A full moon, instead of a waning moon, is a representation of completeness in Chinese culture. As the moon is always expected to be the roundest and the largest annually during the Mid-Autumn Festival, it stands as a festival for the reunion of family members and lovers in the year, because the most complete and satisfying thing for a lot of people is to spend the time staying with the one they love.
For the past 18 years in my life, my parents and I would drive back to my grandparents’ house, enjoying TV shows and great food, chatting freely about stuff, or just simply sitting on the sofa and feeling every second we spend together. That’s an annual ritual that my parents and I followed tacitly. The bright moonlight and gentle breeze of autumn can always pacify my tiring heart into peace that my family brings to me.
But this year, things are a little bit different. When the moon waxed into full moon again, I know part of my heart remained incomplete. Homesickness hides in the heart of people far from home until holidays happen. The sense of loneliness can rise up simply because of a gentle breeze of wind. Staring at the full moon, I started to miss my family thousands of miles away from me on the opposite side of this planet.
At this time, I remembered how a great poet, Shi Su, in ancient China expressed his sorrow through words. He wrote down words:
人有悲欢离合，
月有阴晴圆缺，
此事古难全。
但愿人长久，
千里共婵娟。
Translation: People experience sorrow, joy, can separate, and reunite;
As the moon will be dark, bright, waxed and waned sometimes;
We can never ask for perfection throughout lifetime.
Only wish that we can share longer life,
Though far apart, enjoying the same moonlight.
I was never so close to the soul of the great poet until this time. When I feel the breeze, I know that my family is sharing the same sky with me. Those sad thoughts finally disappear. I understand that when I am alone in a different country, the term family no longer means those who always support me when I am down, but an inner force that keeps me going on. I realize that it is the time to step out of my comfort zone and to embrace the new life in college. We can never ask life to make everything the way we want it to be. Instead, we should be optimistic in our life. That is the wisdom I learned from Poet Su, and also the way I fight with my homesickness.