Winnipeg, 1989.

Twenty years today, I remember I was in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. If memory serves me correct, I was going to work at a Tip Top Tailor store that was near Portage and Main. I remember seeing headlines in the Winnipeg Free Press. A Chinese girl who was also working at that store that day was dismayed by the news.

I never lasted long at the Tip Top Store. I was upset because I wasn't getting any hours. Of course, the way I was back then, I didn't deserve to get the hours. Yes, thinking back to that time, I shudder to think how I was. I was full of a degree of self-importance and self-loathing that I realize now was stupid and self-defeating. If only I could go back and change the way I was. Now, I am more wise but I can't escape the feeling that the way I was then is still the way I am now, and that perhaps I am doomed.

I wonder if others haven't changed from that day either.