I was "abandoned", when I was little, by my parents.
They fought fiercely with each other day and night and finally got divorced. I began to live with my mom while she couldn't afford to take care of me on her own with no belongings and family support. In order to make a living, we set foot into Chongqing city. She found a pharmacy sales job where definitely I couldn't be with her all the time.
As a result, she sent me to a kindergarten which accepts full-time stay. Hence I lived and grew there from two to three. I don't remember too much of those days. I was so little. There are just some photos left to prove.
Naturally I developed a rather introverted character in the early life, since I was "abandoned" in my young mind and I was such in short of parents' care.
One year later, we went back to our hometown, and started a new family life, with a step-father.
Several years passed by. When I began my middle school, my mother's marriage broke up again. She escaped to find a new life because it was too much for her to bear.
This time, she didn't take me aside. I became a left-behind adolescent as some of you are now until I graduated from high school. During this time, I mainly lived in two relatives' home (both of which have a my age girl) in vacations and in school during study days. Yeah, I was "abandoned" one more time. Sorry for me and sorry you had to hear this.
You wanna know how I felt after these things? Actually it's really sad and tough to be left over, wonderig why this had to happen. I always thought the people who knew my story looked at me with very strange eyes, although it might not be the fact. The aunt I lived with was so cruel for me at that time that she always uses me as a model to motivate her daughter to study regardless of my heartbreaks on hearing her words. Just because I learned so hard even without parents being aside…
It's really not easy to hold my tears sometimes. But I have to. I must take care of myself, even in a clumsy way. I must be a strong person. I must learn hard to get some chance to live. I must not give up. I had no choice.
I did it.
With the help and care from my teachers and friends, I finished my studying years all the way from middle school to graduate school. Now I have the career and family that I love. And I am still working hard to be a better self, loving and learning.
Now, I looking back on the early experiences, my entire life seems to be seeking for the love I think I need from the two-year-old kindergarten to eighteen-year-old college. I long for love but more I can find is hatred and the state of lacking.
The thing is, I had a terrible family, but I gained the habit of self-discipline and a strong character to stand on my own feet in an early age. More importantly, I learned a hard lesson of accepting, forgiving and self-compromising. Isn't this love from destiny?
Many of us may have blamed our parents for not giving us the best life or enough love. However, people got cracks. Weaknesses are inevitable. Well, don't you think our life is a whole? There are actually no completely bad things or good things. They just happen, based on our previous choices and maybe God's will. What makes the difference is the attitude we take when it comes. Good things can turn into bad ones. And bad ones into good. It's a dynamic system where only an open and wise mind can keep the balance and enjoy life fully, I reckon.
So what is LOVE indeed? Surely we are the outcomes of parents' love, or even deeper, the products of God and nature. We can always attract love from outside. We can also find love inside. And as we all know, there are numerous types of love.
But what is LOVE indeed? What is its nature?
I believe it can only be felt by heart, not to be produced, reduced or enhanced. It's always there.
