The farewell song touched people's hearts. Every era has its farewell song, and everyone has a farewell song in their heart that brings tears to their eyes when sung and sadness when heard. A friend said that the farewell song he sang back then was Xu Zhimo's "By Chance": "I am a cloud in the sky, accidentally reflected in your heart's waves—"
The farewell song sounds so light, yet the parting is heavy. We are not necessarily sad for the person who is leaving; sometimes, what makes us sad is the parting itself.
Every meeting has its parting, yet everyone fears parting. We all know that the final parting is death. We say, "All good things must come to an end," but in our hearts, we're reluctant to finish our drinks, wanting to sing one more song, just one more song. Can you please not leave? I'll leave when summer comes.
In early spring this year, his girlfriend told him:
I will leave you when summer comes.
At that time, he thought she was just saying it casually. If she really wanted to leave, there was no reason for her to wait until summer.
When summer came, she really left without saying a word.
He inquired everywhere about her whereabouts. Later, her friend gave him a letter. In the letter, she wrote:
Didn't I say I'd leave you when summer came?
She went to a very faraway place. From now on, she didn't plan to see him again. She had already given him too many chances.
She left, and only then did he realize that when she said she was leaving in the summer, she meant it. They had been together for three years. She loved him deeply, but he had a history of infidelity. Although he eventually returned to her, she didn't know when he would do it again. They often argued about these things. After each argument, their relationship seemed to improve a little. He thought she was just being emotional, that she couldn't bear to leave him and would never actually leave. Now he knew that women have a bottom line.
She always forgave him because he hadn't pushed her to her limit. Women don't tell men where that limit is. That limit might be—he lied to her again. He didn't come home again that night. His kisses were perfunctory. They argued again. They were too tired to argue anymore.
She gave him many chances, but when she reached her bottom line, she despaired and stopped clinging to the past. She chose summer because that's when they met.
When was the last time you cried?
I was reading a book late at night, and the plot moved me so much that I cried as I read. The next morning, I woke up and remembered the story, and I cried again. Not long ago, I asked myself, "When was the last time I cried?" I couldn't remember. It feels like it's been a long time since I last cried.
Thinking back on it today, that story wasn't particularly moving. Perhaps we were just finding an excuse to cry. After a good cry, I suddenly felt refreshed, like taking a walk in the countryside on a cool autumn morning, breathing in fresh air, or like having just finished exercising and losing weight. All the stress and worries were washed away with the tears. It turns out that crying can be beneficial to both body and mind.
When was the last time you cried?
When was the last time you were moved to tears?
Did you cry the last time you argued with your boyfriend? Or have you stopped crying for him altogether?
When was the last time you reflected on your life? Both happy and unhappy people reflect on their lives, so don't feel ashamed for having reflected on your life in the past.
Lately, I've been feeling irritable, short-tempered, and lacking the energy to do anything. I feel like my boyfriend doesn't love me as much as before. Maybe I should find an excuse to have a good cry!
A good cry will make you feel much better. People over eighteen can cry, people over thirty can cry. Even at forty, you can still cry. Crying knows no age. If you really can't cry, just find a man to beat him up! The Shoemaker's Summer
Near my old home lived a shoemaker whose "territory" was a narrow, shabby alley. Year after year, he would sit on a small stool, head bowed, mending worn-out leather shoes for his customers. I don't remember what he looked like, because his face and hands were always dirty. The stench of old leather shoes often wafted from that alley.
On summer nights, the cobbler would take off his shirt and sing while mending shoes. He was from another province, and I couldn't understand what he was singing.
One summer, he won a consolation prize in the lottery, a prize of tens of thousands of dollars. After that, a woman frequently came to him, saying she needed shoes repaired. But most of the time, she would just stand there chatting with him, using her remaining charm to seduce him. He took this woman to restaurants to eat the best food, accompanied her shopping for beautiful clothes, and even took her on a trip to Singapore. She flaunted the gold jewelry he bought her. Later, he had probably spent most of his winnings, and the woman disappeared. He returned to his humble alley to repair his worn-out shoes.
That night, I passed by his old house, specifically to see if he was still mending shoes in that shabby alley. So many years had passed; I thought he was gone. Turns out, he was still there. In the sweltering summer night, he sat on a small stool mending shoes. I recognized his back in the dim light, though much older, it was still him. Perhaps, in his memories, he had experienced love; he had once left that shabby alley, though he eventually returned. Did he hurt you?
A woman was talking about her ex-lovers, saying, "They all hurt me." A man in the room asked her, "How did they hurt you?" She said, "They just hurt me." The man didn't quite understand and asked her again, "How did they hurt you?" The woman, almost angry, pressed her hand to her chest and said, "They just hurt me."
Heartbreak is different from physical injury; there's no single trauma report. Saying a man hurt her doesn't necessarily mean one thing; it's a combination of many things. For example, she had certain expectations of him, which he couldn't meet. On a cold night, she wanted him to see her, but he said he couldn't. When she was down, she wanted him to say a few words of encouragement, but he was stingy with them. When she was happy, she wanted to share it with him, but he couldn't come immediately. These are all forms of hurt.
For example, she works very hard, and everyone praises her, but he says, "You're so lucky." Although she knows he didn't mean it, her heart is still ached. She's pursuing her dreams, and she thought he was the same, but he suddenly says, "Do you still believe in dreams? I didn't expect you to be so naive at your age." That kind of cold sarcasm is a deep wound.
The hurt a man inflicts on a woman isn't necessarily that he falls in love with someone else, but that he disappoints her when she has expectations, fails to support her when she's vulnerable, and is jealous of her when she succeeds. How can I even begin to describe these hurts? Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. Don't wait for me anymore.
When you ask someone, "Do you love me?" or "Do you love me or him?" and they say, "Give me some time!" then they have already given you the answer.
One girl said the man said he would call her within the week, and today was the deadline, but he didn't. He had promised to tell her his decision. He had to choose between her and his ex-girlfriend.
She said, "Does his failure to call mean he has already chosen her?"
That girl is so foolish. A week ago, when he said, "Give me a week to think about it," he had already chosen another woman. He just wanted some time; he simply couldn't bring himself to say the words "break up."
If you love someone, how can there be a time limit? How could you say, "I'll contact you this Sunday, and I'll give you an answer then"? You only procrastinate like this if you don't love someone.
No matter how he says it, whether he says, "I'll contact you in a few days," or "Wait for my call," the meaning is the same. He knows perfectly well that once he sets a deadline, you'll anxiously wait for him day after day, you'll miss him terribly, yet he still wants you to wait. He's willing to let you wait and suffer, so he's essentially saying, "You don't need to wait for me anymore."
Chapter Ten
Novel/tXT|Paradise
Don't care about him
P said that two years ago, when she was in college, she had a close boyfriend. A year before graduation, he said some hurtful things to her. At that moment, she told herself that she had to be strong and prove to him that he was wrong to give up on her. From then on, she studied very hard, and as a result, she became an outstanding student in school, and all the universities she applied to were willing to admit her.
She was incredibly proud of herself; the confidence she had lost that day had returned, and she was no longer a failure. However, she suddenly felt that it was all meaningless. She had worked so hard to show off to the man who had abandoned her; she had always hoped that one day he would return to his alma mater to visit his teachers, and then she could mock him to his face. But he left and never came back; he couldn't see how successful she was now.
So what if he can't see it? When you succeed, whether he can see it or not is no longer important.
The moment we're abandoned by the one we love, we grit our teeth and tell ourselves we must prove ourselves strong; success is the best revenge. And indeed, we live better lives than him. At that moment, our greatest desire is to bump into him on the street, to show him how successful and happy we are now, and to mock him to his face, to make him feel ashamed and regretful. However, after some time, you'll realize how naive this thinking is. If you still care about his opinion, then no matter how successful you are now, you are still a loser. Happiness is revenge.
I enjoy reading stories of women seeking revenge; these stories are usually captivating, dramatic, and poignant. However, I don't enjoy writing revenge stories myself.
It's simply not worth wasting your entire life's happiness and youth on revenge for a past relationship. No matter how much I hate a man, I will never seek revenge against him.
My happiness is the greatest revenge against him.
Instead of wasting time seeking revenge on a bad man, it's better to spend time finding a good one. Finding a good man is the best revenge against a bad one.
It's okay if you can't find a good man. As long as you live a good life and become successful, that's the best revenge against him.
Seeing how successful you are now, he must regret looking down on you back then, thinking you were just an ordinary woman.