A record of loneliness, and a conversation with myself

Zifang went home this afternoon after staying with me for two days. Another friend left after we had dinner. By the time I began writing, the loneliness had already eased, perhaps because putting words down gives it somewhere to go.

I have been through departures like this many times and still do not get used to them. Hours before someone leaves, my feelings start churning. I cannot always name the feeling; it sits heavily inside me. Then I watch them go, reluctant to let the moment end. “Every gathering must part” may be true, but it sounds cruel to me. I am not ready to accept it easily.

At dinner I asked Ensang whether he had regrets. He told me about his life from sixteen onward, including his first job in an electronics factory. I was grateful for his honesty and struck by his endurance. At nineteen, when I worked part-time at Burger King, even two or three hours of repetitive chores were hard for me. He described days that began at eight in the morning and ended at ten at night. Hearing how he felt then changed the way I saw him.

We also talked about fate, dating, and loneliness. He seemed more vivid and grounded than I had realized, and I felt lucky to have such a sincere friend. As we walked, I wondered whether I had become so accustomed to being alone that I had been a mechanical host to Zifang these past two days. I tried to care for him. He probably knows me well enough to understand my habits, though that does not erase my regret. I cannot be everything at once; my time and energy are limited.

Tomorrow I plan to begin another health routine, my “fasting experiment”: 16.5 hours without calories and a 7.5-hour eating window. I dislike leaving a plan vague, so here is the timetable I wrote for myself. The physiological effects in my draft are expectations, not measurements I have verified.

I also kept the same plan in a form that I could reuse:

daily_schedule:
  - time: "19:30"
    stage: "begin fast"
    action: "stop eating; drink water"
  - time: "23:00"
    stage: "sleep"
    action: "rest"
  - time: "08:30"
    stage: "morning"
    actions:
      - "black coffee or unsweetened green tea"
      - "read aloud for one hour"
  - time: "11:45"
    stage: "before lunch"
    action: "warm water and a spoonful of apple cider vinegar"
  - time: "12:00-12:30"
    stage: "lunch"
    action: "vegetables, then protein, then carbohydrates"
  - time: "14:00"
    stage: "writing"
    action: "write about a thousand Chinese characters"
  - time: "18:30"
    stage: "dinner"
    action: "eat enough; limit added sugar where possible"
  - time: "19:30"
    stage: "begin again"
    action: "stop eating"