Midday approached.

I stood up from the chair, taking my time to go upstairs and retrieve the camera, then wandered around my grandparent’s house – it’s been 2 or 3 years since I last visited there – appearing to search for something.

This time spent at their house was slightly different. Was it because I had not been there for quite a long time? Was it just a feeling that I had forgotten something? Or was it simply something I have not experienced yet? I truly didn’t know.

Holding the camera, I wandered around almost every corner of the house. All of a sudden, I felt like, while I had not witnessed the dramatic renovations of the house myself, it was me who now felt how much the house had changed over the years. The old feelings of joy, excitement were gone, I assumed. There were tons of new things:  the familiar little garden was not in the initial place anymore; the yard was narrower because there was a space made bigger for ancestor worship… I could not name the feelings, but I guess I felt more peaceful and cozy there.

Having taken some pictures, both inside and outside the house, I realized that everything seemed to be greener than it was before – the trees, the fields surrounding the house, the pond opposite. I wondered to myself: was it originally green or was it just the growth of my sentimental self that made me feel such a change? Who knows, I guess my “little me” had not felt this ever before.

2:30pm.

I went upstairs, took a nice nap then woke up, and did everything that I usually did at this house: playing in the yard, sitting at the front door,..  Ah, I felt different again. Then I soon came to the conclusion that it was indeed that as I grew up, my inner self had become pretty sensitive to the ordinary things: the pond opposite, the house nearby, the field, those cows,… – things that had not been so special when I was a kid but were impressive to me when I reached the age of 16.

I felt like I am somehow related to these lines from the book If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura I was reading recently: “That’s to say, how I see my own life has changed over time. I would feel affection for scenes that I’d hated before, and laugh during scenes where I’d originally cried. The past love interest is now long forgotten.”