Suggested song: Maybe My SoulMate Died – Shane Niemi
I am not Shane, but I believe,
Maybe my soulmate has long gone
My soulmate was a psychoanalyst
He wrote “Identity: Youth and Crisis”.
.
Although he was a man
He understood women better than they knew themselves
He wrote that anatomy,
Along with history and personality,
Shapes the destiny of every human.
What he wrote, though long ago,
Still rings true today.
.
I see my whole life
Captured in his words.
My soulmate died in 1994 in the U.S.,
Leaving me alone in 2024, in Vietnam.
When I had my quarter-life crisis, for the fifth time,
I returned home and felt the warmth.
My aunt cooked Northern-style mock dog meat,
And another aunt, though not well-off, sent me a million.
I didn’t take it, but her care
Was warmer than many layers of blankets.
.
Sleeping in Thái Bình,
My spirit drifted to the clouds.
Not just for a moment,
I kept asking myself:
What’s my purpose in this world?
Do I have any values?
I have a mental illness,
Making me “different.”
Every four to six months,
I would go crazy
Who would want to hire me?
Who’d want to work with me?
I haven’t worked anywhere
Nine months, ten days—
Let alone a year..
.
But then, I read books.
At 26, just like at six,
A book by Lý Thượng Long:
“Thirty years old is only the beginning.”
At thirty, he funded his own book signings
To sell his own books
Then who am I?
Maybe it’s never too late
To follow my dream.
.
I slowly recovered,
Choosing remote work.
But sometimes I wonder,
Seeing social injustices,
I, who went to college
And still find it difficult,
Then my aunt,
Who offered that one million
Just a few months later,
She drank herbicide
Where would she go from there?
.
I have an ex-boyfriend,
Whose uncle
Whose father
Hit him in the head
Making him lose his mind
He returned to a childlike state
My ex now has a Green Card
While his uncle doesn’t have a passport
His 80-year-old mother
Sold half the house,
Living on bank interest to care for him.
A life like that—
Where would he go from there?
.
I hope my words,
My experiences, my knowledge,
One day will help him,
And help my aunt too.
I’ll find some ways
Please wait for me…
.
Life isn’t just pink
It’s also black
Yet darkness is necessary
Teaching us to cherish peaceful light
And, more than anything,
Through darkness, through fluent pain,
It connects people
Me, Erikson, Thượng Long,
Shane Niemi, my aunt, that uncle,
Vietnamese, German-American,
Chinese, American,
And two who have never left Viet land—
All connected by a thread
Red, or not red, golden, or white,
A thread tying people,
Through time and space
Through understanding and empathy,
It helps us realize
That our wounds are incomparable
It’s not my wounds are more hurtful than you
Nor is your pain greater than mine.
We all suffer from,
This worldly pain,
Although very different—
Yet remarkably alike…
NARCY NGUYỄN
.
