1996, I entered the provincial team in December, I went to the United States in October 1997, and returned to China in June 1998, but within a year and a half, I suddenly discovered that my mother had fully integrated into the new team. Family, I became a superfluous person, a bystander floating around the periphery of this happy family.

Objectively speaking, my uncle is a loyal person who treats my mother very well and treats me very well.It was my mother who made me feel awkward.She always hoped that I could get closer to my uncle, and always advised me to take the initiative to call my uncle, keep in touch, and cultivate more family ties.Perhaps, subconsciously, she hopes to rebuild her once happy family and hope that we are truly a family.Perhaps, because she was too sad, she hoped to erase the traces of my father's existence and completely forget him.But, I can't.I can't forget my dad, I can't forget the sweet times we had, and I can't pretend he never existed.That is my most precious thing.

At first, I struggled to cope with my mother and called my uncle a few times.But what to say?Every time it is a polite sentence like "pay attention to your body".I see and remember his kindness to my mother and me, but he will never be able to replace my father. Later, I had a serious talk with my mother.I said: Mom, I am your daughter, we are related by blood.I know my uncle is a nice person, but he is just your husband and cannot replace my father.You have your way of life, I have my way of life, you can't impose your ideas on me. Since then, my mother will not force me anymore.But she always feels that I don't want to chat with her more.But her life circle is getting farther and farther away from mine. She is comfortable in the new environment, and when she opens her mouth, she talks about her new life with her uncle.

Once I went to Paris to play a game, and my mother had distant relatives in Paris. I advised her to go with me. It was considered a tourist, and I could visit relatives.She said no, uncle has a job, and everyone must go together to go.I sighed in my heart and said: Well, you decide for yourself. My mother's life has been inextricably linked with my uncle, and this new home is beautiful and stable, but I feel more and more clearly that I am an outsider. After many years, I can finally admit frankly that this incident still caused a lot of harm to me at the time. Love in fairy tales is beautiful, maybe I am still living in my ideal world.

In order to maintain my mother's hard-won happiness, I have been suppressing my feelings and trying to rationally handle my relationship with my mother and uncle.I admit that my mother's choice is right.This, I know very well.But at that time, I was just a silent adolescent girl. I was full of grievances and sorrows, but I couldn't open my mouth to confide a word to outsiders. I was deliberately cold to my mother, and even though I knew I had no reason to hate her, I still couldn't forgive her.I paranoidly believe that she betrayed me and my father, and she made me a child without a home.Even though I know it's wrong to think that way, I can't help but hate her.I selfishly turned my nostalgia for my father, the anxiety of being homeless, and the discrimination against children from single-parent families into hatred, and passed it on to my mother.Because it makes me feel better—anger is more powerful than sadness, and anger doesn't break a person.

But on the other hand, I feel more empty inside of me than ever before, and beneath the hard shell, I feel alone, and I feel ignored. I want a new home.I want someone to love and trust.