I’ve had the song 姊妹仔 by Wonfu on repeat lately. I also finally opened my blog feed again after a long gap. It was quiet — probably because everyone was still in holiday mode, and many people hadn’t posted anything new. Life seems to move like that: not much changes on the surface, but something shifts quietly underneath.
The days have been so ordinary that when I open a blank page I don’t know what to say. I end up writing about the same people and the same things — what I like, what I hate — and I’ve already said most of it more than once. Even my original reason for keeping a record has changed. I can sit down with every intention of writing about how I feel, and then I think, I’ll do it tomorrow, and that’s the end of it.
A fading urge to express myself isn’t necessarily bad. I’ve realized that telling a friend immediately can be just as good, maybe better. My mood adjusts right away instead of sitting inside me for days. At the start of 2025 I was going to work steadily, and then I fell out with my boss. I rarely clash with people outside my own circle, but this time I wanted to be myself, just once. I already knew that my petty boss would find some way to make things difficult once another colleague came back. Somehow I got through that month without disaster, and then I was counting down to the last day before the holiday, when I could go home for Chinese New Year.
I was waiting for my cousin’s wedding. He is the first of our generation to get married. Weddings are a lot of work. We said we were there to help, but really the younger cousins used the opportunity to run around and play together again. None of us are children anymore — the youngest is already twenty. My parents didn’t pressure me about marriage. They just laughed and said I could bring a boyfriend home next year. My older brother has started looking into blind dates. Everyone seemed to be living inside a happy atmosphere.
On the first day back at work, HR told me the company was adjusting positions. The meaning was clear: they wanted me to transfer. I refused immediately. Leaders like that are tiresome. They want to make an employee’s life difficult but can’t find a decent way to do it. So I negotiated with the company for resignation compensation. A company can look polished on the outside while squeezing every drop of value out of its employees on the inside. During the negotiation they wouldn’t give an inch, and it was genuinely disgusting — an incompetent leader who didn’t understand the law, and HR muddling along with him. After several rounds, we barely reached something close to what I had in mind.
I also caught a bad cold right after I got back, which made the whole thing more exhausting. Fortunately, I had been preparing for this kind of situation, so I wasn’t caught completely off guard. The first rule of negotiation, I think, is to be more shameless than your opponent. Friends of mine who work in law urged me to fight for my rights. Their point was that if even I didn’t fight, colleagues who don’t know the law would feel even more hopeless. I understood that. But my ability only goes so far. I stayed as calm as I could and argued with reason, but when you’re facing someone who keeps trying to dodge the law, it’s hard to get anywhere. My mindset was all right: as long as I got what I expected, that was enough. As an adult, before making any decision, I should already know what I might lose. I have to learn to hold firmly to what I can still get.
After resigning, I planned to rest for half a month, finish all the loose ends, and give myself some buffer time. But sending out résumés kept adding extra work. For me, not stopping and having a place to stay is already good enough. After the New Year, my mindset changed a lot. I know where that change came from, but all I can say is: that’s life. You keep finding work to support yourself, and then you can do some of the things you like. No outside force can be borrowed. Only now do I understand what my high school teacher meant by Heaven helps those who help themselves.
Fortunately, I still have things I like, and they keep me going. If I could let go of the restraints family puts on me, along with the pressure of gossip, I think I could live more as myself. But I still need to lower my desires, keep making peace with myself and with life, not cross my own bottom line, and let other people bustle on as they please.