Love Is Not A Spark

The ticking of the clock mirrored my heartbeats, counting every remaining second I could squeeze. My fingers were flying over the keyboard, my eyes were flashing over the complex material, but my brain was on strike. The deadline was coming closer and closer, and I was left with only a few poor words and my messy thoughts. 

It was 9:20 p.m. - only 2 hours left to submit my final essay for this semester. The fear of a delayed submission controlled every cell of my body but there was nothing to do. Nobody wanted to be the person who tortured themselves on New Year's Eve, a harmonious and peaceful night when all the family members and relatives gather together to celebrate the start of a new year. Unfortunately, I had to be.

I heard the washing machine running and mom was busy mopping the floor, but I didn’t have a second to care about that. All my attention was on my unfinished paper, until I heard mom’s order to help her do the laundry.

"Could you please wait for a second? I am busy now."

I managed to ignore my mother’s voice for two minutes but then it rang in my ears again:

"Stop working and come here NOW!"

I looked at my computer screen, thoroughly uninterested in explaining my current horrible situation to her. At that moment I did not recognize that my silence would turn into an emotional disaster two hours later

I didn’t respond to her and she finally came to my desk and asked what I was doing.

"My homework." I answered with no eye contact.

She wanted me to explain more but I ignored her words and still stared at the computer screen.

"What do you mean by that?"

I stopped my work suddenly and raised my head to meet her face. All right, now I could hear and feel the tension between us.

"Why are you still wasting time on it? You have had no progress the whole day. "

I suddenly lost my ability to have a conversation with my dear mom. The words were flowing in my mind but I just couldn’t let them out of my month. I wanted to tell her this class’s professor was so hard to cope with, I had read the tons of paper for this essay, and that I had limited time to submit my final work. But I couldn’t manage to find the words under her untrusting and interrogative eyes.

“I have had enough of your silence.”

She left and shut the door with no more words to say .

Tears flowed from  my eyes quietly. I could hear the sound as they hit the desk. I also heard the sound of sobbing from another bedroom – my mother’s bedroom - my persistent, tough, and gentle mom.

I walked out of my room, stepped quietly across the hall , pushed the bedroom door open and whispered: “I am ready to talk.”

That night we did not watch the Spring Festival Gala. Instead, the laundry water, the washing machine, the tears, the laughter, mom’s caring words and my pressure was released with the scene of fireworks. All the unpleasant memories and my unwillingness to communicate were left behind in the old year. The long, deep and moving conversation as I helped my mom finish the laundry was a key to opening the heavy door of my heart.

The firework sparks were sometimes just like our emotions – appearing for just a moment but hurting for a long time. But as mom told me that night, the people who love you will always be there, never disappearing.