enceladus
The first day of class I had with my journalism professor was an assignment which he requested upon us to write our own obituary. This became the reason as to why I decided to stay in this class and the journalism field. Just two month ago, I was officially re-diagnosed with severe depression. Up until now, every second of my life has been a fight to stay alive: giving myself a reason every single day to look forward to being here. Obviously, this led to a lot of anxiety on my end to write something so visually clear and detailed about my death: how, when, where this has happened? What was I like as a living and most importantly, who will remember me? Ironically enough, these details are the exact ones that I’ve been trying to train my body to stop thinking about. Not sure if it was his energetic screaming in the late 10pm class, I eventually decided to tune everything out and begin typing. So here it is, my obituary (so far).
Lucy Yang, otherwise known as Jingchen Yang by her hometown Beijing, was officially declared as deceased four days after the sixth year anniversary of her disappearance in the South of France. Throughout her life, Lucy was praised and loved for her many roles and responsibilities that she would passionately carry with her: a daughter, sister, student, friend, olympic fencer, fashion model, fashion content creator, journalism editor, photographer and travel blogger. Due to the degree of spread in her roles, no one really knew all of Lucy. One commonality her associates bonded over so far was her obsession with the color blue. Whether in her writing, photos, style and voice, Lucy made sure she took every chance she had to express her love for the said color.
Although her story ends at the ripe age of 21, Lucy Yang has left a legacy for sure. Known in the fencing community as a child prodigy who scored first place in Chinese Nationals of 2009, she had expectations placed on her ever since. Whether it was starting her own literary blog titled “stratosramble”, collecting a photobook on bodies of water, gaining a significant international following for her niche fashion, she always found a way to make an impact.
With such a colorful history, most people would expect Lucy to be a loud and outgoing girl. Shockingly enough, she was said to be a quiet and awkward girl according to some close associates. Most of the time, they found her wanting to be left alone in the comforts of her own home if there weren’t any tasks for completion. Unlike most energetic adolescents, Lucy declined almost all offers for a night out on Fridays. Her friends agreed that you could only see this woman privately on occasions including elements of: wine tasting, the indoors, shopping, film, photo taking, tea drinking and video gaming.
Lucy’s acquaintances would agree on her bipolarity, “she always made you feel so close when you are around her but once that time runs out you are back to being strangers.” There came to a realization that she had collected the people throughout her life like little timestamps. No one stuck around with her forever, every single person felt like their time with her was a duration of experiences. Even in the years of her disappearance and till now people, whether acquainted or not, are still convinced that she will one day come back with an absurd adventure about how she found herself on an undiscovered island with no cell service. With much being said, Lucy Yang’s funeral will be held together by her family back in her hometown Beijing. The family is said to have located a place for her next to her grandpa who had originally raised this mysterious girl.
This was therapeutic: it’s is far from descriptive and audaciously entertaining. Yet, just being able to sit down and articulate what you want to be remembered for is giving living another reason. On a relatability notion, individuals come too far in life not knowing the who, when, what of our own identities. Making living all the more confusing and insufferable. On a real note, I hope to add more to this list of abominations. Kind of like document stamps on your passport at customs, it’s a little achievement mark for myself to remember why I’m here doing this. With all of this being said, I’m pretty ready to for my humbling experience in class as my professor points out all the pointless details I’ve gotten used to including due to social profiling. This is atypical to my usual psychological rant streak but definitely forthcoming to anyone whose going through their very own identity crisis as well. That’s my rant for the day folks. As always, have a great day.
