Lost

A couple of days ago, I went to People's Square to meet some friends. I went there a little early so that I can walk around myself. It was Sunday, so there were many people on the square, young people making out on the park bench, kids rollerblading on the square, foreigners walking in and out of the Shanghai museum. It's very humid, hot and cloudy that day. Sky was pure grey the whole day.

I used to come to People Square a lot. My grandparent's house was only about a few blocks away from People Square, I came to visit them often when I was a little kid with my parents. But now their old house is replaced by a very expensive high rise building where no kid-memory was kept there. When I was in high school, I had to take bus to school everyday because my parent's house is very far from my high school. It's so far that we didn't have direct bus line from my home to the school, so I had to transfer at People Square. The bus is always always crowded. I remembered there are a few times that I tried to get off the bus, I squeezed myself out of the crowd to get to the door, but my big backpack was still stuck in the crowd behind me. I had to use all my strength trying to pull it out, a couple of times the straps was completely pulled broken off from the backpack.

I was walking around absently by myself with all the memories flashing back in front of my eyes. People were chatting, kids were screaming and laughing, buses were honking. I was surrounded by all kinds of noises. Suddenly I felt very lonely and lost.

Every time I come back to visit, I feel lost. Not that I don't know the streets any more, it's just that I don't feel I belong to here -- the place where I spent my childhood and youth. It's a weird feeling, I feel like I belong to nowhere, I don't feel this is my home, even though my parents are still living here. But I also don't feel that US is my home, because I don't have a family or root there. It is a very scary feeling, you feel yourself so tiny, and the tiny you can't find your spot in such a big universe. You were like a microorganism, floating in the air while nobody knows and cares.

Where do I belong to? Where is my spot?