Weight - Ally Gong

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

-Milan Kundera

Tuesday rolls around the corner; my sense of days and all the details of my current life become drowned in weight. Motivation is easy, but to translate that momentary passion into action is just so difficult. These days my smiles have become increasingly forced. I haven’t had enough time for myself. I haven’t felt any love for anything I’ve done recently. Hopefully winter break and the end of this first semester will give me a lot of time and space to breathe and rejuvenate. I’m tired of all the weight.

I know this isn’t the rest of my life, but it’s hard to think of the future when all I can feel are heavy eyelids, a heavy body, and heavy thoughts.

I’ve always been one to yearn for lightness, and to possess the qualities of air. But I always gravitate towards the weight, becoming lost in a world where everything is burden. I can only hope that this too, will pass.

Maybe it’s the weather? Maybe it’s the workload? Maybe it’s the uncertainty of who I am and where I’m going…

I always try to keep a smile on my face and accept weight and burden as a necessary counterpart to lightness. I just wished I leaned more towards the latter.

We’ll see how finals go. We’ll see where winter break takes me.

As always, thank you for reading
+ stay tuned for more to come
-A