To Adulthood

When I was two years old, I ran down the narrow hallway of my house and into my parent’s bedroom, and jumped onto my mom, who was pregnant with my little sister. The lights were turned off. I think she scolded me or something, but I only remember her vaguely shushing me, and then walking out back into the living room a little embarrassed. That is my earliest memory, though it’s become more of a collection of words, a narration; the images are fading, like old photos.

When I was six years old, I was put into the ESL class in kindergarten because I had only spoken Chinese at home, so my English was less than proficient. I remember my friend asking me if I had farted when we were in the car; I nodded meekly—I didn’t know what “fart” meant. Despite the embarrassment, I kept speaking Chinese at home and let my English slowly improve as the years went on, new words finding their way into my head. They’re still coming in.

When I was nine years old or so, I threw a tantrum during recess, and Ms. Anderson gave me detention. I was to stay in the classroom the next day, but I didn’t. Ms. Anderson found me on the blacktop and hauled me into the classroom. I don’t think she was pleased.

When I was twelve, my family moved to Saratoga. I didn’t want to leave my friends in Los Altos, so over the summer I came up with a list of excuses that I could use in order to stay in my old school district. But the first day at Redwood Middle School rolled around, and I never ended up saying anything. All those thought out plans just crumpled that morning; I suppose I did not have the courage, the will, though I can’t say I remember exactly why. I walked into Mr. Steffan’s room and sat next to a boy who was also new to the school: his name was Jay. We became best friends through seventh and eighth grade, and although he was Indian, he had a big nose so we joked that he was secretly a Jew.

In eighth grade, I was bullied by some kids in PE. They would especially target me when we played dodgeball or capture the flag, and would verbally taunt me. I thought it was quite funny and entertaining actually, but when they were caught in the act once, near the end of the school year, I got called into the principal’s office to tell the story. I don’t know why, but I ended up crying in there. It was weird, because none of the “bullying” actually hurt until I had to talk about it in front of those discerning adults.

When I was a freshman, I began hanging out with the overachieving Asian guys. Jay began hanging out with the drama kids, and another one of my best friends from middle school attempted suicide. I got a B+ in freshman English, so I didn’t think I was good at English. I was good at history, and did well in math and biology. I didn’t think much of engineering at the time though.

Between sophomore year and junior year, I took a three week long summer course at Stanford in Philosophy and Literature. We watched a movie called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as part of the curriculum. It was a good movie, so I searched it up online. Its genre was “postmodernist”. The following day, I went to the bookstore to find some postmodernist books, and I ended up buying a copy of Donald Barthelme’s Sixty Stories. It was intriguing—unlike anything I’d read before. Something happened in that moment, and I started writing my own stories the beginning of junior year.

During junior year, I got a girlfriend. We met in eighth grade in an outside orchestra. It’s a long story for those first three years, but she confessed the day before the SAT that she liked me, and we wound up dating for almost five months. We had our first kiss on top of a hill at sunset on Valentine’s Day. Towards the end, even though it became apparent that things weren’t going very well, I kept on being optimistic, perhaps in vain, and believed that things would get better. She obviously didn’t; she was always more negative and pessimistic, and dumped me over Facebook the second week of summer.

We live in fragments: first period, second period, Monday, Tuesday, October, November, seventeen, eighteen, little events that compound on each other, points of time that mold us constantly but intermittently. We are little more than fragments, the amalgamation of events and conditions and consequences: a fractured narrative.

So as I trace my way back to the boy that was four feet tall and spoke little English, I get lost. Somewhere along the way, the thoughts and decisions no longer match up with who I am now, and what remains is but a vague, distant reflection of me. I don’t know quite where that place is, and every time I look back, that peculiar point in life is different. I think that is where adulthood begins: it is the time and place where I can relive, look back, and still understand, remember, connect. Where I can start piecing together fragments and make them cohesive again. Where the images are vivid enough and the events close enough for me to say, “Yes, that is me.” The rest can only remain as they are—shattered pieces of a past existence.

Perhaps there is some continuity to a life, a common thread to be found in the chaos of human existence. But either way, its fluidity is eroded by the imperfection of memory and my ever-shifting nature. I suppose in some ways I am still that little kid that used to bounce on his mother’s pregnant belly. We have the same name, after all. But time passes and things happen, and I guess now I’m a little more “grown up,” whatever that means.