A Glass Snail

“In California, my mother had raised me mostly alone. We didn't have many things, but she is warm and we were happy. We moved a lot. We rented. My father was rich and renowned, and later, as I got to know him, went on vacations with him, and then lived with him for a few years, I saw another, more glamorous world. The two sides didn't mix, and I missed one when I had the other. When I left Marco he gave me a gift: a small glass snail. I think it meant that I'd had my home all along: Snails carry
their home with them wherever they go." - Lisa Brennan-Jobs, writer, Apple CEO Steve Job's daughter.

Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vil_sandi/4437550877/sizes/l/

There is a saying from someone, with the idea: by reading, you don't really find new stories, places and people, instead you find yourself. As I read Lisa's, I found myself. I don't have a broken family like she did, but I have two sides that don't mix. I miss one when I have the other.

I used to live with my family back home in Vietnam. My parents are both educators. Our family was not wealthy; which means that I didn't get toys, travels, or anything as the reward for any of my good schoolwork. Honestly, that is a bad thing – I was a curious kid (and I will always be). Instead, my father would reward me by taking me to used-book shops or street-side book sales on Sunday evenings, once a month. He would guide and let me choose the books that I liked to have. Coming back home with a stack of old books, I felt like nothing even comes close to that experience in this world. I would sit at home and read all of them during the following weeks.

Now I'm far from home – now I have traveled half way around the world and am currently attending school here in Missouri. I make money on my own, so it's much easier for me to afford “toys” for big kids: computers, laptops, cameras, game consoles... I also have freedom to decide things on my own. I have new, good, true friends. I can't say that I'm not happy for what I have. But there is a new black hole in my mind. While I have found new ways to
explore my life, and I have found places that I love; in nowhere including my old home do I have the firm feeling that it's really the place that I want to settle down. I always have the feeling of moving to somewhere else after some time.

I will never experience the life that I used to have no matter what happens. I wonder what life is all about. To me, it is a bunch of choices those sometimes don't mix together very well. I have made a choice to go far away from home. I don't know if it's even a smart choice, because I don't know what would have happened otherwise. I might as well make choices in the future, to move to somewhere else. Each of us has only one life and it doesn't sound very convincing to me that we are living in a parallel universe, or we could somehow reverse what we have chosen. I wish I was a snail, who can bring the home along the way.