Teenage years...

The railway tracks, I saw, turned into the distance. I know where they are headed to... Hoek van Holland.

A flood of memories washed over me... The ferry to the UK... First time going overseas to study. Seventeen years old. Two large suitcases. Train, ferry, another train to downtown London. How excited I was, but also a little scared. Young, innocent, daring. Perhaps foolish too. The world opened before me, as did the challenges of university, and relationships.

The railway tracks disappeared... Conveyor belt, dad visiting once and taking with him a large vacuum cleaner (coincidentally, I'm carrying with me a vacuum cleaner back to Canada in two days' time), traveling with mum once on board the ferry... Rough seas, seagulls accompanying the ferry, nostalgia, McDonalds on board, fries, doing homework on board. Stena Line. The ferry service has been suspended, probably because of lack of passengers. Who can compete with low budget airlines or the high speed rail? But for those few years, the ferry was a ferry between the country where I grew up, and the country I was studying in. Those days, journeying on the ferry seemed like such an adventure...

Who would have known, a decade later, flying great distances around the world would become a norm of some sorts for me... Memories of mum and dad however are etched in the depths and waves of the rough North Sea...

I managed to get in touch with my former Chinese teacher a few days ago. Every Saturday for over a decade, I would attend a few hours of Mandarin lessons. I hated it, to be honest. I never got good grades, never really studied, rejoiced when it was a weekend without class. And I was an outcast in the class. But the teacher was patient, and cared about me. She not only kept encouraging me, she pushed me and sometimes she would even bring me food, seeing as I was all by myself for two years or so (after brother left to go study...)

I last saw her about five, six years ago, when I was still in the UK studying. Part of the reason was because she was always so zealous about Christianity, which can be off-putting (in this respects, she hasn't really changed...)

She cried when she saw me, cried a few times in the two hours I visited. So much has happened in the last couple of years. Mum, dad, both gone... But I am alright. Relatively alright. Still single, still doing alright in life overall. She is so proud of me, proud of my achievements and remembers clearly I was always so quiet and kept to myself... Those were the reclusive years, and years when I was dealing with the trauma from the past, and also separation from my parents. I was a teenager, a very lonely teen who longed so much for love and affection, but never a troubled one, I don't think. But I pulled through. Pulled through and am still, somehow, amazingly perhaps, smiling. That takes a lot of courage and strength. And despite the pain and loneliness, I am not bitter, at Least I don't think so. Despite all else, i do still appreciate and am grateful for all those who have aided me on the way...

I smiled at the sight of the train tracks disappearing into the distance, toward the port of Hoek van Holland. But the smile hides also a tinge of sadness, at the innocence I have lost over the years, and at the sadness and pain I've had to overcome in recent times.