this won't last forever

tiffanyq.github.io/this-wont-last-forever

fall foliage as seen from a moving car

Time, read the room. You’re asking me to move on right now? Do you not recognize the gravity of the current moment? Is this a joke to you? Whatever time’s answer is, it sweeps you forward, emotional contrast and all. You finally get the thing you’ve been dreaming of for years and then run to put the laundry in the dryer. You know you’ll never see this group of people again but still have to make the last train of the night. Your heart breaks and your email inbox fills. You have a work presentation tomorrow and you still need to revise some slides. And then you see an apple on the counter and realize you’re hungry, so you eat the apple and think about what to make for dinner tomorrow and how sad you are. Time keeps moving and you float on.

You can try to hold on, linger for a moment or maybe for forever. And so you wave at the airport security line until they disappear past the turn. Stay out all night, adding more stops (anyone want food??) until you’re dizzy from exhaustion. Drive them home and before they leave the car, they finish their thought. Wait, actually, one more thing. You know what? Let’s just turn the engine off. You can talk for hours here under the streetlights, but they still have to head inside and you still have to drive home. It’s all a matter of eventually.

this wont last forever

tiffanyq.github.io/this-wont-last-forever

I’m struggling with things not lasting forever!!! Probably for related reasons, I am fascinated by digital artifacts getting lost in time and the sadness of encountering broken links and internet decay!! A few months ago, to explore irretrievability and finality, I made this wont last forever.

Each link surfaces a sky gradient extracted from memories in my camera roll. The reconstructed sky fades back into the background noise. Through continued use, the links break until, eventually, none of them work.

Sometimes it’s comforting to know something won’t last forever and sometimes it’s the saddest thing in the world. In both cases, I’m left confronting the static.

I’m so sad to let go :) !!! I take the phrase 唔捨得 / m se dak (I’ve been told this is 捨不得 / she bu de in Mandarin) to mean you don’t have the heart to do something, which is a weird interpretation because not having the heart to do something kind of means you have too much heart to do it. I translate 唔捨得走 / m se dak zau to mean I can’t bear to leave. How scalable is it over time to feel that way about everything? How will this grief become any more manageable if I find more to love, which gives me more to lose?

Maybe the end goal is to be completely unattached to my sense of self and everyone and everything I’ve ever known. But I’m not that evolved, and I passed by something beautiful along the river, and now it’s gone, and now I’m sad. This makes me wonder: what is the point of all this if nothing lasts forever? I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. But why would I avoid love? Given the choice, I’d pick the heartbreak over and over again.

i sure am thankful for everything i have been and will be sad to say goodbye to. thank you <3