Actually I wanted to ask about this for quite a few weeks... (Part III)

Where's our chat box???
What happened to our chat box on the right??? :(

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"Where are you!?"

I panic.

I search desperately upon the sky, trying to find a trace of you. But... you are not there anymore.

"Why?" I asked myself. "Why....."

Who else but myself would know the answer better? Yes, I have entered into a stage of self-denial.

Don't I know best? I am no longer where I was months ago, the place that I treasure.

No one else seems to miss that place much. No one but me. Maybe I am just weird to start with. I believe they call this "an outlier" in academic terms, but who cares. Can you simply put each person into terms or categories? No, you can't. Aren't we all different, and isn't that precisely why human is so special?

But hasn't anyone else noticed how beautiful it was like when they walked along the same path that I walked every night? When you are lucky, you just need to tilt your head slightly up, and there you are. But of course, things were not what you expect all the time. Having cohabited with the British weather for almost 5 years, I know that clear sky is not a certainty.

It's a gift.
And this is life.

I knew right from the start that I couldn't take this for granted. I knew I would have to treasure it, I knew that it didn't come easy, I knew that there is a chance that it will be gone one day, I knew that I may not get to see it everyday, I knew that, I knew all that...

"Don't take things for granted, if not you will only regret that you haven't treasured it enough when it's gone."

Isn't that what adults taught us when we were young? Didn't I follow it? Didn't I treasure it right from the start? Why was it still gone then? Have the adults lied to us?

Maybe that was because I never would have thought that I could find a place like that in this city of 7.5m inhabitants.

I was at various locations before I moved to that fateful place. As any city would have it, the night was always filled with lights. There were no rest from it, you simply can't hide from it.

I couldn't even enjoy a moment of peace from those city lights, looking back, it was almost suffocating.

But did I ever complain back then?

No.

"But why?" You may ask.

"I never thought that I needed that, and I never thought that I would long for that."

I thought I could live without that when I first arrived here, and I had always happened to miss the chance of encountering that in the past years.

In fact, that had never come across my mind.

Not until my previous place.

The majority of the path leading from the station to home was not very well, but still relatively well lit. But once you turn into the small road leading up to the house, it was perfect to me.

Yes.
As you may have guessed, I have fallen in love with it.

Do I have the right to fall in love with it? How much do I know about it? Can I even recite a single constellation?

No.

But does that mean that I cannot be mesmerised by it?
I knew that I like it, isn't that itself more than enough?

It was my very own source of calm, my very own source of happiness. To others, they were just pieces of decoration in the sky. But to me, it was magic.

It has turned into something that I looked forward to.
It has created a reason for me to want to come back every night, instead of staying out late.

It has turned something from a "house" to a "home".

And that is because I like it.

I knew we may part one day. But I tried not to think about it, and every night I tried to secretly hope that we will never part.

It was hard to swallow, but when it has to come, it has to come.

I only have myself to blame for my own weakness, for not even able to protect this secret happiness that I once had.



I am now here, a place filled with street lights again. No matter how neat the street is, no matter how nicely trees are lied up along the streets, it is no longer the same.

I miss it.

Do I ever regret encountering it? No, for the happiness I once had was real. This, is something I will cherish, it is what defines who I am.

It is part of my life.

Some happiness, no matter how much I long for, are just not meant to be for me. They just don't last forever, they just have to end one day, no matter how hard I tried to deny this fact...

It gives me great pain to miss it. But isn't this the very sign that I'm in love with it? The fact that I can love - isn't this something I, or anyone for that matter, should be proud of?

Given the choice to turn time back, will I still want to encounter it?
I am sure you would have guessed my answer by now.

Nothing comes smooth in life, and sometime, you just have to be strong and learn to live with this hollowness and loneliness...

It may take a miracle for our path to cross again, but...