“Great guy, wish I’d met him 7 years ago.”

HL puts down her ipad, thinking to herself, in another world, in another life, maybe we could have met in another way, we could have... She looks up at the clock, wow, almost 1pm now? Almost 2 hours.

That reminds her of the first phone conversation she had with her husband before they met in person more than 7 years ago. Look at her, an engagement, a wedding, a job, a house and two kids later, she is a different person now. It’s lunch time, but she is not hungry. Opening her fridge, she sees the starbucks frappuccino her husband bought from Costco. She grabs one and goes back to her computer. Oh, there are some emails at work, but nothing needs her immediate attention or even attention at all, because she is leaving this company in three days. She needs some clothes that are not for maternity and not too causal. She remembers there are several tops she bought yesterday from Nordstrom Rack. She hasn’t taken the tags off yet. She was busy at the forum yesterday, writing away her over-a-year experiences in the forum. She sighs, it’s time to say goodbye to the forum, to the company, to the toastmaster clubs and the comforts of working from home. Thinking of the forum, she switches to firefox and refreshes the forum page. Nothing is new except that NewVoice and Texasgood have replied about “Beloved”. Texasgood is another ID of that guy. Hey, this time, his comment is so nice! He is going to get Beloved from the library. He is going to follow me and read it?! He must like me, haha, HL grins, or maybe because he knows I am leaving. She types and asks him if he wants to read it together and discuss it in the forum. But then, she changes her mind, if she posts this and they agree, she will have to be on the forum a lot again. Now what to do? I could use some new pants. Yeah, OK, the mall. And the bookstore is there, she can check if they have Beloved.

    She puts on a top and a pair of flip-flops bought yesterday. Mmm, nice. The workout from earlier this year has paid off, she is almost at the weight when she found out her pregnancy with her daughter in 2008. She feels a sudden rush of joy and leaves home after saying a brief but sweet-sounding goodbye to her mom.
   

    20 minutes later, she is at the bookstore. Not many people today. She goes to the fiction, M section. There is A Mercy by Morrison. Mmm, I want Beloved. Her eyes moving down onto the pile next to the shelf, she sees it, Beloved. 5 dollars. Not bad. She wants to read it the way NewVoice read One True Thing. Being the way she is, she has never read a novel with every words looked up and noted down. She wants to do that because she wants to be NewVoice when she is her age. She wants to check the book then and see how many new words will still be new to her. She takes the book and moves on to the literature part. At C.S. Lewis, she sees “The Four Loves”among many others of his. She has read some children’s books of C.S. Lewis in 1998 and wants to go back to him.  On Amazon,The Four Loves seems to be a highly-recommended one to start with. It’s only 4 dollars, less than other C.S. Lewis'. Happily, she puts it in the basket and moves on to the 1 dollar section. That’s where she has found all the gems. She sees The Best American Essays 1991. She was just talking on skype and was recommending this series to him. Maybe I can send it to him. Oh, not worth it, the shipping is going to be more than the book’s price.

Before she knows it, she has already picked up 10 books. That’s it for today, she thinks. She still has so many at home and with the new job and commuting, when will she find time to read them? She goes to the checkout and sees some CDs for 1 dollar, including Seal! I will buy it if it has “Kisses from a Rose”. And it does!

After paying, she decides to go back home without shopping for more because she wants to hear the song. The first thing she does is to put on the CD and move forward to track 6 and then put “repeat”on. This is the song for the drive home. Pressing the “repeat” button, she remembers she used to drive her then-boyfriend husband crazy by repeating Usher's A-town down song. She laughes thinking of the days they were dating.

Driving and shouting, “Baby, I compare you to a rose on a grey...”, she remembers Xiaoqian’s voice on “Rose” and “On”, she misses her. She was an Angel to her when she went to the forum last year. “On a grey”, she remembers how she was shocked to find out from NewVoice that it’s not on a "grave". A misconception for more than 10 years.  She then thinks of her other sister from the forum, erjie, and she feels sad. They had something like a fight yesterday again. HL was sensitive again. She doesn’t know why the more she cares about this person, the more she gets mad at her. Only because erjie skipped her post which said many 'thank you's to her and then erjie gave a terse reply after HL replied to her post? HL tells herself: I should write to her. I know we will mend, like before, but what a bad timing.

"...Baby, To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny. Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?” Seal’s words seem to be speaking for her to the forum.

She remembers last year around this time, she drove home from her first toastmaster meeting. She felt very similar. At that time, she left home to try out her newly-acquired accent. Now, one year later, she is ready to go to a new job onsite, leave home and leave the forum again. Wow, so much has changed, it seems. Beautifulwind has become so busy at work lately. When HL leaves, no one will be begging her to come back now.  Thinking of that, she feels her eyes are welling up. It’s hard to face changes. It’s hard to say goodbyes to those she loves. It’s hard for her because she hates being abandoned and being left behind, so she abandons before being abandoned. But look what you have benefitted from the forum, it's time to move on. She tells herself.

She always wants to nitpick about others’ writings and pronunciations. She thinks that's what they want. Maybe because she is afraid of owing others too much， and wants to balance out by giving something back, sometimes giving too much, maybe her love is suffocating others. Anyway, she thinks, I need to learn how to accept other’s help gracefully and not to be too concerned about how I pay her/him back in the short term.  Instead, I should believe in Karma,--in the long run, she/he will be rewarded in one way or another.  Maybe I am too full of love, I need a release.

    Now, home, she takes out the book Beloved, saying to it, people say you are the best fiction of the last 25 years, I am ready to love you. Beloved, baby, come here, are you ready to be loved?

注：HL stands for 花罗，哈哈。