I Used to Have That in China

Five months and nine days after we entrusted our most important belongings to the postal service, our final package arrived!

When we unwittingly left China in January 2020, planning to be back in a few weeks, we brought beach clothes. We left an entire house set up and waiting, perfectly preserved as a moment in time: Beds made, clothes folded in drawers, shoes by the doors.

Once we realized we were settling in America and would not be able to return to China anytime in the near future, we started looking into options for shipping a few of our most important possessions back from China.

It was a long and arduous process including months of planning and frustration, and incredibly helpful friends who spent hours and hours gathering and packing and repacking on the China side. On June 6^th, five boxes and one bass guitar finally left Yinchuan. Due to the nightmarish shipping delays, they sat in Shanghai for three months.

Finally in mid-October, the first boxes started arriving! A month later we were still waiting for the final package. The last tracking update was June, and I was starting to lose hope. But yesterday, our shipping saga concluded; all our belongings have safely made their way across the ocean!!

We were all so excited to be reunited with our things again. The girls exulted over Barbies, stuffed animals, and seemingly random “treasure collections.” I was thrilled to see the handmade afghans and stockings and embroidered pictures, the little books I had filled with baby memories, and old journals that told the inner story of years in China.  Practical things like favorite winter clothes arrived just in time for cool weather, with a big jumble of jewelry and electronics.

I was very happy to see all these things after nearly two years. But emotions are rarely pure and uncomplicated. In the midst of the happiness, I felt letdown. I found myself picturing where each of these things were in our apartment. The recipe cards in the pantry, my jewelry on a hook in my wardrobe, the Little People overflowing their milk-box-turned-toy-storage.

For a whole year, I pictured my China home set up and waiting. I thought about all the special and useful things I wished I had with me. Now, I am faced with the reality that the home we never said goodbye to is gone forever.  I already knew that. Knowing that brought a bit of closure, a sense that I could start to move on. 

But now it is real in a new way. My hair-tie inexplicably smells like our apartment, a familiar scent of chalky walls. The physical evidence of our presence in China is gone, as if we never lived there. The last tangible connection to our past life is severed.

The dismantling of our apartment symbolizes the unraveling of our whole lives in China. Even if we did go back to China, everything would be different. Our dear friends and the sweet community we formed would be gone. Our students would have graduated and moved on.  Who knows which of our favorite shops and restaurants actually survived the pandemic. The China we miss no longer exists.

These five boxes encompass 15 years of life. Most of our things are more recent, post-children possessions, but they also hold reminders of years past, the early days when China was such a different world. A handmade “wish jar” from my very first class in Yangzhou now sits on my dresser. I loved them so dearly, and they were enamored with me, their 22 year old teacher, the first foreigner many of them had ever seen.

We shipped another wish jar, full of intricate hand-folded paper hearts, from two shy students in Weinan, ones who said they were so touched by Kevin’s teaching because they had never before been complimented.

An angel figurine that was once on our bookshelf now rests on the mantel, a memorial of our first pregnancy that ended in miscarriage in a Chinese hospital. The paper IKEA gift tags that Kevin and I used to decorate our first Christmas tree wait with the handmade stockings my mom sewed for each new addition to the family.

I look at my painting, now torn, and remember the painting class I took with friends. The mug from my favorite coffee shop reminds me of quiet moments alone, deep connections with friends, and the best ever hugs from the owner. The terra cotta warrior figurines remind us of bargaining down the ridiculous price quoted at a stall outside this historical landmark. I remember where we got every single one of these items and why they are important.

And now we have them back. These tangible reminders of our lives in China are scattered around the house, slipped between newer items of this newer life.  Our past and present lives blend together a little more. While it sometimes seems like a dream, like another world entirely, China will always always be inextricably woven into the rest of our lives. We look at these treasures and remember who we are.

Chinaversary

One year ago I rushed around uplugging appliances and zipping suitcases, making sure everything was ready for our vacation. We bundled up in down coats against the frigid January morning. I took one last look around, and we left our apartment. We left Yinchuan. We left China. And it was no big deal.

Never in a million years would we have imagined that a year later we would still not be back, we might never be back. We kept thinking we could return later in February, in March, in April, later in the spring, at the end of summer, the beginning of 2021, maybe briefly next summer...never.

I miss so many things about China.

We had such a close community, a small group of friends we saw multiple times a week for shared meals, play-dates, meetings, walks, and home school co-op. We had the kind of friends that shared their left-overs and library cards and watched your kids at the last minute.

We had a sweet ayi (house helper/babysitter) who had been with us since Adalyn was a baby. She was used to our weird foreign ways: our kids who wouldn’t wear socks on cold tile floors and the amount of peanut butter we consumed. She knew far too much about us and loved us anyway.

I miss bumping down the road in our san lun che, bundled against the cold (in a mask, because we were doing that long before the virus). I miss driving past the steaming baozi (breaded dumplings), old women dancing in the park, and the local mosque. I miss driving the “wrong way” down the bike lane, because is there really a wrong way? (No.)

Obviously I’m not fully accustomed to living in a detached house, because I still hear phantom chopping noises. In a Chinese apartment, it seems you hear someone whacking away with a cleaver at any given time of day. I imagine the scratch of straw brooms on pavement, the calls of students walking by outside our window, and the loudspeakers at the fruit stalls croaking out, “San jin shi kuai! San jin shi kuai! (3lb for $1.50). My past self would find it strange, but I actually miss knowing there are people all around.

I miss the feeling of safety. I could walk down a dark street at night, take the bus across the city, or leave my kids in an open vehicle on the side of the road while I ran into a store. I have to continually remind myself I’m not allowed to do that here. Schools had earthquake drills, yes, but never ever mass shooter drills.

I could send my kids down to the nearby shop to pick up some vinegar. It was on our campus, only about 3 minutes away, but I literally sent an 8, 5, and 3 year old off to run an errand alone. And that was fine. Everyone around knew who they were, and anyone around would help them if they needed it.

I miss Chinese food. The hand-pulled Hui noodles, preferably eaten at a rickety metal table in a crowded restaurant. Our ayi’s jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) which everyone agreed were the best ever. Anything our ayi cooked. Our favorite restaurants, like the one by the mosque with the good eggplant, the one with the excellent tofu that we’ve gone to for 6 years, and the one with my favorite onion dish that is truly 90% cooked onion. Oh, and north-eastern food! And Xingjiang food! So many good things you just can’t find here.

Every time I go shopping, I think wistfully of China prices. Vegetables were the least expensive food you could buy – 30c/lb, maybe 70c/lb for the pricier things. Apples, oranges, and seasonal fruits were traditionally 3lbs for $1.50. I miss Taobao, a sort of Chinese Amazon that has everything, including $15 winter coats, $6 knock-off Lego sets, and the weirdest things you’ve ever seen.

I mostly avoided the supermarkets, but I still miss the vats of oil and giant bags of rice and the whole aisle of instant noodles. A walk through the market would show half a dozen types of tofu, slabs of hanging meat, buckets of live fish, and beautiful assortments of vegetables.

I miss the seasons in China – the flowering trees of spring, the giant trucks full of watermelon in summer, the baked sweet potato sellers on the side of the road in fall, the frozen lake in winter.

I miss students and friends coming to our house, bringing giant bags of fruit as gifts. We would talk or play games and the girls would go crazy. The students took lots of pictures with the girls, admired all their toys, and inevitably got roped into a game of hide-and-seek. You had to make sure every single part of the house was clean before someone came over!

One of my friends used to come to my office hours, then to my book club. She was my Chinese tutor for a while. Last year we started going on walk around campus once a week, arm in arm. She was smart and deep and we had many good talks.

I can picture every room in our apartment: my faded IKEA chair on the laundry porch, where I would sit under wet laundry catching the sun; the living room rug and bedspread and kitchen curtains I carefully picked out; the view from the large kitchen window where each morning I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the mountains. I know how the light fell at different times of the day. I rarely turned on overhead lights, as our 5^th floor apartment was bright enough without them.

Some things were so familiar – carried through half a dozen moves or passed on from other foreigners who had moved on. Others were new – the curtains we gave Adalyn for when we moved her into the office, still folded and waiting; the electric train set Nadia got for her birthday two days before we left.

It hurts to think about all the things we will never see and hear and taste again. It also stings a little to realize how hard it would be to go back to that, after settling here.

I enjoy pulling into the garage (in my enclosed, temperature controlled van) instead of carting loads of groceries up all those stairs. It would be hard to go back to Saturday morning Skype calls with my family in place of in-person visits. I love sitting on my quiet porch in the summer and by the cozy fire in the winter. We have adjusted to living in a house twice the size of our apartment – with two bathrooms – and closets – and a dishwasher.

There are so many things I miss about our lives in China, but I know it was far from rosy. It was a much harder place to live. Harder practically - making every meal from scratch, enduring the many smoggy days, and oh my word, the medical stress!

Harder culturally - all the attention we drew, all the interactions we decoded, all the language we learned and forgot, all of the tiny things that wore you out even after 15 years.

Harder in more nebulous ways - the unseen weightiness, the self-expectations, feeling so visible yet so unseen, a constant feeling of instability. Really we could have seen this coming. Not a pandemic, of course, but something that unexpectedly ripped us away.

I had considered what were the most important things I would pack if we had to leave suddenly. I had a three day plan and a few hour plan (as did most of the foreign families). I just didn’t have a plan for unknowingly leaving everything behind forever without a chance to look back.

I have no resolution or closure for this post, just like there was none for our leaving. I have just been thinking, especially today, about all the things I miss.

One year ago we left that whole life behind. Just. Like. That.

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.

Unsettled

“Are you excited about going back to America?”

I’ve heard this question a lot over the past few months. Usually my response is something like, “Um, yeah? I guess so?”

Even this super definitive answer is somewhat of a lie. But a soft lie, used to keep conversation from grinding to an awkward halt when you say, “No.”

Excited is not the right word. If I were to answer honestly, I would have to say,

“It feels weird.”

Or

“I don’t really know how I feel.”

Or

“I feel anxious. And relieved. And unsettled. And expectant. And a little lost.”

The truth is, when we dropped our friends at the airport where they would fly back to China, to sleep tonight in their own beds in their own apartment in their familiar city, I felt a pang of jealousy.

I just want to go back to our home. Except that it’s not ours anymore.

I want to go back to our normal life. Except we have to do the hard work of creating a new normal.

I want to be with all those people who get us and understand our lives. Except I also want to be with family and friends.

I want everything to stay the same, even if it wasn’t healthy or sustainable.

I want everything to stay the same, and of course it never does.

It is no reflection on our family or our friends in America. It is just that…we live in China. We visit America. But right now approximately everything we own is packed up in boxes, and we can’t go back to where we lived for four long years, and we won’t see our China friends for at least a year.

It’s just that we have repacked these bags over and over, and it will be at least a couple more months before we can really unpack and settle in. Somewhere that is yet to be determined.

It’s just that sometimes I lie awake at night thinking, “We don’t even have spoons. Or a broom. How are we going to live in yet-to-be-determined-housing without spoons or a broom?? It seems wasteful to buy a broom just for a year. Aren’t brooms kind of expensive? I don’t know how much brooms are. I don’t know how much anything is. How do we possibly budget for a year in America if we don’t even know how much a broom will cost?

“Where will we live and what will we do and what if we just spend this year wandering confusedly around grocery store aisle ranting to strangers about the meaninglessness of ten different varieties of canned tomatoes. Chopped, diced, stewed, seasoned, name brand, store brand – why are you ruining our lives?

“What if our friends don’t understand us and we don’t understand them? What if our kids talk about kuai and three wheeled vehicles and places in Thailand and everyone thinks they are too weird to bother with? What if they forget all their Chinese? What if they prefer America? What if we keep getting sick and nothing changes? What if we can’t go back to China, or back to our city, or back to our school?...”

It’s just that the things I packed and carefully portioned into four 23 kg suitcases plus carry-ons already confuse me. Why does Juliana have so many clothes and Nadia so few? Why did it seem so important to bring that book and not the other one? What happened to that game I was sure we packed? Why did we bring so much and it’s still not enough?

We painstakingly discussed which stuffed animals the girls would bring. Adalyn was definite: kitty, dolly, and worry-eater. She is not like Juliana, who sleeps with a pack of animals and panics if one falls under the bed. Adalyn’s animals stay in the suitcase or fall under the bed - she barely even cares they are there.

Until the night she lay in bed wailing, “I want my hedgehog! Where is hedgehog? I wanted to bring my hedgehog and you wouldn’t let me! I don’t want kitty!”

She was just tired. She was just reacting to Juliana’s temporarily missing hedgehog. She was just lashing out. She was just responding to the stress of sleeping in different beds in different cities and countries and not even knowing where your things are or if you will actually see them again and what if you made the wrong choice and brought the wrong things? What if you didn’t know what you really wanted?

The next morning she was fine. She hasn’t mentioned hedgehog since. But the feeling will continue to resurface.

We will keep traveling – another airplane, another country, another bed before eventually we settle and try to make ourselves fit into life somewhere for a year, less than a year. Knowing this is temporary, knowing that this is not the place we really live.

Maybe I will feel excited.

But for now, if you ask me, I will probably just look confused.

I’ll probably say, “Um, yeah? I guess so?”

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.

So This is What Burnout Looks Like

“We are doing better than last year,” I told our member care specialist.

“Better than double pneumonia?” she asked skeptically, “I’m not sure that’s saying much.”

She had a point.

Last spring when I was recovering from pneumonia I thought, “You know, I’m really doing much better...Of course, I haven’t been outside yet. And I get out of breath if I talk much. And I have to rest every 10 minutes. And I’m still spending most of the day in bed... Hmm, I may be worse than I thought.”

That’s how this fall has been for us. Compared to last year, it’s not too bad. We haven’t been to the hospital yet! We aren’t sick all the time, but when friends ask if we are healthy, I find myself saying, “Yeah, I think we’re healthy. I mean, Kevin and I just had a weird virus that made all our muscles super sore. And Juliana threw up the other day but she’s okay now. And Adalyn’s allergies are causing her asthma to act up. But yeah, we’re pretty healthy. Nadia and I just have a little cold.”

We are functioning much better than last year. I am able to cook meals and clean the house, at least when I’m not sick. Most of the time I have had enough voice for home schooling. Kevin has continual headaches, but he’s still able to teach and handle what has to be done. But we haven’t been able get far beyond survival.

We toss around the word burnout a lot, but when I started reading about real burnout, I felt like I was reading a description of our lives. Frequent illness, frequent headaches, continuous fatigue, anxiety, inability to concentrate, feeling overwhelmed by needs, frustration and anger, emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, drop in productivity, questioning our calling… I could go on, but you get the idea. Check, check, and check.

I knew we were pretty burned out last year, but that was overshadowed by the relentless sickness and the darkness of depression. We were so far down in the pit of survival mode it was hard to see beyond keeping everyone alive for one more day.

This fall we’ve been able to see a little more clearly. We realize that some of the roles we have been in are not the best for us. In recent years I have often felt sidelined, unable to participate outside the home in the ways I would like. I am becoming more aware of roles I would like step into, but we have to get beyond survival before I can add anything else.

I have learned some important things about myself in the past year, like how I have been pushing against being an introvert and highly sensitive person, damaging and devaluing myself in the process. I have realized I have ridiculous self-expectations that will never be met – and don’t even need to be. I have realized that depression and anxiety will always be part of the equation, in lesser or greater proportion, and that prioritizing mental health is not an option.

For Kevin, team leading has been stressful, dealing with difficult people who may or may not get mad and hang up mid-conversation. He gets emails from the school at 10pm saying, “We need all of your lesson plans for the semester in two days!” (real example). He negotiates with the school, “I’m sorry but that’s impossible. We have never taught these classes before and have to make up the whole curriculum, but we’ll get you as much as possible by the end of the weekend.” Then he communicates the unwelcome news to the other foreign teachers, “Hope you don’t have any weekend plans...”

Kevin has also been the mostly-healthy one for the past couple of years. Since the beginning of my pregnancy with Nadia, it’s just been one mess of sickness and Kevin has been picking up the slack. He is tired. He has had a continuous headache for a year or more.

I knew this had been a hard season of life for me, but I am recognizing that the effects are longer reaching than I thought. My depression has definitely improved since last year, and I’d like to think I’m “over that” now, but the reality is I am not at all ready to stop taking medication. In fact, it would be a pretty terrible idea.  And I am tired of being sick so much, for no real apparent reason (except maybe stress or exhaustion or pollution or carrying around little germ magnets…). The kids are not even surprised to see me in bed because “mama’s not feeling good” is such a normal thing. That's not what I want them to remember of me.

We realize that we are yelling at the kids. Honestly, we’ll probably always yell sometimes because cute little people can be extremely aggravating. But we are frustrated and angry too much. We are not handling their emotional needs well. Things I used to enjoy doing with the kids, like cooking or doing anything crafty, just stress me out now.  This is not how we want our family to be.

And recently I realized, it doesn’t have to be this way. What if we could be healthy? Physically, mentally, emotionally. Not “okay” in the sense of “hopefully won’t fall apart in the next few months,” but actually well. Of course there will always be issues, but there have been times when we were really okay. We weren’t carefully measuring out our inner resources or questioning our ability to be here.

We planned to spend some time in the US next fall, but several wise friends kindly asked, “If you already aren't doing well, isn’t next summer a long time to wait?” If there is hope for more than survival, what are we waiting around for?  We talked it over together and with other friends and recognized that maybe our desire to stick to The Plan had more to do with pride and being in control than actual necessity.  Apparently it's not a good idea to stick it out until you are physically unable to anymore.

So we will be leaving this January to spend a year in the US. This fall has given us some time to think through what we need to return and do well here. We need to rest. We need to get in better physical health. We need to dig deep and deal with some long-term issues. We need to think through our roles and figure out how to find a better fit – doing things that are enlivening not just draining. Taking roles that we actually have a talent and passion for, not just ones that stress us out. We need to build into our family.

It is a hard decision, and I have been surprisingly sad about it. After all, we are used to leaving friends and “home” for a year or more. We say goodbyes all the time. And it’s not forever – we plan to come back. But we aren’t used to leaving China for a year. We have an amazing community – people we have known for 6 years - and we want to be a part of what is going on here. I feel sad that we aren’t doing well, and really haven’t been for quite some time. I feel sad that we have to completely uproot our lives and move to another country just to get the help and healing we need!

We will need to move our of our apartment, the only one the kids have really known as home, and find somewhere to store our things. We haven’t moved in over four years and two kids, so we’ve accumulated a good bit of stuff since then. I do love a good opportunity to purge, but I hate moving and transition.  I will miss our neighbors and our bright blue cabinets and the way the light fills our laundry porch.

But I also feel relief, knowing that we don’t have to keep pushing and keep pushing and hope we make it. I feel hope that we could actually be healthy and well. I feel hope for our future in China, that we could be effective instead of just getting by. And I feel hope for our future as people, which is important.

When I came across this song recently, I immediately loved it and felt like it was a theme for our current life. I have since listened to it enough that Nadia joins enthusiastically with, “I tust, I tust yooooooooou.”

Letting go of every single dream
I lay each one down at Your feet
Every moment of my wandering
Never changes what You see
I try to win this war
I confess, my hands are weary, I need Your rest
Mighty warrior, king of the fight
No matter what I face You're by my side

When You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You

- Trust in You, Lauren Daigle

Moving Day

Moving day finally arrived. There were several times in these weeks leading up to it when I thought I might die, if it's possible to keel over dead from exhaustion. I finally got over my super long cold but am entering the third trimester with plenty of exhaustion and back pain, even without dealing with the move. Lately I am far too tired and uncomfortable to sleep. Apparently my body is gearing up for jet-lag because I've been waking up at 3:30 or 4am unable to sleep for hours.

A few weeks ago Kevin hurt his hand, which has been a bit of a problem in the packing and moving process. It is still sore but now he can at least pick up things again. Juliana is very familiar with packing suitcases for a trip but is completely thrown off by packing up everything we own. She has been pretty stressed and confused lately. Even though we've tried to explain what is going on, she doesn't quite understand that she will in fact see her toys again (like “8 months later” really means much to a preschooler), we're not just taking them all way. She also has been a little freaked out to leave our sight; I think she's afraid we will leave her behind.

Despite the challenges (Did I mention the heat? And the A/C unit in our bedroom just stopped working...), all of our belongings are packed and no one died in the process. Even if we wanted to move all our things down from the 6^th floor, down the road, and back up to the 3^rd floor on our own (which we didn't), I can't carry anything heavy and Kevin can't carry much with his hurt hand. So we hired a moving company for about $70. Originally we scheduled the moving guys to arrive at 9am this morning, but they called the night before to say it would be noon instead. Shortly before noon, they called back to say 2-3pm, and they finally arrived just after 4pm. I guess we should have expected it.

Three normal-sized Chinese guys pulled up downstairs in a large truck. We were their third move of the day, and they were happy that almost all the furniture belonged to the landlord. Still, we had 40 boxes and a dozen trashbags, plus two cabinets and a crib. I'm pretty sure we moved here with about 30 boxes total (larger ones, granted), so the accumulation mystery continues. Where did all this stuff come from?? It's not like our apartment is that big.

The three men sized up the load and then started hauling. They looked like average sized guys, no bulging muscles or anything, but looks can be deceiving. I watched the first guy tie together half a dozen boxes, strap it to his back, and head off down the stairs with a load twice as big as himself. One man was obviously the main mover. Even though he had already moved two households today, he was still smiling, joking with the other guys, and chatting with me as he energetically gathered boxes. He rather seemed to relish his job.

He strapped eight boxes together and hoisted them onto his companion's back. When the other guy wavered and decided it was too much, the main mover said something to the effect of, “Really? You can't handle these eight boxes? Come on!” Then he strapped them to his own back and headed downstairs with no problem. A couple of trips later, he hoisted our large 3-door wardrobe onto his back. It was too big to fit down the stairs frontwards, so he backed his way down 5 flights of stairs - with the giant wardrobe on his back. It was all highly impressive and a little nerve-wracking. I was a little concerned for our belongings and a bit more concerned that this would be the part where someone keeled over dead. If this were the States, they could probably put on a show and charge admission.

Kevin stayed downstairs to watch the belongings being loaded into the truck, and I stayed upstairs telling the movers which items to take. I would have felt a little bad about sitting and watching them work so hard if not for my big pregnant belly. At one point I moved a very light box out of the way and they said, “Oh no, don't pick that up. We'll move it.”

Halfway through, the men paused downstairs for a smoke-break and when they came back up they had stripped their shirts off. It was mid-90's after all. One guy paused appreciatively in front of our fan but the other guy explained that he was avoiding the fan because after sweating so much he was afraid of getting too cool. Uh huh. Two of the guys were starting to look winded, but the main mover was still energetic.  He showed his moving buddy how to balance a chair on his back and still have his hands free for a couple more items.  Finally he strapped four large boxes of books on his back and trotted off downstairs.

In just under 1.5 hours, everything was moved downstairs. Now all that was left was carrying it up 3 flights of stairs to our new apartment. Piece of cake. They were finished by 7pm.

I'd say those movers were definitely worth it.

Chinese phone conversations

By Kevin

I have a confession to make. I hate making phone calls, particularly to strangers.

It was one of my least favorite parts about being a journalist. I hated being the interruption to somebody's day. I hated the impersonal nature of it. But it was a necessary evil. If I wanted the story, I had to make dozens of calls a day. So I sucked it up and did it. For an introvert like me, it was always a task. It wasn't something I did on the spur of the moment. It took deliberation. It was a means to an end. I even got to the point where I didn't mind it so much because I can type much more quickly (and legibly) than I can take notes by hand.

If I hated making phone calls in America, imagine my hesitation in China. For my first year in China, I didn't even have a cell phone. I enjoyed the freedom of being able to go for a hike in the hills behind campus and not have to worry about it ringing with some pressing need. My students and superiors all had my home number. That was good enough.

I only broke down and bought one because Ruth and I were dating and I wanted another way to talk to her on the days when our Internet in Tonghua cut off at 11 p.m., making Skype useless. I also decided I'd need something I case I needed help getting out of inevitable travel difficulties on my first solo domestic China trip to see her in Yangzhou. But I only spoke English. Only to friends. In fact, the only people I gave my number to were friends -- and if they were my friend, at that time, they could speak English. If someone on an unrecognized number spoke Chinese to me, I apologized, told them I was a foreigner and my Chinese was bad, and hung up. If it was important, they'd find an English speaker to help them call again.

Year three, when we moved to Weinan, I was forced to pick up the phone and call my first Chinese stranger: the water delivery company. In China, you can't drink the tap water, so you must purify your own water with a boiler or filter or buy bottles of purified water (a bit like those 5-gallon Sparkletts bottles you can sign up for in the States). The first words out of my mouth (in Chinese) were: "I am a foreigner." Then, reading from a script, I informed them that we needed them to deliver a bottle of purified water to my door. I crossed my fingers and hoped that they'd understood. Thankfully, the water company had gotten the routine down from the previous foreigners who lived there, so as soon as they saw our telephone number on their caller ID, they knew the drill. Before long, I just had to tell them I was the foreigner on the third floor. An hour later, water would magically appear. Success. I could speak Chinese. As long as it was written out in script form. If they varied from the script, I was utterly lost. I usually just went back to the top and repeated myself. In Tonghua, this wasn't an issue mainly because I had a water purifier in my apartment, so I never had to order water delivery. This continued for years three through five. My Chinese improved incrementally in that span of time, but not enough to branch out beyond the now memorize script, plus a few variations.

Year six in Yinchuan was the start of language school. Day one, we repeated the water ordering routine we'd established in Weinan, first informing them I was a foreigner, then explaining our need for water and where we lived.

A month later, one of our homework assignments was to call information and ask for a particular phone number. I was so spooked when the operator asked me to repeat my request (the name of a park) that I had to call back a second time to get the number right. I continued to avoid phone calls.

Halfway through the year, I signed up for a Taobao account (kinda like an Amazon.com of China, though China also has Amazon.com). I figured it would be easy, I'd use Google translate to sort out any problems I had with ordering, then the items would arrive. The delivery guy would either call or send a message upon arrival (most domestic deliveries in China don't arrive via the standard postal service), but it wouldn't be too difficult, even with beginner Chinese. Then one of the orders was bad. Apparently sometimes Taobao merchants continue to list items that are out of stock. So one day, after ordering something, the merchant called to explain to me that they didn't have the item. It took me awhile to figure out that she was asking if I wanted another similar item or if they should return the money. Eventually I figured out to just ask for a refund. It didn't make me enjoy talking on the phone any more.

An aversion to talking on the phone isn't exactly a great trait to have as a language student. Some students might relish the challenge of a phone conversation. They might be excited to see how well they can communicate. They may be excited to see if the other speaker is able to guess that they aren't Chinese. Generally that isn't me. I just want utility. Usually talking on the phone is nothing more than a necessary evil.

The one highlight to my phone experience in China was when one day, I had to order more propane. Our apartment has a small 10 gallon propane tank underneath the counter to run our stove burner. It needs a refil every 8 months or so. Anyway, when the delivery guy arrived, he was shocked that I was a foreigner. It was the ultimate compliment: I hadn't made enough pronunciation or grammar mistakes in my short phone conversation to reveal myself as a non-native speaker. I was ecstatic.

I should probably put today's phone calls in the "language win" column. After all, in the end I was successful at completing my task. I think. But after a rash of miscommunication, it feels like it belongs in the "loss column."

Let me explain. We will be moving next week. Ruth is 6 months pregnant and I fell down while jogging two weeks ago. Nothing was broken, but I scraped the knuckles of my left pinke badly enough that I still can't bend it and sprained my wrist badly enough that twisting bottles and lifting heavy boxes is out of the question. Not ideal timing for us to move. Since we live on the sixth floor and will be moving to the third, we need to hire movers to do the heavy lifting. Thankfully hiring movers plus a van here costs less than renting a moving van in the States.

So I called up some movers recommended by my Korean classmate (who ironically taught at the same college in Tonghua as I did the year after I left -- but that's a different story). My classmate said they charged them 200 RMB for the move, which is half of what some American friends paid for their move. The caveat -- their new building has an elevator. So the operator answered and cut quickly to the chase: where were we moving from and to, how much stuff and what floors. She didn't recognize the new apartment complex, so I explained that it's just across the street from our campus gate. I explained that we have very little furniture, just a wardrobe and a crib and 40 or so boxes of various sizes. Then the floor - sixth to third. It took her a few seconds and she gave me a quote: 350 RMB. Reasonable, but I figured I'd try another mover.

Yesterday, my classmate Kevin -- whose apartment we will be moving into -- had arranged to move some other furniture and boxes belonging to our friend Kaylene into his apartment at Cai Xiao (the name of the complex). Kaylene had to leave early last year for medical reasons and plans to return to a different city in China after she recovers. So we packed up her stuff, bought some of her furniture (since our new apartment is mostly unfurnished) and decided to store it all in our apartment while we are in the States awaiting the birth of baby #2.

Kevin had also bought some of her stuff, so he called the movers and got a quote that he could move the stuff -- from floor 2 to floor 3 of Cai Xiao -- for 260 RMB per truckload. Plus, the movers would charge a little extra for big stuff like refrigerators and giant wardrobes. He set it up for Tuesday morning. Kevin said the guy's Chinese was a bit hard to understand, but he'd worked things out fine. Granted, of everyone in our class, Kevin's Chinese is the best. Every semester he gets the award for being the best student in class.

So, since I also needed movers, today, I sent the same mover a text message with the details of our move and asking for a quote, hoping to avoid a phone conversation that would immediately reveal me as a foreigner. But when he hadn't replied after an hour, I decided to give him a call.

I asked if he'd received my text message and told him I wanted to move from Ning Da to Cai Xiao (our new complex). Immediately, he seemed confused. "You called earlier about moving on Tuesday, right?" he asked. I feigned ignorance."No. That must be someone else." I didn't want to admit that I was a foreigner. Often the price quoted to a foreigner is significantly higher than that offered to a Chinese. I didn't want to be a target for being cheated. I just told him that I wanted to move on Friday. I didn't mention that my friend had spoken with him yesterday. He said that he'd already said that it would be 260 because He charges by the truckload.

A couple hours later, he called me back. "I just saw your text message," he said. "If it's not the second floor to the third floor, but the sixth to the third, it is more agonizing (Sometimes Chinese is a bit melodramatic -- word used to explain difficulty -- 痛苦 -- literally means pain and bitterness). "The price will be 350 RMB." So, a bit more than 20 RMB extra per extra floor.

Then he asked, "Aren't you the international friend I spoke with yesterday?" I told him I wasn't. I'd been foiled. So had Kevin. How he figured it out I'll never know. Was it my limited vocabulary or my repeated requests for him to repeat himself. Who was I kidding? I'd mostly hoped he would think I was someone from a different province, whose Mandarin was poor. "But you are moving to Cai Xiao also, right?" "Yes." I gave in. "Yes, my friend spoke with you before. He is moving from another apartment to Cai Xiao on Tuesday. I am moving from Ning Da to Cai Xiao on Friday."

We'd thoroughly confused the poor guy. I was afraid that might happen. Now I'm hoping he still shows up on Tuesday. Maybe I'll wait till then to decide if it goes in the "language win" or "language loss" column.