Prelude to Puberty
That year, the air was always filled with a damp, muggy heat, like being wrapped in thick cotton wool; even breathing felt sticky. The adults called it "puberty," three light words, like some self-healing skin disease that could be cured with a little ointment.
"It's puberty..." They dragged out the last syllable, with the smile of someone who has experienced it on their lips.
They made a final conclusion and blamed all the conflicts on hormones.
I am just a body controlled by hormones. All the pain, confusion, and self-loathing are just by-products of physiological reactions.
The pimples on my forehead popped up like mushrooms after rain. I tried my best to cover them with my bangs, but they still appeared after physical education class, in the stuffy classroom, and at every unexpected moment, with redness and swelling.
Even I began to doubt whether those surging emotions were really meaningless?
Are those sudden waves of disgust we feel when we look in the mirror just a side effect of an overdeveloped area of the brain?
The class meeting in the second grade of junior high school with the theme of "My Dream" gave me a clearer understanding of my confusion.
The head teacher wrote the word "dream" in large letters, taking up half of the blackboard.
What is a dream?
From childhood to adulthood, I have written countless essays about dreams. Doctor, scientist, teacher... those words once came so naturally.
But now, these words roll over my tongue again, but they are light and cannot be put into practice.
I looked at the word "dream" and had no idea what it meant.
I don’t know what I’m good at or what I want to do in the future.
Those imaginations about the future are blurry, as if covered by a layer of frosted glass.
At dinner, my mother gave me some braised pork and said, "Eat more. You are growing."
"Mom, I'm not a child anymore." I couldn't help but retort, and I was stunned after I said that.
I'm not a child anymore.
But what am I?
"In your mother's eyes, you will always be a child." She said, and served me another bowl of soup.
I looked at her busy back and suddenly felt annoyed.
"I told you I don't want to drink this soup!" My voice suddenly rose, startling my father who was watching the news.
"Speak nicely." Dad frowned.
But I just can't control it.
I'm tired of them treating me like a child, but when I try to make decisions on my own, I find I can't even decide where to go to class on the weekends.
During that time, Aunt Shen's studio became my temporary refuge.
In the studio are displayed the paintings that Lu Xingye had just finished. A blurry figure stands at a crossroads, and each road leads to a different distance.
And I stood there, not knowing where to go.
Jiang Yuanzhou rarely went to the training class and stayed in the corner of the studio.
"Actually..." he suddenly said, "I don't know what I want to do in the future."
Is that so?
He has such good grades.
"Not knowing what to do is fine." He seemed to be talking to himself, but also to me. "At least... this shows we still have many options and aren't forced into a single path."
He paused and added, "The path is found by walking, not by sitting still and figuring it out. Just because you don't know it now doesn't mean you will never know it."
I don't know if he was trying to comfort me or if he really meant it.
But at that moment, his calm tone did brush away the anxiety in my heart.
My mother finally relented.
“Nian Nian,” she said, walking into my room, “if you really don’t want to take those classes, then we won’t.”
I raised my head and looked at her.
“But,” she looked at me seriously, “you have to find what you really want to do.”
"What if... you can't find it?"
"Then take your time to find it." She touched my head, "Mom won't force you anymore."
I looked at the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and suddenly burst into tears.
"Mom...am I...useless?"
"Nonsense!" She hugged me in her arms, "Our Nian Nian is kind, considerate of others, and writes well..."
She talked about a lot of things that I never thought about.
This confusion and search for self-worth became the deepest pain of my adolescence, and it was also a lonely expedition that no one could replace.
We stumbled and stumbled, looking for direction in confusion.
Affirming value in negation. In the long period of self-doubt, piece together the image of "me" bit by bit.
————
Along with adolescence comes a period of rebellion that comes without warning.
I don’t know when it started, but my mother’s voice became sharp and harsh.
We argued over how high to turn the air conditioner, fought over whether to go to grandma's house for the weekend, and even fought over whether to put black or white bags on the trash can.
"Bang" I slammed the door with such force that even the window frame shook.
"Lin Nian! Open the door!" Her voice squeezed in from the crack of the door, hysterical like a thin needle, pricking my temples and making them throb.
"Go away! Leave me alone!" I turned up the volume of my headphones to the maximum. The heavy metal drum beats made my eardrums numb, but it couldn't cover up the dull pain in my chest.
The monthly test paper was spread out on the table. I got 59 points in math. The bright red numbers made my eyes sore.
The continuous knocking on the door made my eyes sore. I stared at the cracks on the ceiling and remembered what she said at the dinner table just now: "Look at Ye Zhixia."
The crack on the bathroom mirror was also left that year.
She held up my monthly exam report card, her fingers trembling, and looked at me as if I were a stranger.
I grabbed the mouthwash cup and smashed it against the mirror. The moment the cracks exploded like a spider web, we both saw each other's distorted faces in the broken glass.
She said I was "ignorant".
I yelled at her, "You don't understand."
When the most pointed words came out of her mouth, I saw her eyes red, but the next second she turned and went to the kitchen, and turned on the faucet very loudly, covering everything else.
Fortunately, adolescence was just like a long rainy season for me. When I woke up, I found that the sun had quietly dried up all the muddy footprints.
That morning, I stood at the kitchen door, watching my mother frying eggs.
She bent her waist slightly, and gently stirred the pan with a spatula, causing occasional splashes of oil.
The sunlight slanted in through the window and fell on her hair. Her long hair, which was once black and smooth, now stood up frizzily when tied up.
"Mom, you have white hair." I reached out to pull it out as if possessed.
"Forget it," she said without looking up, "pull one and ten will grow."
I was stunned, my fingers hanging in the air.
My mother in my memory loved beauty the most. There were always new dresses hanging in her closet, but I can’t remember how long it had been since she went shopping for new clothes. She always said, “No, I can’t wear them.”
I think those new clothes probably turned into the tutorial books that piled up higher and higher on my desk, and the receipts for cram schools that piled up in my drawer.
My adolescence ended up being a dangerous journey. After many twists and turns, I finally returned to the track that my parents expected.
The sloppily written 59 points on the test paper were ultimately defeated by the fine lines at the corners of my mother's eyes and the cup of always warm tea on my father's desk.
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