Twenty-Eight: A Notebook

At twenty-eight, Fang Xiaoqing suddenly decided to start keeping a diary again.

The following is a rambling bit that goes beyond the blurb:

Maybe it's just my age. I've spent so long writing about fictional worlds, but now I've suddenly realized I'm not suited to it anymore. (Covers face in anguish.)

Whenever I write, I can't help adding some of the heaviness of real life, and then the whole thing turns bleak. I don't want that, so I keep writing and deleting, waiting until I can find a more perfect way to write it.

I thought, maybe I should switch lanes. Write stories about students like I used to, or stories about domineering CEOs. But whenever I try, they feel detached from reality.

Then it hit me: Oh, I've become a very, very ordinary corporate drone. I've traded away the fantasies of my youth, going through one bout of emo after another, for the few thousand yuan I need to get by each month. Our conversations are no longer about fandom merch, exams, young love, and internet cafes. Little by little, I can't escape the daily grind of food, clothing, and household expenses. When I meet young people, I start preaching about studying. Like my parents, I've started hoarding paper bags, even though I just leave them lying around and they don't really serve any purpose... I've learned how to be unhappy and spoil the mood. Without noticing, I've become the strange adult I used to hate most.

But something keeps urging me to write. I've tried outlining a few stories, but none of them seemed to be going anywhere, so I've made up my mind.

This time, I'm going to write about a very, very ordinary woman. She has spent more than twenty years drifting through life unnoticed and achieving nothing. Then, just as she's beginning to understand the world, she realizes she has only two years until the mature age of thirty. Yet her mind keeps swinging between twenty and sixty.

There will be no domineering CEO, no System from another world, and no string of extraordinary adventures. She may succeed or fail, find fulfillment or fall short, and perhaps she'll never have a real ending at all.

But I hope every little angel who comes across this story on their screen can have a truly happy and fulfilling life.

Theme: Accept your imperfect self, then keep moving forward