The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

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I THINK NO ONE CAN ever forget the biggest pandemic to ever be recorded in history that started at the near end of 2019. It's something that's very hard to let slip out of your mind, especially when you once went through it yourself. Something surely I won't ever forget.

On May 8th, 2020, I was tested positive for COVID-19.

Just weeks before being tested positive, I was on a huge stage performing with the others, the crowds of people cheering and screaming our names. While Mason, who had already been my manager and assistant for about a year or two was in the backstage waiting for me. It was probably the worst choice to have a concert at that time, the virus in China had just started to clear a little and the rules were being slightly bended. But Mr. Wang insisted, and to be honest, we had all missed the stage and spotlight. It wasn't too soon, a few days after that concert, that I started to feel sick and I was showing symptoms.

It was such a terrifying experience. I was quarantined alone in this room, and there was no one and nothing. If I had thought I knew what loneliness was before that, then I was definitely wrong. Those two to three weeks that felt like years were the loneliest state I had ever been. I was sick. I felt like I was dying. Maybe I was. I just wanted someone, anyone.

No one came to visit me, not that they could or should. But I just wanted someone to come, anyone.

Those days, lying lifelessly on that bed, I dreamed about Bridget. I didn't know I missed her that much until I was just suddenly alone. No crowds, no fans, no paparazzis. Just no one and no contact at all. But I missed her, and I kept wondering what the meaning of it all meant, of what I had felt for her back those two to three years ago. Was it love? Was I capable of loving? That question, was I capable of loving? That, I kept wondering about that. It was so confusing, how I had felt for Bridget. What was the meaning of that? And my thoughts were being wrestled with my illness. I think things might have been different if I was raised maybe in the U.S., but the thing is I wasn't. And it confused me that I liked Bridget, she was a girl and I was a girl, and the logic was for a girl to like a boy and a boy to like a girl. What I had felt for Bridget, well, I didn't think it to be 'wrong' but more like confusing. The logic that you can love a girl wasn't really taught to me. Although those thoughts weren't really bothering me in those days of isolation. Nor did it really bother me before I got the virus. What bothered me was what I had done to get that captain spot, and that Bridget had cared for me but I hurted her, then her care for me all just disappeared because of my actions. And it was also those days in isolation that I realized what I had felt for Bridget a few years ago was long gone. And now I only wanted to be friends with her again. I wanted her to forgive me, but that was a selfish thought.

Isolation was the key point to everything when the coronavirus was going on. It was "Stay away, stay six feet apart, wear a mask" and I didn't take it seriously until the virus really just hit me. I was so sad, I thought I was dying, but the thought of dying without a real friend was what suddenly made me so down, so regretful. And not just that, but also in those days, I realized I haven't fully reached the top, that being a wide known C-Pop star throughout Beijing was not what I meant when I was going to be all over the screen. I had too many regrets to die.

When you're just alone, without anyone, it really gets you thinking. And it's like your thoughts are eating at you, maybe swallowing you whole. I thought about my fame, I thought about the village, I thought about my mother, I thought about Adele and Joseph, I thought about Bridget, I thought about Mr. Wang, I thought about Ya Kai Jun, I thought about possibly everything in those weeks. It was almost like my whole life flashing before my eyes, and so much I had wanted to do but couldn't do in that lonely period.

I guess the thing is, when you think you're dying, you just start to come to the realization of all the things you haven't done and not the things you have done. If not, then maybe something else. But that was how I had felt. There were too many things I needed to do before dying, and I kept praying to just give me another chance, another chance at all of this. When you feel like you're on the rim of death, you will do anything or say anything in order to keep yourself alive. I didn't believe in god or any of that, but those days I prayed, I said I'll do anything, I'll be nicer, kinder, just another chance, don't let me die.