by: Angela

我今天白天还在神采飞扬的跟别人讲徐木木是如何雷厉风行的决定辞职去坡国创业，晚上还开心的去健了身，临睡前还在想心灵鸡汤，决定把“to be a better me & 成为一个有趣的人”变成我的人生新理想，然后，我就想起了徐木木，想起她下周就要飞往坡国开启人生新篇章了。我这才意识到，这似乎是一个里程碑似的事件，类似大学毕业大家天各一方。

木木是谁？我觉得闺蜜不合适，因为我们几乎很少花时间逛街美甲聊时尚，木木不懂这些；我们更多的时候，是在聊天，就是那种走心的心灵按摩似的聊天，这种聊天发生在我们一起吃饭时，散步时，看电影后，看话剧后。。。常常，因为话题没有聊完，互相送来送去，难舍难分。所以，我们的关系，大概是战友，伙伴，一路陪伴走过初入社会和职场的时光。

第一次有印象的相遇，是在11年4月份的新员工offsite，她穿着一件红色丝绒外套，很大只，一头沙性头发自成造型。。。我才没有对她一见钟情 之后，加了人人，看到她的空间经常更新，她写了篇日志 开天窗，我诧异到，这么大只的女生居然内心这么话痨，不应该是高冷透新类型的么？ 7月份入职后，我们这批新员工很兴奋很闹腾大概也很忐忑，建了一个新员工邮件群，时不时聚餐，k歌，开party，这个过程大概像一个算法不断收敛，收敛，渐渐趋于稳定，最终在这批新员工里，我们成为同一个小集团了。交集就此开始。有一次去三里屯k歌到半夜2点，我害怕一个人打车回家，就卖萌问她，我可以跟你回你家么？她目视前方眼神坚定的回答道，我可以打车送你回去。。。这答案完全出乎我意料，默默的在心里送了她顶“汉子”的帽子，而且是不解风情的汉子。

木木是水瓶座，思维跳跃，思考的点往往出人意料，常常是，我说我杀人不眨眼，她却问我眼睛干不干。我们聊一个首席科学家70岁了看起来像40多岁，她却问他本科不可能学的计算机吧，第一台计算机1965年才出现呢？点点点

木木是个不可思议的矛盾集合体。

比如，她理性而又超感性，作为一名焊得了电路板，调得了代码的纯正工科女，她拥有女特工般清晰的思维，能在一团模糊中杀出一条路，然而，她第一次在toastmaster上演讲，居然说她的人生梦想是当妈妈，点点点

再比如，她冷静而又抓狂，她常常面无表情一脸认真的坐在我对面，面对我的情绪而不顾，跟我讨论解决问题的方案，一转身她又一脸小女生模样说，安吉拉，我好烦躁，我该怎么办？

还比如，她不靠谱而又值得信赖，她常常放我鸽子，定好的吃饭，看电影，说不来就不来，理由大概是，有另外一拨人找她，插句话，木木有很多朋友，但绝大多数都是弱连接，只有少数是强连接。然而，木木听了我无数次抱怨恐婚，陪我挑了婚纱，参加我的婚礼当我的伴娘，还跟另外一个姑娘一起送我份厚礼当我的强势娘家人。

所以，木木对我而言，一直是一个神秘的无法预测的黑盒子，我还是不知道她下一句话会是什么。

在过去不长的日子里，我们一起做过许多事情，一起泡过温泉，捏过脚，看过海爬过山，跷班去看大雪后的故宫，去天津吃大饼鸡蛋，雾霾天暴走去地坛看银杏，带着草莓头盔去参加草莓音乐节，凌晨2点坐在jerry和ying的mini后座上经过天安门，头发被往前吹成鬼。。。原来有这么多的故事，那些个困惑的，迷茫的，没心没肺的，青春激昂的，奋不顾身的，互相依靠的日子啊！

木木问我，安吉拉，以后我们会不会渐行渐远？也许吧，朋友就像是人生旅途上的偶遇，总要分开旅行，我的下一个目的地是严寒，而你的则是酷暑，隔着太平洋的我们，也许会渐渐少了话题，然而我期望有一天，我们会再次相遇，带着过往所有分开旅行的回忆，试着互相分享，说不定我们还会互相喜欢。

想说，be a good girl，be kind。你会幸运，幸福，会遇到他，会成为一个超棒的妈妈，拥有你梦想的一切。我坚信你会幸福，超幸福，对，幸福即所有祝福。

然而，还是舍不得，地球上70亿人，而你那么独特，关键是，你拥有跟我的回忆呀。

AI-generated translation.

Earlier today I was still vividly telling people how Xu Mumu had made the swift and decisive decision to quit her job and go start a business in Singapore. In the evening I happily went to work out, and before bed I was even thinking about inspirational self-help lines, deciding to make “to be a better me & becoming an interesting person” my new life ideal. Then I thought of Xu Mumu. I thought of how she will be flying to Singapore next week to begin a new chapter of life. Only then did I realize that this is something like a milestone, almost like college graduation, when everyone scatters in different directions.

Who is Mumu? I do not think “bestie” is the right word, because we hardly spend time shopping, doing nails, or talking about fashion — Mumu knows nothing about those things. What we do more often is talk, the kind of deep, soul-massaging talk that happens when we are eating together, walking together, after a movie, after a play… Often, because a topic is unfinished, we keep walking each other farther and farther when saying goodbye, reluctant to part. So our relationship is probably that of comrades, partners, companions who walked together through the first years of entering society and the workplace.

The first memorable encounter was at the new employee offsite in April 2011. She was wearing a red velvet jacket, very large in presence, with a head of dry fluffy hair that formed its own style… It’s not like I fell in love with her at first sight or anything. Later we added each other on Renren, and I saw that she updated her page often. She wrote a blog post called Open the Skylight, and I was shocked: how could such a large girl have such an internally chatty soul? Shouldn’t she have been the cold-and-distant type? After we officially joined in July, our group of new employees was excited, noisy, and probably also nervous. We created a new employee mailing list, went out to eat from time to time, sang karaoke, threw parties. The whole process was like an algorithm gradually converging, converging, and settling into stability. In the end, among all those new employees, we became part of the same little group. That was where our overlap began. One time we sang karaoke in Sanlitun until 2 a.m. I was afraid to take a taxi home alone, so I cutely asked her, can I go home with you instead? She stared straight ahead and answered firmly, I can take a taxi and send you home… That answer was completely beyond my expectations. Silently, in my heart, I put a “total bro” hat on her — and not even a romantic bro.

Mumu is an Aquarius, with a leaping mind. The points she focuses on are often unexpected. I might say I kill without blinking, and she will ask whether my eyes feel dry. We were talking about a chief scientist who was seventy but looked like he was in his forties, and she asked: but he couldn’t possibly have studied computer science as an undergraduate, right? The first computer only appeared in 1965. Dot dot dot.

Mumu is an incredible collection of contradictions.

For example, she is rational and yet super emotional. As a true engineering girl who can solder circuit boards and debug code, she has the crisp thinking of a female secret agent and can cut a path through confusion. Yet the first time she gave a speech at Toastmasters, she said her life dream was to be a mother. Dot dot dot.

For another example, she is calm and also hysterical. She will often sit across from me with a completely expressionless, utterly serious face, ignoring my emotions while discussing solutions to my problems. Then in the next moment she turns into a little girl and says, Angela, I’m so irritated, what should I do?

And another: she is flaky and yet trustworthy. She often stands me up. We make plans for dinner or a movie, and then suddenly she does not come, probably because another group asked her out. Side note: Mumu has many friends, but most are weak ties; only a few are strong ties. And yet Mumu listened to me complain countless times about my fear of marriage, accompanied me to choose my wedding dress, attended my wedding as my bridesmaid, and together with another girl gave me a generous gift as fierce representatives of my maiden side.

So to me, Mumu has always been a mysterious, unpredictable black box. I still never know what her next sentence will be.

In the not-so-long stretch of time behind us, we have done so many things together: soaked in hot springs, gotten foot massages, seen the sea, climbed mountains, skipped work to see the Forbidden City after a heavy snowfall, gone to Tianjin for flatbread and eggs, walked across the city in smoggy weather to see gingko trees at Ditan, worn strawberry helmets to attend the Strawberry Music Festival, and sat in the back seat of Jerry and Ying’s Mini at 2 a.m. driving past Tiananmen while the wind blew our hair forward like ghosts… So there really have been this many stories — those confused, lost, carefree, youthful, passionate, reckless, mutually dependent days!

Mumu once asked me, Angela, will we slowly drift farther and farther apart in the future? Maybe. Friends are like chance encounters on life’s journey; sooner or later we travel onward on separate routes. My next destination is severe cold, while yours is tropical heat. Separated by the Pacific Ocean, perhaps we will gradually have fewer things to talk about. And yet I hope that one day we will meet again, carrying with us all the memories gathered on our separate journeys, trying to share them with each other — and maybe we will still like each other then.

What I want to say is: be a good girl, be kind. You will be lucky. You will be happy. You will meet him. You will become an amazing mother. You will have everything you dream of. I firmly believe you will be happy — wonderfully, overwhelmingly happy. Yes, happiness is the sum of all blessings.

And yet, I still cannot bear it. There are seven billion people on earth, and you are so unique. Most importantly, you carry memories with me.