累了，想走了

最近在追再见爱人。真挚的爱情，叫人感动，也叫人羡慕。即使他们出现在在这个节目中，是因为他们的爱情里遇到了阻碍，面临分手危机， 他们记忆里的，曾经拥有的甜蜜瞬间，分享给观众的时候，隔着屏幕，甜蜜或温暖依然异常动人。

远离家乡的我，独自和我的小黑（我家爱咪）住在离工作很近的地方。而他却远在500公里以外的树林里，离他工作近的地方。追剧的同时，也会回头看看我们的故事。

如果要我回忆我们的过往，记忆中充满了伤害，心痛，还有我的抑郁时刻，和那些最无助失望的瞬间，好像都和他有关。也许，是我的内心是悲观的，也或许他在我的世界里留下了不可抹去的伤痕，叫我至今难以释怀。

我们在一起的这些年，最让我感到安慰的是，近几年所有的节假日，我们是共同度过的。这样我不会在同事面前没有故事可以分享，这样我也不会在工作环境中暴露惨不忍睹的，寂寞孤独的生活状态。

就在即将步入中年危机的年龄，我很困惑自己的状态，首先想不明白为什么我在离开父母千里之外的这里，独自住在这么个地方，沉浸在寂寞里，和一个伤害过自己的人在一起。似乎我已经没有能力再把心打开，让它再次跳动。也许我也提不起劲来和他组建家庭，也许我们也永远无法迎来我们的孩子。与此同时，我无法令我的父母感到骄傲，反而令他们感到失望。

何去何从？不知道。真累。

想离开这里，一走了之。

Reflections

1- I love sun and day light.

Each morning, I get out of the bed, open all curtains in my apartment  so that maximum light can flow into the room.

Each afternoon, especially the days as early winter time, almost at once, when people can easily peeped in my room from the street, I close the curtains next to me, turn on the warm light in the room.

I love sun light and the energy from the brightness. It brings me energy and happiness even hopes. Once it turns to dark, I feel safer to block my space from the outside world.

2-A little girl in my soul

During my adolescence period, I started to thinking a lot about the meaning of life, enjoy analyzing family members or friends around me. I got some conclusions about the “truth of life” or “essences” of others.  For quite many years, I was proud of my capability of analysis, the maturity I reached at that age.

Lately, I suddenly found out, my state of mind has never left the years of high school age. It has been proven over and over again in all corners of my life, without catching my own attention. For example, I still love Disney toys just like a little girl, although I did not grow up with Disney cartoons. I still love the feelings as a high school young lady. I have secretly kept that status of mind since that time. From this, I could say I have refused to grow up deep inside of me. And I used a mindset to cover it from the world, that age is not a big deal. That maybe is why many people around me has identified me as a newly graduate. As a person who has entered into labor market for over 10 years, I felt embarrassed even offended. Since I have such awareness of immaturity of myself, i start to tell myself that maybe it is because I have released so much real me unconsciously to the world, as a never grown up high school girl.  I have cheated myself for a long time.

I have to admit,  I have a young soul inside of me.  No need to explain to others or feel sad once other treat me like a kid, because I deserve it.

Cycle of experience and self reflection

It has been long since I have updated anything here….

Lately, I have attended a training course about self awareness, where I was introduced a theory called cycle of experience. It is an interesting summary of why we react or not react on our needs in life. After the training, I give myself a task to use this theory to look at my own life experience and reflect on it, digging out what stops me to react or not react on my own needs. By doing that, I see it as a self analysis and awareness, so that I can work on my challenges in life.

I have a feeling that the reflection can be really tough, heavy and maybe scary to do . Because it can be hard to look into one’s real feelings honestly, at least for myself. However, I think it is an essential way to face myself, good or bad, accept who I am and use the knowledge to be a better person.

What I come up with as a reflection tool is to write diary. Through daily life, from work or private life, to tell how I feel and find out the cause of my feelings.

Family picture in dream

“Do you want a family?”

“yes. ”

“what is a family picture in your dream?”

“I remember the memorable moments with my kids and ex-wife.”

“my family picture in my dream is have all family members live together. Day on and off as a normal family. Raise my kids with my husband and grow up with my kids.”

“from my experince, no one want the kids when they flip into a small devil. You would pay for giving them away. What I learned from my last marriage is that try to create memorable moments as much as possible. Focus on my wife, do not let the kids to take over the marriage life.”

” so your divorce was due to marriage life occupied by your kids?”

” no, my ex complained that she didn’t feel safe in the marriage because I worked abroad alot. ”

” so your ex didn’t like your work abroad, why did you do that? ”

” I didn’t fit into Swedish company environment, I feel more comfortable in international company then I grow. Never give up your dream because of your family. Most of the people regret that they did not realize the dream because of their families”

“but you followed your dreams then you lost your family in the end”

“so I think the focus to my wife is the key. To create memorable moments for the families. ”

“how to create the memorable moments to your families? Being with your family is not memorable moments creation, is it? ”

“I don’t remember daily repeating routine life. I remember we went to fishing and bla bla bla(life story). That is memorable moments for me. ”

“I don’t agree with you. I think it is sweet to do the life routine with my families. I feel sweet and satisfying just doing daily repeating things for my husband and kids. Even my kids will grow into somebody evil and no way to deal with. That’s life. It is what I want to experience. For me, being together is the core of family. I don’t see i and my family should be separated and only have memorable moments”

Talking to a wall is like that. When 2 persons have very different view on life, even totally opposite, the conversation just like a duck talks to a chicken. They shouts aloud but don’t understand each other a single word. Worthless discussion.

Sometimes

Sometimes, I am still naively dreaming about meeting nice people. They are nice, warm, inviting to me. Talk to me, invite me to their life, making me smile and experience heart warming time. However, in real life, I am just one of the strangers for others, who keeping the distance with me, hold a suspicious heart from the beginning of our relationship, and most probably keep the distance and doubt to the end. I am disappointed very often in such a cold and snowy winter. I am easily touched and warmed by a simple greeting or friendly gesture.

I am just too naive to accept the reality.

Cold…

Dec 2018

It was so nice to meet Teo again, after almost 1 year. She looks more glowing and shining than last time.

We met for lunch. I was tired because of early up but meeting old friend made me excited. Teo was as easy-going as always. We could catch up the topic quite fast beginning with our relationship status. Teo told me she was dating a Portuguese guy, perfectly matching her background. Her study went well after 1 year struggle. This is the reason for her mysterious glow.

Our conversation moved on and on. I felt the time flying with my friend especially when we complained on Swedes. That moment, I felt someone agreed with me. We shared some common opinions.

As a foreigner, I feel myself to be odd from the environment very often. Since my study period in the university, it has been always an issue to me. The situation was improved from the time I started to work. in Swedish companies. Because of being accepted by different employers, I thought I have adapted to this cold Nordic culture successfully. Unfortunately I am wrong.

Not long time ago, I was hired by a new employer, out of a hundred of competitors. I was proud of myself to be picked. They hire me not because of my Chinese background, but equally comparing to all the applicants from everywhere. From the first month of employment, the pride of this famous employer start to hit. I am the only non-Swedish speaking person in the team. I was required to learn Swedish from my boss. I feel I was a burden for some of the team members to switch to English for me. I probably do not have excuses to still speak English in the country. If the language is a barrier for me to have a healthy social life, the culture difference makes me not easily to fit into the environment.

Limited by my Chinese eyes, I have difficulty to share similar interests with the rest. To make an understandable joke sometimes is a challenge to me. Reversely, I could have problem to relate the same feelings or excitement with others. To be able to get some of the jokes, I will need some background introductions. These things stop me to have deeper connections with locals. I can predict that I will face a big challenge to make friends in the new company.

As a matter of fact, I did make some friends with some foreigners, such as Teo, in Sweden. I do have couple of Swedish friends who have international experience. Moreover, I have a Swedish BF who accepts my background and continuously explains all kinds of contexts to me. Deep in my heart, I wish I could have fitted into this environment much better. I feel my gap with others  is as wide as the size of life. I am lack of wisdom to pick a field to shrink the gap at the moment. I am standstill to figure out how to change the situation systematically. Maybe I have no excuses any more to skip language learning. Meanwhile I am not sure the language can even break a corner of the gap. Ideally, I wish I could easily get along with locals and anyone from all over the world. Hope I could find out a clue in a short while.

Cats and their owners

Last night, my 3rd cat was taken back to her owner’s house after 3 weeks in my apartment. I started to miss her from this morning already. I know it would happen from the first day I met her and it always happens after my cats leave me. It is easy for me to get emotional attachment with the cats I take care of. After intensively being with the cats over one week, I made friends with each of them. So far I have taken care of 3 cute cats. I love them all. When I talk about them, I call them MY cats. I can feel they love me and enjoy the time with me as much as I do with them.

These 3 cats came to my life during my past 3 years, brought me a lot of joy and company. The 1st cat I had is an Exotic Shorthair cat, belonging to a Chinese young couple. I was with him 6 months in total until he moved to another city. The 2nd one is a Turkish Angora, a Dutch girl owning her for 8-9 years. I was with her for 2 months. The 3rd one who left me last night is a Swedish cat, raised by a Swedish lady, a German gentleman and a Swedish girl.

Since I have kept 3 cats, I find an interesting connection between the cat’s personality and the owner’s.

Before I share my findings, I want to talk about my blog’s name: a mouse loves catty.

I was born in a mouse year according to Chinese calendar. In my culture, my personality could match some natures of a mouse in the mythology, just as the constellation in Western. So according to the mythology, I could be hurt or gain bad luck if I make friends with cats in real life. But I love cats and their personalities. This contradiction gave me the inspiration of the name for my blog.

I am a cat lover who is a mouse loving catty. Because of it, I become a cat keeper for my friends again and again.

My first cat is named fatty guy in Chinese. But I like to call him Mimi. Mimi and I lived together long enough that he reacts if I call him Mimi instead of fatty guy. He is about 2.5 years old now. When we were together he was about 1.5 to 2 years period. He is a cute and gentle guy. A pair of yellow round eyes are the most adorable part of his face. His flat face is round which looks funny sometimes and unhappy in a lovely way the rest of time. His round flat face with his round eyes makes him look like a cartoon character.

 

His adorable appearance cannot cover his nerd nature. I am allowed to play with his pawns, pull his tales even when he is eating. What he does for protesting sometimes is hiding himself somewhere you can not see. Well, you can say he is easy going or gentle or whatever. His nerd nature is also showed when he overreacts on louder sound and strangers. If I have a visitor knocking at the door, he is the first guy hiding himself into the far end corner under the bed. He will never come out until the guest leaving my home.

Mimi’s owners, the Chinese young couple, were students in my city. After couple of years in Sweden, they like this country and started up their own trading business between Sweden and China. They are a funny couple, always makes jokes between each other.  They sometimes makes jokes on Mimi calling him nerd. Every time they came to my apartment for Mimi, they brought some interesting news and information. They are a couple brings laughter and happiness every time they visiting. Mimi together with them, like a harmonic family, funny and full of joy.

My 2nd cat is Martini. She is a calm, graceful and arrogant old lady. She has beautiful white fur. Her eyes are light blue and yellow. It is said white cat with blue and yellow eyes must be a deaf. And Martini is a deaf too. I feel pity that she can not hear me and feel my emotion from my voice. I missed the cat welcome me back heard the key hitting the door. I guess because of this, she is normally quiet and calm by herself. Sometimes she looks like an old grandma who has experienced a lot in her life, looking at the world  serenely. She likes people but rarely shows affection. She do not bear others touching her pawns which can cause an angry attack. So her beauty makes her adorable but her pride keep people a distance.

Martini’s owner is a young Dutch lady, tall and beautiful. She is a smart lady but you can tell her pride from her expression. If you know her not long, you feel not easy to get close to her, and you see her nose aiming you more than her eyes. After knowing her a while, then you understand where her pride coming from. She likes to make things to perfect and she does. All the activities organized by her, no surprises happened and every participant were happy in the end. The day she brought me Martini, she listed all related questions on a paper, including how often I can give candies to Martin, and how often I should wash the toilet box. She kept me in touch asking if Martini was ok if we got along, at least once every week when she was in Asia for vacation. It is not difficult for me to link Martini to this Dutch lady. They both are good friends around me in a distance, gracefully and proudly. It is nice having them, but be careful with the angry attack.

The 3rd cat is Milla, having super big yellow eyes and short silky hair. She is a 3-4 year-old mature girl. Her look is very close to my favorite Chinese domestic cats. She lives in a house having 2 floors with several rooms. She is allowed to explore the neighborhood any time she wants. She is quiet but rather active. She could jump up to the kitchen table and reach the half size windows up to the ceiling. The most of the space in my small apartment was in her territory, from ceiling high windows to hiding place under my bed. She is a clever lady, who can understand what is allowed and forbidden at my home from the first days. Actively as she is, she is able to jump up to the handle and open the door easily. She is like a schoolgirl with good grades and behaves well but never brag in front of others. As other cats, she wishes I could pet her 1 time a day, 24 hours each time. If I am available, I would love to do that.

Milla’s owners are a new couple, Swedish lady and German gentleman with a Swedish girl. To be accurate, Milla lives with them but owned by the Swedish lady and the girl. Like most of Swedes, they are quiet and nice. They like to talk in a very low voice, nearly whisper to each other, no matter on phone or in a fika kitchen. Sometimes you doubt if anyone is talking or no body there. Most of Swedes I meet are humble. It is rare to see a Swede is bragging what he or she has or showing off how rich he or she is. Not only humble, most people here are kind. I was with this Swedish lady and her daughter skiing for the very first time in my life. They taught me skills and helped me improve by my side patiently. Not like the other cats, Milla is understandable and react actively if I call her name. She came close for getting a petting and she always show her care and affections. Just like her owners, quiet and humble. I will not mind if I could live with her for longer time later.

You probably would say the different personalities of my cats are from their breeds which is nothing with their owners. I agree with you, but it is also the owners who choose them as their pets. And their life together forms the pattern they have now. It is an interesting finding which matches each cat I have lived with. I am looking forwards to owning my cat in the future. I am curious what breed I am going to pick and how my cat will reflect my personality to others.

Released by meditation

Meditation is a magical method to release the negative energy inside of body.

My first meditation doing alone was totally out of expectation.

I got up late that morning and did my routine: opened all the half size windows in my apartment in the basement, switched on all the blinders to lit up my dark room, took breakfast then started my day.

Another day of job searching! I was sad and stressful! How should I live another day without frustration? Why was I still here looking for job? There must be something wrong with me!!

“I want peace. And I need meditation now!”

I jumped onto my bed and sat on a cushion which helped me fold my legs easily. I put on meditation music to a speaker. The space in my room became cozy. I straightened my back and closed my eyes. At that time my mind was full of worries and thoughts which stressed me. Firstly I moved my attention to my breathes. They were slow and deep, inhaling from nose and exhaling from mouth. But my brain was still turning and I was thinking about who I met and what had happened. I tried to pull my mind back to the breathes several times. After a short while, I felt my brain and body relaxed a bit. I planned to do compassion practice which contains a body scan.

I scanned my body from moving my awareness to my forehead, nose, lips, neck, shoulders, arms, hands to chest, stomach, butt, legs and feet. I felt relaxed after 2 rounds of body scans. I felt my pain on my shoulders and the tension from my stomach released. The physical practice influenced on my mind. I felt my mind slowed down and half of my stresses disappeared.

When I turned to be calm and relaxed, it was a good timing to continue on to visualization. As a beginner, I visualized myself as my compassion objective. I saw myself in the mirror unhappily. I listed all the negative feelings I had recently, which were doubt, sadness, disappointment, hesitation, non-self confidence etc. I tried my best not to experience these emotions but observed them from another person. I looked this sad girl and gave out my love to her. I tried to recall the love feeling I had before and felt it passing through my body. Then I imagined myself  smiling happily , running and enjoying with no worries on my face. Surprisingly, I started to cry, deeply from my heart, louder and louder. I felt that I was understood finally, that I could release the feelings, that my fight for life was noticed. I didn’t hold back my tears for about 5 mins then my mind came back to the real world again.

I opened my eyes, dried my tears, and slowly moved down to the floor. I felt my body was relaxed, I breathed slowly and my heart was in peace. When I sat at my working table, turned on my computer, read all my pushed job ads. It was not another frustration day without income any more but a day I could increase the chance to be noticed by the recruiters and be called for interviews.

I didn’t expect my first meditation being that emotional. I was surprised I became peaceful after practicing 20 minutes. So from that day, I decided to meditate more often especially when life was tough and I needed peace from heart.

Seed of meditation

About 4 years ago, I watched a video from a professor who was teaching in Harvard University. It was a pushed recommendation video in English which attracted me. I regarded it as a English listening practice at the beginning. The professor was talking about sports and meditation if I remember correctly. I don’t remember how these 2 topics were related in the video, but I know from then he planted a seed in my brain which was called meditation.

He introduced how meditation can maximize brain power by presenting some study results. And he shared the experience since he meditated. The progress he gained made me curious with this mysterious field.

Years later, my life turned to be a turmoil. I was depressed which caused sleepless nights after nights. My spinning brain needed a relaxation method to turn it off. Meditation music became my lullaby, to be accurate, it was alpha wave music. The boring music in low frequency, not played by violin or piano, brought me relaxation within seconds. Although my life headaches weren’t solved by the music, I got some sleep at least which brought me some energy back to fight for life next day.

Meditation, grows a bit in my brain.

Life is a combination of ups and downs. Everything is getting better and sleep is not a problem anymore. New challenges brought me pressure but also hopes. Joy and pain walk side by side.

I started a new job in an intensive working environment. Unfortunately, I got too little training but full responsibilities. Being stressful is what you can imagine. I was not the only example in the team but every new employee felt the same. When complaining about the poor training system in the company, I also learned a couple of my colleagues did meditation to handle their stressful situations. Some of them described their inner peace which meditation helped them to create.

Now, I heard the proof, the real stories, right in front of me. So I wanted to find a meditation course!

My colleagues invited me to join a local meditation group about 2 months ago. It is a group organized by the amateurs. Undoubtedly, I joined the group and started to practice.

We meet up every 2 weeks. In each meetup we have a topic to share in the group. The topics are introduction of techniques or concepts. Normally the organizer explains how the method is practiced. We, group of people in 10ish, sit on the floor and meditate together for 15 mins. Then we share our life, joys,experience, biscuits and coffee.Then more practices and discussion afterwards. The meetups usually last about 2 hours.

I am now a beginner of meditation practitioner. It is not just monitoring the myth of meditation or imagine how it could work on me. I am planting the tree of meditation in my life.

Next blog I will share my experience of one type of meditation. It is a special experience for me.

Hunting in Dark II

Our hunting started from sitting on the tower.

My boy friend sat on the normal chair which was higher than mine. Then he could have a better view on the field around us. It was a cloudy night. There was no moonlight can gave us good sight. Believe it or not, the sky still looked a bit lighter than the forest. I could see the shapes of the field and forest.

“The boars like to come out of from this side of forest to the field, ”

He whispered at me, pointing at the direction at 11 o`clock to me, ” or come out of from that direction to the field.” pointing at 2 o`clock to me.

I nodded my head to show I understood without making any noise.

We were sitting still in the tower quietly but alerted. Wish we were lucky tonight.

It was quiet in the middle of forest at midnight. I could follow the sounds of leaves shaking when wind blew, from North Western to North Eastern. I could hear fruit rolling down from the branches to the ground. 10 mins later, cows were mowing from a distance. I didn’t know how far they were, but I could judge that they were not at the shooting range. Some dogs were barking after the cows, from another remote direction. They seemed to be answering to the cows. Well, neither cows nor dogs were our target. They were safe. In couple of mins, we heard crack sounds from brunches in the forest. It was so clear that it caught both our attention. I hold my breath and listened more carefully. The crack sounds continued and was in foot steps rhythm. I could tell the sound not far from us. It lasted for seconds then everything returned to be quiet again. Some time later, quiet environment broke by more intensive crack sounds and heavy breaths from several animals. It sounded like they were playing or greeting or even fighting to each other. I was not sure. He said, they were boars. Hope they could come out to the field.

Not for long time, the noise was gone. We were sitting in the darkness and alerted to follow their trail.

Not aware of the time, we saw the sky became darker and darker. It was more difficult to figure out the shape of the trees. We heard an animal jumping in the field just underneath the tower. He switched on the aiming light on the gun to see the area around, We saw 2 bright eyes shinning in the field. Judging from the size and its movement, he said it was a rabbit. It was not what we were aiming for. After about 1 hr, we heard a boar running out of the forest at 2 o`clock direction to us. It stopped in a ditch which connected to the forest. It stopped to move towards us. He switched on the aiming light to check if we could see it. Seems the boar sheltered in the ditch where we couldn’t see it. Lucky boar. About the same time, we heard 2 shots in the forest. He said, there were some other hunters here. They had more luck than us.

Finally, it was about 1 am in the morning. There were less light from the sky which would make our sight even worse. We decided to stop this hunting and heading home.