Healing Noodles

Chapter 1

Remember as children we'd run around the neighbourhood and harass the aunties selling snacks or the uncles selling toys?

When all we ever did was have fun and muck around with our friends and siblings?

When we were still unaware of the mundane, yet bustling lives we were ultimately going to live?

Yeah...me too. Growing up, I once yearned to be a princess or an actress. Damn... even a fucking fairy. Such imaginative ambitions, that as an adult, I can't help but cringe and laugh at them.

At this moment though, all I want to do is become an author. I want to write fantastical stories for everyone to read. To inspire the next generation to become great things. Even if they do want to be a princess, actress or fairy. But, I'm still eons away from doing that. No that's an exaggeration, but still... my dreams have come to a standstill.

You'd think I'll be studying creative writing or something. No. Instead, I'm studying law.

A great degree Cindy! You become a lawyer for us, so you can make good money and earn a good reputation! 

Ugh, I can hear my mother's nagging. She said she was making my decision easier since I didn't want to become a surgeon like father wanted. Something about there being more... words? Which obviously isn't correct, but I went with it.

I was never stupid or slow. In fact, I scored pretty well at school with my grades usually in the top 20. But, my weakness was definitely in Maths and Biology. Maths was compulsory, but Biology had been a subject my mother made me prioritise. Even if I would only ever get 60 to 70 percent each exam. Maths was not as hard but what could I expect at one of Brisbane's more prestigious high schools.

There were geniuses all around me. Everyone was good at all their electives and no one ever seemed to be too stressed. Except me of course. A scholarship student who had no choice, but to study to get good enough grades to stay in the school.

The only area where no one could beat me in was of course Literature and Chinese. I also didn't need to attend evening sessions often. My teachers had enough confidence in me and a few other peers that they left us to roam free after 4 or 5pm.

My passion had always been on the more artistic side, so of course my parents weren't exactly thrilled, but I still couldn't pinpoint the correlation between law and creative writing. Like, how did my mother even come up with that.

Xingxing-ah. You're mama and baba and nainai are just looking out for you. You need to live a better life than us. Look, we are only middle-class with our little umbrella business, but you can be a lawyer and then a big Judge. Make the Lin family proud.

Yeah...thanks nainai... You're little Xingxing is going to be such a successful woman, yay... Now I'm just doing amazing! I have so many friends and my life is doing awesome!! Could never be happier... Bullshit.

Whenever my nainai would pull up my Chinese name I knew she was serious. Believe me, I'm proud of my name and Chinese origin,  I just like the way Cindy sounds as an author. I don't know why, maybe that was just me hoping for my future books to go global. However, those words mixed with my Chinese name just irked me.

The aromatic scent of spices being added into oil as my grandma said those words would have been pleasant, but the high expectations  she had just placed on me had made that experience so unbearable. My throat constricted and my eyes stung as I forced back gut wrenching wails and my honest opinions with every ounce of my power.

Yet, a single tear still rolled out of my eye like a stupid clichéd movie or youth drama not too long after my nainai went to set the table. I wiped it as fast as I could, not wanting to break my family's facade of me. During that time anyways.

It had been around dinner time, and the warm tinted light hanging above us had suddenly become so hot. Too hot for my already fuming head, but I endured since I was not about to miss out on my dinner. Thinking that my mama's bowl of suan la fen would calm me down and it did. However, with each day's nagging and pushing, I soon began to unwind.

I wish I had talked back then. Talked back before I agreed and enrolled myself in a course I knew I would never thrive in. Pessimism is my worst trait, but in all seriousness, I knew I had made a decision I would regret.

Now in my final year of my Bachelor of Law degree, I was close to being burnt out. My mind a complete mess and my body was so fatigued. Paper after paper, placement after placement. It was a miracle I had made it into my final year.

Just a few more months and you'll be free. You're doing great Cindy. You are awesome!

Lies I'm telling myself to make me seem more alive. Lies that somehow still keep me moving. Lies that were also not convincing at all. Honestly my life is shit. It's absolutely foul.

Well, it was foul.

But that was before everything that happened. Before I realised life didn't have to be so consuming.

Before I became entangled in a life with no limits and fun. Before I would consistently find myself in bed with two older men on either side of me each morning.

Before, I transformed my life for the better.