My newest novel, The Scent of the Orchid in a Forest of Secrets (SOFS), or 密林兰香 is out in full on Wattpad! Check it out here!
When Birds Sing
I'm doing the one thing I should not be doing while practicing piano: checking my phone. It's basically a reflex, the way my hand reaches to the top of the piano to grab my phone when I stop playing. Perhaps it's because I'm feeling bored, picking at the same details in the same piece, over and over again. Perhaps it's to stave off the feeling of anxiety that seems to get worse the more I practice for my audition. My back hunches as I lean over my phone, facing away from where the kitchen connects to the living room. Outside, the sky has already gotten dark, the nighttime starting to encroach more and more on what used to be the time of day during the summer. Likewise, the birdsong has also been quietly silenced due to the impending frigid winter. My leg jiggles and bounces on the black piano bench.
It was only a few months before, at a small recital like any other. I had started playing my recital piece just as I had started countless times before, but as I got close to the end, I just couldn't continue. The music that had been stored soundly in my memory, in my fingers, had suddenly disappeared. I was left there in the oppressive, waiting, expecting silence, as silent as a forest devoid of life in the dead of winter, punctured by my occasional random notes at the piano as I tried my best to find my place in the piece again, each valiant effort at recreating and propping up the collapsing melody, the notes slipping away into silence like wisps of disappearing smoke from between my fingers. My heartbeat quickened, jumping in my throat, my hands trembled, and I felt an overwhelming urge to shrink into a ball and disappear into a hole in the ground.
When I finally finished my performance and the recital was over, my piano teacher came over to speak words of empty comfort, "I think only the other piano teacher could tell that you forgot your music." I mustered a smile, trying to suppress the trembling of my bottom lip. It had only been one of the many recitals of late during which my brain inconveniently froze up when I needed it to function the most, no matter how much I practiced beforehand. It was a late-onset bout of stage fright that had been suppressed all my youth, yet emerged to sink its claws into me in my adolescence. When it came time to sign up for auditions to play chamber music, I had told myself I would be able to get over my stage fright. As my leg continues to shake with increasing frequency, I'm not so convinced anymore.
I take my fifth practice break in a row, pulling up my messages and beginning to text. On a fleeting whim, a small sliver of truth I'd never wanted to acknowledge slips out of its locked cabinet in the back of my mind. "I'm scared," I tell my friend on the other side of the line. But then I curl back in my shell, trying to push back the emerging realization in my heart, and I send a series of messages trying to lighten the mood and put my phone down, starting to practice again. After a few moments, I can't resist picking it back up, but before I read a single message, I put my phone down again. I play another segment of my piece, pick at a couple of details, and my fingers itch to pick my phone up again. Part of me wants to read the messages, and the pit of my stomach burns, butterfly wings chafing against soft skin.
Half an hour later, I finally open up my messages. Inside are reassurances, long paragraphs of explanations of what happens at auditions and encouraging words that I hadn't realized I was looking for when those few words of truth had finally wormed their way out of my stomach, where they usually stay to rot. I'm going to be okay, my friend assures me. Those words on my phone screen are like a little knock on the window, one that interrupts my spiraling descent, briefly putting my thoughts and worries on pause long enough for me to be able to notice the chirping of the birds. My eyes burn a little, and I sniffle. I haven't forgotten about my stage fright, but my heart settles back down into its place in my chest. Inside my head, for a brief moment—as fleeting as that moment when you catch a fragment of the melody that someone's playing from a practice room down the hall that you swear you've heard somewhere else until the impression slips away from you as if it had never been there before—I hear my piece the way I want it to sound, as melodic and as smooth as the birds that sing the songs they are born to sing.
The next Monday, I make it to my audition a few minutes early. The big room is almost empty, save for a long, bumpy plastic table, surrounded by some chairs, and the piano, elevated a foot or so above the ground, its isolation in the room naturally drawing the eye. The lady listening to my audition greets me, and I answer her questions on autopilot, an awkward smile pressed into my lips, but I'm not really listening, a ringing like the sound of a scratched record echoing in my ears. After a few more questions and social niceties, I sit down on the black leather piano seat. I adjust myself, once, and then twice. My fingers find their spots on the piano, and I double check, once, and then twice. I force my legs to still, and I glance over at the lady judging my audition. She smiles, "whenever you're ready."
I don't feel ready, but at the same time, I want to get this over with. For a brief moment, the room is silent, a dead forest, devoid of the joyful chirping of a single bird, and the pressure of filling that silence starts to loom over me. Willing myself not to think too hard, my fingers begin pressing down on the piano. My head is in a fog, trying not to overthink the notes beneath my fingers lest I break my concentration and the fragile flow of the music. My muscle memory is the only thing dragging me along as I try to empty my mind of all thoughts that might trigger a chain reaction and stir up the blind panic just waiting to erupt within me.
But in the middle of the fog, I hear something—I hear my own music, my own playing. I hear the singing of the piano, the warmth and softness of the notes that vibrate out into the big, empty room, and for the first time, I let my fingers dig into the keys, coaxing out the natural rise and fall of the music. Something light washes over me, reminding me of the feeling of waking up on the first day of spring break to the song of a bird perched on the tree outside my bedroom window at the slightly chilly dawn—something relieving, something relaxing, something as carefree as that bird as it launches itself into the skies, disappearing in the gray darkness that, after a long night, has finally been touched by the warmth of the sun.
After the audition is over, I pull out my phone and begin texting. My friend was right. I'm going to be okay.
The Dance Disaster
I squeezed my cold hands between my knees, taking a deep breath to dispel the light fluttering of nervousness that made my breathing shallow. I leaned my head against the cool window and tried to ignore the twisting feeling in my gut.
My mother glanced back through the rearview mirror from her seat behind the wheel. "What's up, Serafina?"
It had only been the first combination of the first class when Mr. Crassus began his barrage of criticism, about my toe point, my extension, my turnout, telling me I wasn't trying when in reality I was pouring all of my energy into that one stupid balance at the bar. It was as if he disliked me—no, that was exactly the matter. He disliked me because of my poor skill—I was abruptly moved from the intermediate class to the advanced class because it was a "better fit", but I doubted the truth of the words.
"Nothing." I responded, and resumed my rumination.
***
As I put on my ballet shoes, I couldn't help but feel judgment weigh on my back, as if stares bored into them, analyzing the fit of my leotard, my tights, the wrap of my skirt around my waist. I stood next to Isabelle in the corner, apart from all of the other chattering girls as we waited to enter the studio. My hands repeatedly rolled and unrolled the edge of my skirt. I had not noticed that Isabelle did the same.
The moment pliés started, Mr. Crassus looked at me as if he was involuntarily looking at all of my flaws at once. "Why is your back always slouched? Stop acting as if your mother just died and straighten your back."
During tendus in fifth, "you're not trying hard enough, Serafina. I want to see you put in more effort."
During frappés, "keep up, Serafina! Get the feet right!" But the combination was so long, and the feet so complicated and quick, that as I struggled to keep up, I couldn't help but surreptitiously glance around to see if I was being watched. My cheeks were beginning to feel a little hot.
I looked down and tried to copy from the person in front of me, but then everyone turned on the barre, and I met someone's gaze. Her blank look laced with surprise seemed to question without words: what are you doing? What are you doing here, in this class?
I fumbled to turn around and continued desperately copying, all of these movements that Mr. Crassus had shown a moment before suddenly so foreign, as if I'd never seen them in my entire life.
"Keep up!" I heard Mr. Crassus shout again over the music, sounding greatly annoyed, and I bit my lip, fighting back tears of humiliation. My calves burned and my arm was held stiffly at the side instead of the graceful curve of almost everyone else's arms. I was too wound up in my own struggles to see the sweat that lined the foreheads of others, like Isabelle, and the shaking of their legs from the effort they were putting in.
After barre and the center, we began doing combinations across the floor. Nearing the end of a combo, my legs gave out, and I tumbled to the floor with an ungraceful, loud thump. The people behind me came to a stop abruptly, and I heard a shout from Mr. Crassus.
"Get up! Keep going!" He shouted, seemingly angry, but I simply couldn't, feeling uncoordinated and shaky, my bottom lip starting to tremble.
When I still didn't get to my feet, Mr. Crassus stopped the music, leaving the studio in silence. Someone held me by my arm and helped me up.
"Let go of her, it's not like she's dead." Mr. Crassus snapped. "Keep going."
At this, I burst into tears. The details of how I made it out of the studio while my vision was blurry with tears were unclear, but I remembered Mr. Crassus's voice coming from the doorway. "Isabelle, leave Serafina alone and come back to class."
After a few moments, I heard the music start again, and the class continued without me.
By the time class was over, I'd calmed down, the only evidence left of my tears my puffy eyes and red nose. I turned away sullenly when everyone filed out of the studio, checking my phone and praying that my mother would arrive sooner so I could get away from this horrible place.
Mr. Crassus came out of the studio, sitting down next to me. "What's the problem, Serafina?"
My lips were pressed together glumly, but I said on impulse, "I feel like I don't belong in this class."
Mr. Crassus raised his eyebrows as if he was condescending to speak on this subject with me and leaned back with a sigh. It was as if he was patronizing a dumb child, and it made my cheeks flush before he even spoke. "Well, you don't."
I stood up abruptly at this, my face reddening. "Well..." I grew more frustrated when suitable words to express myself refused to come to mind. "You never liked me anyway!"
I turned on my heel and was about to storm out of the building, but Mr. Crassus spoke before I could leave. "What makes you think you're special?"
I looked back at him with a distrustful air.
"Look at Isabelle. You're not the only person who switched in from an intermediate class—she did, too. And she's struggling, like you are. The change between the intermediate and advanced ballet classes is quite large. Things become a lot more difficult in the advanced class. I've given her just as much criticism as I have given you, and she's been working just as hard, if not harder than you. How come, then, she has the space in her heart to treat you kindly, while all you can do is mope around in self pity?" Mr. Crassus's severe, almost scolding expression made me want to shrink into myself, but also stirred up a feeling of blind and petty rebellion inside of me.
"I don't—" I was about to say, but he wasn't there to listen to me talk.
"Back in my day, classes were far more difficult than I'm making your classes now. My teachers were so strict, it was normal that a few kids would end class in tears. But look what happened to all of the kids in my class. Two of them are world class dancers, and many of them have ended up as skilled, talented dancers in famous dance companies." He huffed slightly. "It's a shame that the talent in that class didn't quite rub off on me, for now I'm stuck teaching useless fifteen year olds. But it was with this harsh training that everyone in my class, and if I dare say, myself included, became great dancers, and this harsh training is something that I've been giving this class as well."
I wanted to protest that there was a difference between his teachers training them harshly and him being mean, but my spirit of petty rebellion was starting to weaken at his words.
"If you can't handle the pressure, feel free to return to your itty bitty, comfortable intermediate class. No one is stopping you." Mr. Crassus said dismissively. "But is that really something you want to do?"
I didn't know what to say. Mr. Crassus got up and left, as if completely uncaring of what my decision would be. When my phone rang with my mother's call, I realized that when he had told me to get up, to keep dancing, it hadn't been him being angry with me. He had been encouraging me to go on.
I climbed into the car, pensive and completely silent.
My mother twisted around and looked at me from the driver's seat. She didn't comment on my obvious tear tracks and swollen eyes, only asking, almost nonchalantly, "what's up, Serafina?"
I turned to look out the window, feeling the crease between my eyebrows that had been there for days slowly start to unfurl, like the petals of a baby flower blossom. "Nothing."
How to Learn to Speak
When Hannah pushed open the doors of the dance studio on the first day of dance camp, she was greeted by lively calls of her name in greeting. They were almost friendly, but not quite, backed by smiles that were a little too bright, a little too wide to be genuine.
Hannah's mouth twitched in an attempt of a smile in return and she ducked her head as she squeezed her way past the crowd so she could put her bag down.
"Did you get a new black leotard? It looks so pretty! Oh my gosh, you have to tell me where you're getting your dance gear." Felice was the one who smiled the widest, whose voice shone the most.
Hannah smoothed her hair back while putting down her bag. She said nothing. After all, it was the same leotard she'd been wearing for a year already. She couldn't possibly say that.
"Hey, what's that new scrunchie that you got?" Felice chirped. "Can I take a look at it?"
Hannah hesitated, then took the scrunchie off, smoothing back her hair again, even though there weren't any wisps of hair hanging out of her neat and orderly bun. She handed the scrunchie to Felice.
Felice peered closely at it, unable to mask the transition from her initial excitement to disappointment. "Oh, someone got it dirty." She said, a hint of biting disdain underneath her words. Hannah lowered her head, not saying anything. The stain on the scrunchie had been left behind by her mother's frail, dusty hands, dirty because she hadn't been able to get out of bed for several days now.
"Girl, throw it out, I can get you something much better." Without waiting for a reply, Felice tossed it behind her without a care. It landed next to the trash can. Hannah stared behind her at the scrunchie, but she couldn't bring herself to say a word. The scrunchie had been a gift from her mother. Hannah had been able to tell how much her mother cherished it as she'd told Hannah over and over to keep it safe. Hannah could almost imagine the weight of the memories in it, filling the light, gauze-like material with the weight of time.
The door clattered again. Everyone's heads swiveled around, and after hearing a longer than normal silence, Hannah turned around too. She saw an unfamiliar girl walk through the door, wearing a slightly nervous but excited grin.
"Hi guys!" She waved, an almost jittery energy about her. "I'm back for the summer!"
There were no waves back, no reaction except for stunned, almost hostile eyes. The unfamiliar girl continued to smile and showed everyone a box.
"I brought some chocolates for everyone. Felice, I remember you like milk chocolate, I picked some good ones for you."
Felice cleared her throat slightly. "I'm on a diet right now," she excused herself vaguely, saying she needed to go to the bathroom. When the unfamiliar girl offered the box of chocolates to everyone else, they all refused in one way or another, wandering off, clearly unwilling to stay by the unfamiliar girl's vicinity for too long, lest someone misunderstand and think that they were on this girl's side.
Hannah was the last person left. The unfamiliar girl's smile seemed to be fading a little, but she mustered herself up and offered the box to Hannah.
"You want one?"
Hannah looked down at the open box in the unfamiliar girl's hand. Usually, she didn't eat chocolates because Felice would usually warn her to watch what she was eating, but something about the way that the unfamiliar girl's smile had faltered and then been forcibly pasted on caused her to nod quietly and take a random piece. Felice wasn't there to say anything, anyway.
"Thanks." Hannah said, her voice quiet.
The unfamiliar girl's eyes seemed to light up a little. "What's your name? I don't remember seeing you around last year."
"I'm Hannah."
"Tasha."
***
Hannah's forehead beaded with sweat as she trudged out of the studio, all of the other girls chattering amongst themselves. Tasha approached the circle of girls.
"I thought they might be able to fix the air conditioning after a whole year and that grand prize we won last year, but apparently they're still too broke. I feel like I'm going to suffocate to death," Tasha said jokingly.
Everyone looked at her, their conversation drifting into silence. Someone grunted, and they continued talking.
"How have you guys been doing in high school?" Tasha asked again, but everyone pretended not to hear. She seemed confused for a few moments, then she pressed her lips together and walked away, sliding down the wall to sit down off to the side by herself. When Tasha passed by her, Hannah tried to give her a weak smile.
Seeing that she'd gone, one of the girls tapped on Felice's shoulder. "Hey, who is that? Why are we all ignoring her?"
Felice turned to the girl who'd asked the question and beckoned everyone to lean in closer in a show of secrecy. "You came after she left, so you wouldn't know. She was originally supposed to stay with our dance company throughout high school, but then she suddenly announced that she was going to be going to this private, elite boarding school, and ditched us all. I don't know why she's come back for summer training. She might as well stay at her little elite boarding school and continue to train with her elite teachers." She said, not making all that much of an effort to lower her voice. Her tone presented polite and bewildered confusion, but there was a hostile glint in her eyes.
***
Hannah had been dragged into a clump of fellow dancers sitting in the only cool, air-conditioned corner of the dressing room. She, as she'd passed by, had seen Tasha continuing to review the choreography in the studio. One of the older girls passed by their clump, and Felice waved at her excitedly.
"Hey! I love your skirt, by the way!"
"Hey, Felicity." The older girl said coolly with a short nod, unaware that her mistake of Felice's name buried a prick in her heart. Everyone lowered their heads and didn't say anything, fearing Felice's snappy comments if they poked her soft spot: trying to win the attention and approval of the older girls.
Hannah watched wordlessly instead of paying attention to the hesitantly resumed conversation as Tasha continued to practice, working through a particularly difficult part in the choreography. The older girl who had just passed by them glanced through the propped-open studio door and watched for a few moments.
"Hey, kid, come over." She beckoned Tasha. Tasha hesitated, then obeyed. "You're Tasha, right? I heard you went to a really good boarding school for dance. Good for you. How come you're back?"
"It's just for the summer. I missed all the girls in my class, so I wanted to come back and visit." Tasha explained shortly with a slightly flushed smile.
"Oh? Then why are you practicing here all alone?" The older girl was unfazed by the obviously fibbed truth.
"I..." Tasha didn't know what to say next, but the older girl didn't make things too difficult for her.
"You know, girls tend to get stuck up at this age. If you're unable to get along with them, don't worry. You can come hang out with us."
Tasha quickly moved to turn down the offer. "No, no, I couldn't, I'm just one of the junior company kids, I couldn't really intrude."
"You're good enough to get into the senior company, even if you're not old enough. Don't worry, I won't let you suffer with us. They're all cool, anyways."
Tasha smiled widely. Hannah blinked, watching how Tasha stood up even under the weight of the judgment of Felice and all of the other girls.
Felice had watched the entire exchange with wide eyes, and she almost seemed to flinch when the older girl patted Tasha on the back and smiled slightly before walking away.
"What the hell? How could one of the senior company possibly even want to look at a bitch like Tasha?" Felice said uncontrollably, glowering in her direction. Everyone else glanced at each other and made noncommittal grunts. Felice turned back to face the group, leaning forward slightly as if to gossip.
"Is it possible that she learned some techniques for sucking up at that stupid elite boarding school of hers? I bet she thinks she's all that much better than us." Felice muttered angrily. "She can't even remember choreography correctly. She's doing that whole middle segment off count."
"You know, I heard that her parents are really rich. They're, like, CFOs of investment firms or something. Maybe..." Another girl chimed in, trailing off suggestively.
Felice snorted. "Just as I thought. That bitch couldn't get in based on her own talents, and her parents bribed to get her in."
There was a moment of silence, and after some hesitation, Hannah spoke. "Tasha has talent. I've only seen her dance for a day, but I can see that, and I think you guys can see that too. There's no reason this boarding school couldn't have accepted her for her talents." She said, her breath stuck in her throat after she spoke.
Felice stood up, looking incredulous. "Why are you defending her? You don't even know her. I've treated you well all this time and you just go and defend an outsider?"
Hannah stood up to back away from Felice's advance. Something clattered out of her pocket and landed on the floor.
"Is that one of that bitch's chocolates? Why did you take it? Throw it away later, I can get you chocolate much better than that."
Hannah quickly bent over and picked it up, putting it in her pocket, and didn't speak again.
At the end of the day, Hannah glanced side to side surreptitiously, and when she passed the trash can, she kept that chocolate deep in her pockets. Instead, she bent down and picked up her scrunchie, which had still been sitting next to the trash can.
When she got in the car, Hannah unwrapped the chocolate she had buried deep in her pocket and took a bite. Her father glanced at her through the rearview mirror.
"Where did you get that chocolate from?" He asked offhandedly. "I don't think I've seen you eat chocolate a lot. I thought you didn't like it."
"It was someone from dance."
"Oh? One of your dance friends? Which one?"
"Not them." Hannah replied. "A real one."
My Fake Infatuation
She, technically speaking, was a first for me. The hot summer after my seventh grade year, in the barely air-conditioned Waltham dance studio, provided the backdrop to my first crush on a girl after coming to terms with my sexuality.
She leaned back on her hands and her legs extended in front of her, unapologetically taking up space while neatly but lazily crossed, with an air of elegance and the type of confidence that tricks everyone into thinking it comes easily and leaves people in awe. She wore a crop top with a dappled blue-gray pattern, a pair of athletic shorts, and a thin, sheer black sleeveless shirt over the crop top. I probably already knew that day that whenever I looked at her, I saw another girl, not her, who wore a dappled blue-gray swimsuit underneath black athletic shorts, with a pair of plastic-framed glasses, a kind grin, and hands that "looked like salami" after doing headstands. Who I saw, if it bears repeating, was not actually her. And yet, I let the ill-advised infatuation blossom nonetheless.
My infatuation was like a short-lived, spectacularly burning fire that was beautiful enough to shake the heavens but at the same time was a cause for shame, for hiding. It was ignited out of nothing, out of nowhere, and lived much more ferociously and passionately than I'd ever expected. It consumed my thoughts and caused my brain to think about her, and then to think and then think and then think again. It created something that possessed me with a strong, maddening desire to unveil and shout it to the world and, at the same time, to snuff it out, to choke it to death with my bare hands, stamping it out vigorously and savagely and never letting it see a sliver of daylight. But, nonetheless, something born from nothing was, at the end of the day, nothing, and after summer concluded, it died down and left only ashes behind. Still, it branded a spectacular scar on my heart, making me swear an oath that I would never forget its ill-lived existence. Never once, though, during its time did I dare to speak a word of it. It was born in silence, suffered in silence, and also died in silence.
It was ill-lived not only because of the words I'd been too afraid to say, but also because it had been a mistake to like her in the first place. The mistake I had made was to take her for someone else whom I'd liked before, whom I'll call my old friend. Likewise, my brain filled in what I couldn't see underneath her face mask with my old friend's face. Therefore, it came as quite a startling surprise when I saw her real face for the first time, over Zoom, on a day when the rain fell in torrents, as if determined to stir up a flood and drown us all, when the wind blew wildly and without restraint, threatening to cut my connection to the Internet at any moment.
This must've been the start of my realization at the time that I, perhaps, from the beginning, had not liked her, but rather the shadow of my old friend I saw in her. In short, I liked my idea of her, not her at all. It was, needless to say, quite unfair of me to expect her to be like my old friend, or to use her as a replacement.
However, to like (or dislike) one's idea of someone else as I did isn't, actually, all that uncommon. In contrast, one of my favorite stories from Chinese legends is the story of the zhiyin (知音), which describes two people whom Westerners may describe as soulmates. One of them is a master of the guqin, an ancient Chinese instrument, and the other is the only one in the world who truly understands his playing. After the guqin master's friend's death, the guqin master smashed his instrument and swore never to play again, for there was no one else in the world worth playing for now that his good friend was dead.
The people we meet in this fleeting lifetime cannot be counted, and we will become friends with only a precious few, and such a connection of mutual deep understanding, if possible, is even rarer. Most people we meet we only have a shallow understanding of, and when talking about them and thinking about them we reference our idea of them, which oftentimes is nothing close to how they actually are. How many people, then, in this life, will we judge and misjudge without understanding, at all?
The Benefit of a Second Chamce
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I was in fifth grade the first time I realized that people dislike me. Perhaps, before then, I was aware of the fact that people disliked me, but it'd always seemed fake, like a mirage, or a dream you could've sworn you had a couple of days ago, an image implanted in your brain but you can't recall where it came from. It just didn't seem real.
I was in fifth grade when I'd first realized that people were talking about me behind my back. I don't remember exactly how it is that I realized this fact, but once I knew it, I couldn't let it go, and despite my better judgment, I wanted to know exactly what they were saying. Perhaps this was so I could convince myself that what they were saying was fake, that they were lying, and so, I asked.
They were calling me a control freak.
This hit me in a strange way, something that even now I can't really understand and interpret. At the time, I'd convinced myself that I didn't care, that they were in the wrong, that they were overexaggerating and taking everything too seriously. But then, the questions arose, invading my front of security and confidence: what if they were right? What if there was truth to their labels? What if I really was a control freak?
And then the next natural question was: Was being a control freak a bad thing? Was there something wrong with me? The word choice, the tone of the words, they all implied something undesirable, something nasty and ugly. Control freaks, from what I understood, were selfish, harsh, mean. Those were all bad traits. And then, if I embodied a bad trait, did that mean that I, in myself, as a person, was bad? What made a person bad? Where was I on that spectrum?
Those words had changed something inside of me. When I could put my finger on what it was that made people hate me, once I had the reasons, I began to believe them. People like to believe that they're good people, that they're making a difference. When that illusion of myself shattered, I was lost. I didn't know how to deal with it. I hadn't realized how vulnerable my sense of self was until the one core thing I'd believed about myself up to the point was taken away, like the floor had been snatched away underneath my feet. All the pieces of myself I thought I'd figured out became shadows, ghosts, wisps of fog that I could never grasp at long enough to put them back together, and therefore put myself back together.
In reflection, what I wish most relating to that moment was not that I'd never heard those words at all, but rather that those people had given me the benefit of the doubt. Instead of jumping to conclusions and seeing my decisiveness and my bossiness and my push for organization and labeling me a control freak, I wish they'd tried to believe otherwise, to attempt to see me in a better light.
And so, over time, I've started to try to empathize with and understand others, and pick out the light within the dark. I've tried to identify how and where they are just like other people, and therefore, perfectly human. From that incident, I tried to bring away the lesson of patience and kindness and give it where it's lacking.
This is why I give chances to people whom others judge to be bad. This is why I wait so long to pass judgment when all the data seems to be aligned and pointing towards one direction. This is why I try again and again with people. It is my obligation to give others what I hadn't been given before.
This I believe.