We Bought a House

We bought a house.

In America.

Well, we are in the process of buying a house. One Saturday in June, on our third morning of house-hunting, our realtor got a call that one of our prospects - 24 hours on the market - already had five offers. If we thought it was a strong contender, we’d need to rush over and make a quick decision. We rushed over to take a look, and we liked it enough to make ours offer number six. Three hours after we saw the house, our offer was accepted.

In the months of waiting and wondering and knowing nothing about the future, it’s hard to believe that we are suddenly moving forward so quickly. No time for indecision.

You could say it all started on January 21^st, when we left China planning to return a few weeks later. As Covid spread, February 12^th became March 10^th, became April 15^th, became “surely this summer,” and finally “Maybe Spring of 2021?” Now we think,“Maybe at least at some point we can get back to pack a few things? Maybe?”

I keep thinking, “We left for vacation and we can’t go back. How does that happen?” I can’t imagine that happening in the US, but actually a number of our friends have been in similar situations, even pre-Covid.

I can't say it was Covid or even our temporary homelessness that caused us to buy a home in America.

After 15 years, we have decided to move back to the US.

That decision brings a cosmic shift in our lives. Our lives will now be sliced into three pieces: before China, during China, post-China. Because really, no matter where we are, China is now forever a part of our lives. It has been our girls’ entire childhood, plus my entire adult life and most of Kevin’s. It has been our jobs, our home, our way of life, and our identity.

It was a hard decision, and it’s hard to describe the process that led us there.  It slowly became clear to us that China was no longer the healthy place for our family. I am naturally skeptical about the idea that “America will fix our problems.” In case you’ve noticed, a few people in America deal with depression, anxiety, or burnout, and shockingly some even yell at their kids. But we realized that some of these struggles were specifically linked to China. Schooling, language, uncertainty, a slight (entirely reasonable) paranoia, pollution, unrelenting heaviness in the atmosphere, and just feeling out of place all the time, even after all these years – it was all taking its toll.

Kevin and I each started to wonder, “Are we just staying in China because we have lived there so long?” One day we voiced it aloud. We realized the answer might be yes. At this point in our lives, staying in China really would have been the easier decision. Uprooting ourselves from everything familiar is nearly as hard as deciding to move to China 15 years ago. We know how to live in China. Coming back to the US means starting all over again with jobs, housing, cars, schools, friends, furniture, dishes…  It is like the 20-something figuring out adulthood – except we are 40ish with three kids!  We are nearly two decades “behind".

We feel confident it is a good decision for us. I am happy to be close to my family. We will be in the next town over from where I grew up. My friend and I talked about how we went from the extreme of the other side of the world to living 5 minutes from each other. It’s hard to believe that I will be one of those people who lives where I grew up, with family around. I have never been that person before.

We will have our own house with everything I dreamed of in China: a backyard, a dishwasher, a front porch and a back screened porch, a bedroom big enough to walk all the way around the bed, TWO bathrooms, hot water in all the sinks, closets, and a whole room for laundry, a huge yard with tall trees - and did I mention A/C!! Some of those are pretty standard in typical American homes, but it is all so exciting for us.

It is ironic to say "we are moving back to America" when actually we are already here. Technically we still live in China, except we can’t go back there. Most of our belongings are still there. Our clothes, my computer, even Kevin’s wedding ring! (he misplaced it the day before we flew to Thailand and didn’t have time to find it). The girls left their new Christmas presents and Nadia’s birthday presents from just the week before.

Many of our closest friendships were made in China. We are still committed to return temporarily if the doors reopen, even though we are now 11 days from owning a home. I guess what has changed is we are moving from unplanned, “what the heck is going on in life,” to purposefully moving forward with American lives and all the American things. House, furniture, car, jobs, schools, all the insurances we never needed in China.

This was not the way we were supposed to leave. We left on vacation and can’t go back. We haven’t said goodbye to any of our Chinese friends yet, because we can’t really. There’s still that chance we could return for a few months or weeks next spring, maybe even to teach a final semester, but more likely next summer, just to pack and say goodbyes. Our hope of return diminishes with each Covid case and accusation lobbed China’s way.

Now we have a beautiful American home to come back to if that chance materializes. And a home to stay in if it doesn’t. I still can’t get over that. Some days it feels like whiplash, some days like grief, and sometimes I want to laugh at the sheer absurdity.  It is the beginning and end of a dream.

We bought a house. In two weeks we will move in, unpack the random belongings we do have, arrange the new (used) furniture, and buy a mop. We will be all in, “buy a mop” kind of settled.  I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

If you need me, I’ll be sitting on my back porch in my rocking chair, drinking coffee and trying to figure it all out.

The Month of Goodbyes

The purple cabbage I used to demonstrate layers of grief

This month’s calendar is filled with notes of all the people who are leaving.  June 12, 17, 18, 25, and 27th. July 3rd, and 5th.  Five families and five single will move away for good.  One family has lived in China for 25+ years.  Another family for 10+ years.  Considering the size of our foreign friend group in this city, it is a significant portion.  Many others are returning to the US for the summer.  This is the month of goodbyes.

This month in our homeschool co-op, I have been teaching emotional intelligence.  Last week’s lesson was about loss and saying goodbyes.   We talked about what grief can look like, about layers of grief, and about how to deal with grief.  I think it is timely for our kids who have had so many goodbyes this year and are getting ready for more.

While we were back in America this past year, our friends still here in our city walked a road of continual goodbyes. The expat community is always fluid (or you could say unstable), but last year was like a mass exodus, triggered by changes in our area.  Sometimes our friends had months to prepare for these goodbyes, sometimes weeks or days.

We experienced the grief from afar, through messages and emails and secondhand news.  Each new loss seemed like another stab at our hearts.  Those friends are leaving too?  Will there be anyone left when we return?  Our friends were from all over the country and world.  We didn’t have the chance to say goodbye, and realistically, we will not see most of them again.

I see the effects of these losses on my children, especially on Juliana.  She has had a lot of questions.  “Why do they have to leave?  Will we see them again?  Will my best friend come back to China? Will we have to leave?”  During the middle of the “mass exodus,” her 7 year old friend wrote letters to all her friends saying, “I will miss you if I have to leave.”  Imagine the grief and uncertainty our kids experience.  We can only offer so much reassurance because the future is unsure.

Adalyn doesn't show a lot of sadness at the surface.  She is quiet and doesn't cry.  She doesn't cry, that is, until her all out meltdowns.  These have become more common during these last weeks.

Juliana responds with anger.  I have tried to help her understand this – grief doesn’t always look like sadness.  She felt so much anger when we returned to China. After goodbyes to all our friends and family in America, and she came back to China to face the reality of all the friends and classmates who were no longer here.  Just in the past week, as she prepares for more goodbyes, we have seen this anger reappear.  I remind myself be patient when she huffs or yells about the smallest things.

I try to guide her into healthier emotional expression.  It usually looks less like, “Dearest daughter, let’s sit down and talk about your feelings” and more like, “JULIANA, stop yelling!  Go sit on your bed and write in your journal!”  I also need to work on healthy emotional expression.  Juliana’s journal is probably full of diatribes against me and her sisters and the unfairness of life...and the friends that she misses.

Goodbyes are a part of everyone’s life.  Three of our friends in the US are making major moves this summer to different regions of the US.  They are saying goodbyes to family, longtime friends, all the familiar places. They will be experiencing their own “cultural” changes – West Coast to East Coast, South to North, Non-Texas to Texas, which as we all know is a culture unto itself. Our world is so transient.

For our kids, their goodbyes are two-fold.  Sometimes they are the ones leaving. They say goodbyes to all their friends and family when they leave the US, both in Georgia and California.  They leave friends from church and school and friends they have known since birth.  We return to China and the goodbyes continue. Their classmates and playmates, the ones they played with as toddlers, the ones they biked with in the neighborhood courtyard – our kids are now the ones left behind.

They are becoming experts at saying goodbyes, although that doesn’t make it easy.  The girls exchange friendship bracelets, cards, and secret handshakes.  We say we will Skype, and sometimes it happens.

Later, when we look at the globe, we talk about their friends in this state, in that country, on that continent. The world map above our dining table is not just for geography.  Nadia can recognize China and America, our own countries.  Adalyn points out California and Georgia.  Juliana first finds Norway, home of her best friend in the whole world.

We move on to different parts of America and the world.  “See, your friends are moving to Florida.  This is Oregon, Kentucky, Alabama...where we visited friends last year.  This is Australia, where your past classmates live."  Wherever we look, we find friends all over the world.

Transition is complicated. Kind of like spinach.

“So how do you feel about going back?”

It’s a reasonable question, and I appreciate people asking.  It’s also one of those stupidly difficult ones, like, “Where do you live? Do you love China? Do you love America?”

Almost exactly a year ago I sat in a hotel room in limbo between our life in China and our year in America, and I wrote about the equally hard question, “Are you excited about going back to America?”  I didn’t know how to answer that one either.

How do I feel about going back?  I’d say I feel all the things. If I were an emoji I would have at least three heads: wailing head, smiling head, stress head. Stress over packing and trying to get all of our prescriptions in time.  Grief over saying goodbyes and leaving this place where we have settled for a year.  Grief for the goodbyes and transitions my kids have to go through again and the difficulties they will face.  Anticipation of getting settled back into our own familiar space where we lived for four years.  Anxiety over how much our community and the environment of our city has changed in the last year.  Eagerness to see friends we have missed.

I am a pre-griever.  I feel all the sadness before something happens, dreading the coming change.  I have been known to feel sad about Juliana going away to kindergarten and to college at the same time.  My pre-grieving knows no bounds.  But once the dreaded event occurs, it is easier.  Once I get on the plane, I can focus on what is ahead.

I also know that adaptability is not one of my strengths.  When I face going anywhere, I always think, “Or we could just stay here...”  It doesn't help when the first step is 30 hours of travel. I like the familiar and have very low desire for adventure.  Maybe in spite of or because of living in China, I love stability and routine and everything staying the same.  Fortunately I have been through enough transition to have gained a self-awareness.  I never want to leave, but when I get there it will be okay.  Right now everything seems up in the air and the room is cluttered with suitcases, but one day soon we will be settled again.

When I think about going back, what I look forward to most is the familiarity.  I think of our apartment and how it will look once we have everything unpacked and organized.  I think of our friends who are still there, ones that we know and understand, and who will understand all the feelings that come with transition.  I think about the familiar roads we drive down every day, and about the familiar faces – the fruit seller, the restaurant owners, the neighbors.

When we have been in China for a while, I will think, “I cannot imagine living in America.  What would that even be like?  What would it be like not to live here?  This is our life.  This is normal.”  But in those first days back, I know I will look around at the dull gray skies and the dull gray buildings and wonder, “Why are we here?  Why is everything ugly? Why would we choose this?”  It takes a while to notice the glimpses of beauty.

Similarly, when I first get back to America I always think, “This place is crazy.  I cannot imagine living here.  Look at the size of these houses! How much everyone thinks they need to own!  Why are there so many choices??”  But after so long in America – a full year – I think, “It’s pretty nice here. I could get used to this.  We could settle in and our kids could go to school, we could keep going to our church, we could drive around in a van and fill up a closet.”

So there is always an inner conflict.  America is so in-your-face prettier and easier and bigger and has ten options of anything you could ever want.  China has to grow on you.  Everything is harder but also simpler.  In China, I would love to buy one of those pre-washed bags of spinach and skip the whole process of “wash with soap, rinse really well until the water is no longer dirty, rinse with drinking water, dry completely and use in the next day before it wilts.”

But there is also something wholesome about stepping into the tiny vegetable shop or bending down over the blanket of vegetables along the side of the road.  In the middle of the city, there is something grounding about spinach covered with dirt, a reminder it came out of the ground not a factory.  It was probably carted into the city on one of those incredibly loud banging tractors and sold by the farmers, directly to us or to the vegetable shop.  And I probably bought it for 40 cents.

So my feelings about China are kind of like spinach.  I miss the ease and convenience of sanitized spinach in a fancy container inside a ridiculously clean supermarket, but I also enjoy the connection I feel through my dirt-covered spinach sold in a cold, cramped vegetable hut by the same person I see every time, who tells me if my kids are wearing enough clothes or not.

In fact, maybe this will be my new analogy.  “How do I feel about going back to China?  Well it's complicated; kind of like spinach."

Sometimes We Get the Chance to Say Goodbye

When we left to come back to the US this year, our friends kept asking, “Are you coming back? How sure our you that you will be back?” They weren’t asking because they found us to be naturally untrustworthy people but because they recognize the reality of our transient community. I would usually answer, “Yes, we are definitely coming back as far as we can foresee. As far as it depends on us. As long as nothing big happens. We are leaving all our possessions here and saying, “See you next year,” not “I may not see you again ever.”

We feel a fear whenever someone leaves, or even talks about leaving, because we know none of this is forever. Not in a “the earth is temporal and not our home” kind of philosophic way but in a very practical sense, we are continually reminded of the tentative nature of our lives.

When we left China, another family from our city left at the same time, knowing that they probably would not be back. They were our friends, former classmates, our playgroup buddies. Our two oldest were international school classmates. Our two middles were best friends. Our two youngest were preschool classmates. But we were able to say goodbye and send them off to their home country, even though we would probably never see them again.

After we were back in the US, we heard that another family unexpectedly left our city to return to their home country where we will probably never see them again. Juliana’s teacher that she loved left our city and will not be back. Another family, in a nearby city, told us this summer they would not be back. Just now we learned from another family in our city, our good friends, that they will be leaving in a few months, before we get back. These times, we do not get to say goodbye.

Sometimes we, and they, can plan ahead. We knew that several friends would be leaving before we returned (in addition to the aforementioned ones). Some other friends, who have lived in China for over 25 years, have already been making plans to return to the US next summer. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, the move is sudden. We don’t have the chance for goodbyes. And so we hold a certain fear. Will they return? Will they stay? Will I see them again?

In the US we like to believe we control our own destinies, if we believe it we can achieve it, we can set goals and make them come true, we can do anything, nothing can stop us. We choose our jobs and our homes and our cars, maybe our children’s schools and our city or neighborhood. We have so many options that we can believe we are in control of everything – until a terrible diagnosis, or a tragic loss, or a sudden layoff.

In our lives overseas, most of those illusions are stripped away and we wonder what in the world we are left to control. We may lose our friends and our children’s friends. We may lose our most of what we own. We may have to leave because of our health or parent’s health or children’s well-being or because we are no longer welcome. We may lose our jobs and our schools and our homes and our way of life all in one blow. We carry this possibility with us each day, not because we are doomsday thinkers or extreme pessimists but because know these are realistic possibilities.

Lately I have been feeling this grief. Loss of friends. Loss of control. Loss of security. The uncertainty of the future. And the continual goodbyes. How many goodbyes, most likely permanent goodbyes, have I said in these years? Another year, another dozen goodbyes. I am tired of saying goodbyes, but I am grateful for each time I get to say them. I know that sometimes we won’t have that chance.

We tend to run in one of two directions. Sometimes we close ourselves off to friendships because who knows how long they will be here anyway. We don’t fix up the apartment because what if we have to move again next year? Sometimes we cling to things tightly in the hopes they won’t slip through our fingers. But we can never cling tightly enough to keep change at bay, and the loss tears us apart.

The only way I see through it is by holding our hearts out, and holding them loosely. We have to keep investing in people and a country, loving others, settling in however temporarily. We have to accept that change and loss are inevitable, that however hard we try we are not in control. Then when change and loss happens, we grieve in whatever ways we do it best. We allow our hearts to break and then be remade.

Snapshots of Transition

 ~ Known ~

“I will miss this next year,” I lamented, looking around at a group of mom friends. On a rare mom’s night, we sat talking about beach hotels we have all visited - sometimes at the same time, about the new international school, about our children’s Chinese language progress and willingness to interact with other Chinese kids, about what country we will be in at what time.

“When I am here, our life seems pretty normal, but when I am back in America I realize our lives are really weird! The simplest discussions – about backyards or buying cars or extracurricular activities – leave me feeling isolated.” Everyone nodded in understanding.

Because we do understand each other. We understand the stress of being the one fascinating foreigner at a Kindergarten meeting, trying to practice your language skills while chasing your toddler around and warding off picture takers when they get a little too enthusiastic. We understand the joy of hearing your children speak Chinese and interact with other Chinese kids – when a year ago they didn’t want to even try. We all understand the stress of 24+hour trips and jetlag and endless transitions.

Many of us in this expat community have “grown up together.” We have waded together through having babies that are never dressed in enough layers and toddlers who won’t sleep, preschoolers who don’t always want to go to Chinese kindergarten, and now grade school students with classroom drama. We talk about home school curriculum, 三轮车’s, and the new Burger King that just opened. We are from different states and different countries, but we seem to have more in common than not.

~ Stress-Induced Insanity ~

I wondered if spontaneous combustion really happens, because I could swear my head was going to explode. My heart beat strangely, my head pounded with too much blood, my nerves tingled. Everything sounded too loud and grating.

The girls were finally in bed, but I could still hear the lullaby shrilling from their China-gifted blinking, twirling star machine. It is supposed to be soothing, but it may cause seizures and certainly insanity. Kevin sat next to me, wondering at my blank silence. “Kevin, I need you to go out of here,” I said rather shortly. “I am too stressed to be with people right now.” I knew he didn’t quite understand. He feels stressed too, but it doesn’t seem to lead to stress-induced insanity, aka. extreme over-stimulation.

Fortunately as I have learned more about what it means to be highly sensitive, I can recognize what is happening. I am not going insane. But I might, unless I escape all the stimulation and be alone. So I sent Kevin away before I started yelling at him and told him for the love of all that is holy, turn off that horrible lullaby.

Sitting under a thick blanket on our bed in soft lamplight, with the door closed and ocean noise on, the pressure in my head began to release. It is worse with stress, I know. How do I balance the packing, the daily piles of laundry, handling the kids (better than I have been), the last minute obligations, this encroaching deadline, and my own need for sanity? Everywhere I look is a reminder of what needs to be done. The outside world of our home descends further into chaos, and the barrier between outer and inner world starts to disintegrate. How do I protect an inner peace?

~ Bittersweet ~

Juliana came home from her last day of international school with a personalized scrapbook. Each page holds notes from her teachers and pictures of her at school. In half of the pictures her hands are covered in paint and her face with a silly grin. There she is concentrating on the drums, acting in the Christmas pageant, studying Chinese. Her teachers write – in English and Chinese – about her sunny disposition, her silliness, her enthusiasm.

This was the school’s first semester, their “soft opening,” so all of the 30-some students are known well. The school has been flexible, allowing for part-time home school. They have made allowances for our kids’ strange, foreign ways. They have been understanding when we said, “Actually we need to go live in another country for a year, mid-school-year, so we’ll be back later.”

I think Juliana will enjoy public school in America next year, but there will be confusion. When she tries to add up American money she tries to figure out which one is a kuai. She has now sorted out the American and Chinese flags, but she doesn’t know the Pledge of Allegiance or that most people in America, when asked where they are from, don’t say, “I’m from America,” or “I’m from China.” We are a little weird to Chinese and to Americans, but in this little in-between world of ours, we all make sense.

~ Stress Dreams ~

I have been having a lot of stress dreams. Lately I have varied from my ordinary stress dreams – realizing we are supposed to travel and I forgot to pack, or my recurring “out of control elevator” dream, where the elevator never goes where I want, but shoots up to the 157 floor, or down 47 floors below the ground, or leaves the building altogether and flies across the street.

No, lately I have dreamed about a rapist serial killer and all the woman he molested, about Kevin rearranging all our cabinets in a way that made no sense, about going back to America and nobody having time to hang out with us, about Nadia running into the road and almost being run over by a car, and last night - about Steve Bannon getting into our house and snooping around, trying to extract information from us. So yes, stress nightmares. Thank God I don’t have prophetic dreams. I think I can understand why Adalyn keeps waking up screaming at night.

~ Heartbreak ~

Adalyn keeps waking up screaming at night. Sometimes it is night terrors. Sometimes she is awake but can’t seem to calm down.  Everything seems out of control, especially inside of herself.  She is excited about going back to America, but she is the most sensitive to upheaval. I try to figure out what is going on with her – is she reacting to our stress? Is it her own difficulty coping with transition? Is it something more? 

I took her out one afternoon. We ate ice cream in our coats and played a game and worked a puzzle and did a little activity about stress. I wasn’t sure she would even understand stress, but her insights were surprisingly deep for a four year old. Too deep for a four year old.  She used pictures and colors (my child for sure) to describe the fear and “break-fulness” she feels. I could understand how she felt, and it was heartbreaking. Surely a four year old should not feel this way. Is it the stress of transition? If it is, how will she ever survive this crazy life of ours? Is it something deeper? If so, how do we know what is going on and get her help?

~ Goodbyes ~

The milk tea lady gives me an extra kind smile whenever I see her. The shop workers exclaim excitedly when our girls wander through the store. Every time I drive up, our fruit lady gives the girls fruit and snacks, or asks about them when they aren't along. She gathers up a whole bag of “ugly” fruit and gives it to us for free. The neighbors smile with delight when they see us in a restaurant or at the kindergarten or on the road. “Look, there is 安安 and her sisters!” Everyone knows Juliana. The owners of our favorite restaurants will wonder, “What ever happened to those foreigners? We haven’t seen them in ages.” Because we can’t tell everyone we are leaving. But who should we be sure to tell goodbye?

~ Packing ~

The other day our friend watched the girls, and I had an hour to focus on packing. It is amazing how much can be accomplished without constant interruptions. I laid out all the dishes we didn’t absolutely need to use and wrapped them in layers of bedding. I was a little worried about them breaking, but then I realized these dishes have withstood years of hard use, so they have probably never been so safe in their lives. I felt pretty good after that hour. See all we accomplished? This is totally possible.

A few days and approximately zero packing later, I thought, “Surely I can get something done this morning.” Right after I put some laundry in to wash, and hang up that pile of clean clothes, and help Adalyn draw a Christmas tree and then draw one for Nadia too, and reheat my coffee, and clean up the contents of the previously packed bin which are now scattered on the floor, and oh, now it’s time to pick up Juliana from dance class. But I did pack a tiny ziplock for hair things, so that is progress, right? This is never going to work.

~ Messy ~

I have been reading a book called Looming Transitions, written by a past colleague Amy Young. In one chapter titled “Accept That It’s Going to Be Messy,” Amy says, “a sign of finishing well is the ability to embrace the chaos of life.” I want this ending – which is an ending, even if only for a time - to be neat and orderly. I want my responses to transition to make sense. But the truth is, it’s going to be messy.

We cannot pack up a house without piles of boxes, bags of trash and stacks of give away. Some things will be carefully wrapped up and others left behind; some things will inevitably be lost in the shuffle. I start by trying to divide everything into categories: books, toys, kitchen items. I end by throwing anything and everything into any box that will hold it. I think I have a box all packed and ready only to realize it has been upended, its contents scattered all over the floor by oh-so-helpful children.

We cannot transition without mess. I feel a grief at losing some of the things I value most. We look forward to returning to family and friends, but we leave behind friends who have become like family. Even if we return here, as we certainly plan, it will not be the same. Some people will be gone. China will be different, as it leaps decades – backwards or forwards – in a single bound. I feel relief at starting over, getting rid of some of the baggage we have carried from place to place, when we should have left it behind years ago. I hate the thought of starting over. I wish we could just keep doing the same thing; even if it is not working it is familiar.

"Embracing” the chaos seems a bit out of reach, but I take time away from the craze of packing to process and write. To stop and have coffee with friends. To draw a Christmas tree with my daughter. To make sure I am still breathing.  And then I dive back into the mess of transition.