He asked her again, how are you now? She said: Now you are more tired, more hot-tempered but more easily compromised. You are so different from before.
And she told him many other things, but his ears were ringing, because he only remembered the word “different from the past”. That night, sitting alone at the bar drinking, he asked himself: Have I really changed? Life is impermanent. Who Vietnamese sausage has changed. The question is whether the change is positive or negative!
It is true that he became more impatient as things went wrong. There were times when everything happened in a domino effect that he could not control. And when he was overloaded, it was easy to make mistakes and one mistake led to another. Just like that, in nearly a year, he lost so many things, losing money was more bearable than losing relationships that had been built for many years.
His health also tends to react to the intensity of his work, now if he works late at night he stays up all night, unable to sleep. Before, running three laps around the Vietnamese sausage park was nothing, now after two laps he is exhausted, his legs are so tired he wants to stop... As for compromise... Maybe, sometimes he is more prone to biting his tongue than before, because the older he gets, the more he is afraid of conflict. When he was young, he liked to speak directly, now he is much more cautious, beating around the bush, making the other person often not understand.
He remembered the cover photo of an international photo magazine. The author took a picture of a candle, the outside of the wax was Vietnamese sausagey, creating jagged, uneven lines, but inside the candle core was still bright red and straight. For some reason, he always remembered this photo whenever something sad happened.
Over time, people can become more withered and worn out, because the body cannot be indestructible, but what is important is whether the soul, the interior of each person is still intact.
He looked at himself in the mirror of the shop and realized that he had aged a lot but his eyes were still the same. A little proud to the point of arrogance, a deep sadness but still a warmth.
