Last Flower on the Branch

It’s like the last flower on the branch, a sign that a season is coming to an end, good times have passed.

The smell of chuanr lingers on me now. I still have the taste of Tsingdao at the tip of my tongue. I will be on my flight back to Boston soon. I run my fingers through the silk dress, and grip tight my Beijing travel book. I am going to miss you, miss Beijing and miss these, like a child misses the summer time at the beach. The wildness of bars and clubs in Sanlitun, the sweet time near the Houhai lake, the richness of history on the streets, and the abundance of art everywhere, they outweigh the air pollution and the jammed traffic. The trees have, suddenly lost all the leaves. Tell me it’s real, these four months that flew by. Pictures of us are put up around the building, but we won’t walk down this hallway shoulder to shoulder ever again. The badminton rackets rest alone in the corner, waiting for the next group of kids just like us to pick them up. You have packed all the things you bought on multiple shopping sprees in the Silk Market. I have thrown away the maps that used to hang in my room. Remember how we used to run down to get grapefruit late at night! Remember the 16-yr-old boy that sold us bubble tea! Remember the Tube Station Cafe in the back alley where we studied for every exam! Remember how we’d go on our weekend explorations of Beijing still hung over from the night before!

I wish I could stay here a little bit longer. But it’s time to leave now. I have found my cozy niche here. I am reluctant to leave you, leave Beijing and leave these, like I can’t get out of my warm blanket on a frosty winter morning. It’s hard to pick it up and go, especially if you can’t pack all the wonderful things and people into your suitcases. Taking Susan to the airport was the hardest thing. I didn’t cry at the luncheon on Thursday. I didn’t cry when we had our last dinner together on Friday. But when Susan was about to step through customs, she turned around to wave at me. Her glasses were all misty and her face was all wet. Tears just flooded down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop it all through the hour-long bus ride back to the dorm. I don’t even think I cried this much for high school graduation. People were leaving one by one back in the dorm. Hugs and kisses and more tears. We came from afar and met here, now we are going our separate ways. I am not the same person as when I came. Now I have you and some more amazing memories. When will our lives ever intersect again? Even if we do meet, it’s never going to be a casual “hi” and a get-together over chuanr and Tsingdao.

If we get to see tomorrow
I hope it's worth all the wait
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And I'll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And for y’all who’s staying for a full year and more, here’s a few lines from Black Eyed Peas’ Fly Away:

You take, me from me
With you, forever but darling I see
The world, is who you belong to not me
So I set you free

Switch it up, Switch it up,
Go hop on that bus
Don't need to blow the horn I'll be tough, Hey!