A Question That Took a Year

Today I want to write down two things. They both come from the same reader, but they happened at different points in time and correspond to two articles I wrote in very different stages of my life. Because of that, the order matters.

A long time ago, I ran a public WeChat account. I never intended for it to become influential or widely read. I simply wrote down the scattered, messy fragments of everyday life. Most of it was daily record-keeping, mixed with thoughts and emotions from the moment. Many of those pieces were written during my time studying abroad, when my emotional ups and downs were more visible and my writing was more exposed.

Later, I stopped updating it for a long time, almost over a year. During that period, I assumed those old pieces would quietly sink into time. Maybe they would be rediscovered once in a while, but most likely they would no longer form any new connection with anyone.

That assumption held until recently, when I received a message.

It came from the same reader. His nickname is “Jiejian.” He left a comment under my most recent article, which had been sitting there, untouched, for more than a year.

That article was about a very specific decision. I was originally supposed to graduate in May 2024, but because I chose to stay at the university as a student and continue a research experience I truly cared about, I decided to delay my graduation. When I wrote that piece, I was genuinely overwhelmed. Not because the situation itself was dramatic, but because I truly did not know whether I was making the right choice.

That decision brought a great deal of conflict. I argued with my parents repeatedly, at least twenty or thirty times. I communicated back and forth with professors, confirmed procedures with the international office, prepared documents, and submitted applications. During that period, I felt buried under paperwork and to-do lists, while the same question kept looping in my head. What are you really doing this for, and will you hate yourself for this one day?

So when I saw the question he left recently, I felt something gently stir inside me. He asked whether, one year later, I regretted the decision I made back then.

The question itself was simple, but it stretched time into a line and placed the question I once avoided directly back in front of me. The version of me who wrote that article could only describe breakdowns, tension, arguments, and fear. She did not yet have an answer. That answer could only come a year later.

Looking back now, I can honestly say that I did have moments of regret. Anyone who makes a choice will experience regret at times, especially when their path looks different from those around them. During the project, I felt anxious and uncertain. People around me were graduating, starting jobs, or returning home, while I was still staying at school to continue this work.

At that time, I could not easily tell myself that being different was fine. I compared myself to others, felt uneasy, and worried that I might have gone in the wrong direction.

But if I look at the year as a whole, what I feel more clearly is gratitude. I am grateful that I made that decision. It became a major turning point in my life, and an experience I paid a high price to gain.

If I were asked to go through it all again now, I am not sure I would still have the same courage I had back then. In that sense, I truly admire the version of myself who made that choice.

The second thing comes from an even earlier article. That piece was written much earlier and reflects my writing state during my time abroad more clearly. Recently, he came across that older article and asked why I was able to make peace with myself.

Looking back now, I am not even sure it truly counts as making peace. I only remember that I was very real during that time, and that I was living with everything I had.

Putting these two things together, I slowly realized that the meaning this reader holds for me has nothing to do with who he is. He calls me “sister,” but I do not know his age. I do not know his gender, his name, or his life.

Yet through two messages, left at two different moments in time, he brought two articles from different eras of my life back into focus.

In that moment, I understood that this may be one meaning of recording things. It is not about writing beautiful conclusions, but about how what you write will one day be seen, questioned, and quietly answered by time.