Time Travel

Ting Ting from "YiYi" (2000): Why is the world so different from what we thought it was? Now that you're awake and see it again... has it changed at all? Now I've closed my eyes... the world I see... is so beautiful.

This photo reminded me of that movie. I saw it in highschool and it impacted me quite a lot. The little 5 year old boy, Ting Ting, goes around taking photos of the back of people's heads because he says, people never look at the back of their heads, that's why he finds it interesting. I took this to mean that you adapt to a level of blindness, so much that you don't notice the little things in life, and are even oblivious to the back of your own head- a total lack of self awareness.

This is the back of my head, though my front is distracted by an art exhibit, the back of my head dons a collection of colored pencils. Is this a mark of self awareness? Introspection? My inner reality matches my external reality?

I define reality through introspection.

If I told myself 4 years ago

"Maria, these next 4 years you're going to travel, back and forth from LA to NY, you're going to travel to Shanghai, and Paris, you're going to learn to speak french, you're going to learn to speak Chinese again, you're going to fall in love, hard, you're going to hurt others and they're going to hurt you, you're going to learn so much about yourself that it's hard to handle, yet remain a mystery to yourself, you're going to make friends with these people, then these people, then these people, and then these people. You're going to struggle with a deep, and perhaps, self induced, depression after a traumatic time, which is going to burst in the form of panic attacks. You're going to go crazy, and be absolutely sane. You're going to date guys who aren't right for you, you're going to be distracted, unfocused, you're going to have the most fun that you've ever had. These feel like nothing, but will be life defining. You'll remember what you did in the next 4 years forever."

I wonder what I would think, whether I'd even go to New York knowing everything that would happen. Probably not, it'd seem too scary. That's one luxury that passing time and not knowing affords us- moments come and go and don't seem a big deal unless we know about them beforehand and psych ourselves out. that's why graduation seems like such a big deal. if i just dealt with an end without knowing about it before, i'd deal with it, same as if i get sick without any warning and i deal with the pain of it. knowing that you're going to get your blood drawn is worse than the actual prick. thinking, thinking, gets us into trouble. It perpetuates all of our self fulfilling prophecies.

I guess this whole time was me running away from my need for security, security which I took for granted before leaving home. Learning to find it with someone else in a relationship, realizing what was healthy and what wasn't. I guess it's like the first time riding a bike, after your dad has let you go and taken off your training wheels, and you fall, fall so much, bruises, scratches all over the place, even though they hurt and scar, you can't help but be proud of them because you're tougher. and after that tumultuous time, you ride your bike down the hill as fast as possible and you feel liberation flooding you.