When I Don't Feel the Right Things

Contrary to all previous experiences, I am strangely optimistic about health concerns. I said, “You should get it checked out, but surely it is nothing.”  It wasn’t nothing, and Kevin was admitted to the hospital. As I sat in the ER with him, I was worried. But should I be more worried?  What if he dies – then I will feel bad about not worrying enough.  Should I be crying right now or wringing my hands?  At the moment I am just thinking about how strange the ER looks and how strange we look in it.

I was worried about Kevin, but I was also stressed about our first Chinese hospitalization.  You know what attracts more attention than a foreigner?  A foreigner in the hospital.  Once admitted, we actually had a private room; everyone else was three to a room.  I felt immensely relieved and also a little bad about special foreigner privilege.

I was worried, but what really troubled me were the little metal boxes that traveled slowly down the hallway ceilings on jerky tracks.  Why were they moving so slowly?  Why do metal boxes feel so creepy?  I asked a friend if she ever feels anxious about things that don’t make sense.  She laughed at me heartily. “Do I ever worry about things that don’t make sense?  I think that is the definition of anxiety.”

The hospital was new and pretty clean; the doctors seemed to be doing a good job.  The Chinese hospital provides medical care, but you are on your own for everything else – food, TP, soap. It’s hard to complain when the “bed fee” is $5 a night.  Kevin was not supposed to move, so he really couldn’t do anything.  Our friends graciously added our three kids to their three kids for a “double sleepover” so I could stay at the hospital. (The kids decided a double sleepover was too much; the parents decided six kids was definitely too much).

Even in a private room, we got a number of people peering in through the door.  Whenever I left the room, people stared at me in astonishment.. I’m glad we could liven up their hospital stay.  I stood in line in the very noisy, crowded cafeteria pretending like I was totally normal.  It was a hard sell, with a hundred faces swiveling in my direction.

A lady tried to weasel in front of me in the noodle line, and I blocked her with my elbow while closing in the remaining two inches between me and the person in front of me.  There, now I felt more like I fit in.

The nurses are busy enough that they hand over responsibility for anything they can.  “See this tourniquet on his leg?  You need to leave it on for 30 minutes, then take it off for 10.  Don’t leave it on for longer or his foot might die.  Have a good night!”  That was the general gist anyway.

So I re-set my timer every 30 minutes all night long.  I got very good tourniqueting and did not kill Kevin’s foot.  I also got very good at 30 minute naps.  I could even have a full dream during the 10 minutes before I had to put the tourniquet back on.  Adrenaline was running high, carrying me through the two days – and two nights of tourniquets – in the Chinese hospital.

Our medical assistance/evacuation service decided to fly Kevin to Korea for further treatment, just to be safe.  Medical evacuation to another country is kind of a big deal, right?  But Kevin looked okay.  He really wasn’t even feeling bad.  Should I feel worried or reassured?

We were faced with the question of where I should be – in Korea with my husband or in China with my children.  Neither of us felt great about leaving the kids in another country for in undetermined amount of time.  I didn’t feel great about him being hospitalized in a different country without anyone he knew either.  Who has to decide these things??  Other friends we know, apparently, who live the same kind of ridiculous lives.  We were both glad when his parents said they could fly to meet him in Korea.

I did worry about Kevin flying, even if he was accompanied by medical staff.  After he texted pictures of the air ambulance learjet, I didn’t hear from him for hours after he should have arrived.  I was increasingly worried.  “What if he died on the way and they are trying to figure out how to tell me?”  Logically I knew that he probably didn’t die and probably didn’t have internet access.  Eventually I contacted our medical service to confirmed he had arrived at the hospital, alive.

Now I was less worried and more tired.  I was back at home with the girls and the adrenaline was wearing off.  The first night instead of falling asleep, they cried because daddy wasn’t here.  “When will he come home?” they wailed.  “That is yet to be determined,” I said comfortingly.  “Now go to sleep!!” I said less comfortingly.

As the days wore on, Kevin got increasingly better and was released from the hospital.  I got increasingly more tired.  Nadia was waking up at 1-2am trying to come into bed with me.  She was already doing this pretty much every night, but not always so early on, and it was not always so hot.  I did not need a little body smushed against me, radiating a surprising amount of heat.  Speaking of heat, the temperatures were creeping up to the mid-90’s and our one A/C unit wasn’t working.

The kids felt stressed, though of course they didn’t say, “I feel stressed.”  Instead they just screamed about random things, and cried because someone looked at them the wrong way.  There were many shoves given, tongues stuck out, names called, and toys commandeered; mysteriously nobody was responsible for any of it.

In some ways, it is easier when only one person is responsible for everything.  There are no unmet expectations that someone else would do this or that; if something didn’t happen it is all on you.  The house has stayed unusually clean and bedtime has gone unusually quickly, because order helps me feel like life is under control.  There is less laundry and nobody really cares what we eat.  In fact, they would rather not eat real meals, pizza excluded.

The disadvantage is that one person is responsible for everything and has to make everything happen, and that person is me.  It really wears down your resolve.  The girls wake me up before I want to be awake and I say, “Go look at books.”  When they come back two minutes later, I say, “Go watch TV.”  The girls beg for ice cream and I say, “No.  I’ll think about it.  Okay fine.”  When Juliana asked to have a sleepover and Adalyn asked for another baby, I said, “No.  No, no, no.  Not happening.”

Daily life may feel under control but my mind is much less ordered.  I think, “This whole thing is ridiculous and stressful.”  I think, “But really things are going okay. I feel a little bad that everyone is so worried about us.” I think, “I should feel more worried.  Why don’t I feel more worried?  I am not very empathetic.”  I think, “But Kevin is staying at a hotel by himself, and exploring Seoul, and eating at Taco Bell!!  I want to be hospitalized.”

I am good in crisis, and I have lots of experience with survival mode. I am not so good at making space for the long-term effects of stress and taking the opportunity to process and feel things once the crisis is past.  I’m ready to move on and pretend it didn’t happen.  That has worked so well for us in the past.

I feel like I am doing okay.  I feel like I will fall apart.  I feel angry at belligerent children, at the doctors who tell us nothing, at the A/C repair guy who never comes.  I feel gratitude toward our friends who feed us and take the kids and let us hang out in their A/C.  I feel more disturbed by the things that don't make sense (little metal boxes, the craziness inside) than by the serious things (hospitalization in another country). I feel everything and nothing, and I am waiting for someone to tell me how to feel the right things.

Group Therapy

Our family is currently attending an intensive counseling and renewal program for overseas workers called Alongside. So far we are learning a lot about how we are even more messed up than we thought, which is always fun - but I think it will be pretty transformational.

I sat down at orientation feeling, well, disoriented. We arrived late from our road trip and our bags were still in the car. As the director introduced the program, he said, “You may be looking around thinking, ‘I know why I am here, but why are they here?’” I had to laugh because that was exactly what I had been thinking. I knew nobody was here because their life was smooth sailing, but everyone looked so normal, so together.

Do you know what hurting people look like? A lot of times they look just like everyone else. They smile and make jokes, at times. Maybe they wear makeup or fashionable boots. They may look like they could easily step up into a pulpit or battle the wilds of Africa. Hurting people just look like people.

But we have started to share our stories. Loss, trauma, transition, incredible stress, and so much pain. In a safe place the pain, so carefully controlled, comes flooding out. We are normal people, and we hold so much pain.

Group therapy. Just the thought makes some people shudder – or laugh. It sounds cheesy, all that feely stuff. We start each day with, “today I feel...” so at at least one point during the day, we recognize and verbalize what we are feeling. This is harder than it seems, when you aren’t used to identifying feelings.

We share our stories. And let me tell you, there is nothing cheesy about it. This is the story we usually share only in pieces, only behind a shield of humor or stoicism. I shared my story – the themes of depression and anxiety that have ebbed and flowed throughout my adult life, years of sickness and survival and burnout leading us to this place.

We entrust each other with our deepest pain, believing that we will not be ridiculed or belittled, and we aren’t. Nobody says, “Think positive. It wasn’t that bad – it could always be worse. Here is how you could be healthier/less depressed/live a better life.” Instead they just listen and say, “I hear your pain. I feel sad for you. That shouldn’t have happened. Thank you for telling us.” Their tears have allowed me to cry – and I hardly ever cry – instead of withdraw to my analytical “safe” zone.

I am surprised that the small group has been so healing. As an introspective introvert, and one who tends to turn inward in pain, my go-to is writing or maybe talking with a close friend. I would never have thought that sitting down in a group of six strangers would have opened me up and allowed space for processing.

Of course, the group is a bit special. Nobody came in with pretense – we are here because we need help. We have parameters for not giving advice or platitudes but just showing understanding. Even though each situation is different, we recognize each other’s pain. It is a safe space, where we experience the power of community and shared pain.

You may not have a group, and you may not need therapy. Apparently some people are emotionally healthy and not even mentally ill, crazy right? But on the off chance you have or will ever experience pain in your life – find your people. Find your safe people who can share that pain with you, who can resist trying to fix you, who can enter in and sit with you.  Because really, everybody needs group therapy.

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

Still Pretty Foreign

I am sitting in a tiny chair, listening to Juliana's kindergarten teacher rattle off a bunch of instructions to parents, thinking, “I don't know Chinese. At all.” The other parents are looking glassy-eyed after two hours of sitting around, but at least they can understand what the teacher is saying. These are all the specific things your child should have in their backpack. Don't just pack all their favorite snacks (I'm looking at you grandparents). This is the new procedure for picking up your kids. And fifteen minutes of other stuff I have no clue about.

I have the idea that after this many years, living in a foreign country should be easy. It should, right? We have lived here for the most part of twelve years. I have spent nearly a third of my life – pretty much all of my adult life – in China. It feels like home. Sort of.

It also never ceases to feel like a foreign country. The habits and customs of our childhood culture run deep. I am fascinated by culture because it influences us so profoundly in ways we don't even realize. After all these years, a lot of the things that bother me are not necessarily bad, they are just still so different.

I grew up in the suburbs and then in the country, where my family were the only inhabitants of 6.5 acres of peaceful nature, 30 miles from the city. Now I live in a country with 1.3 billion people, in a city, on a small campus with 20,000 students packed 6 to a dorm room.

The walls of our fifth floor apartment seem thin. In reality, I hear little from our neighbors, but I am aware of their nearness. I am particularly aware of the ones below us, who undoubtedly hear plenty of jumping and stomping and screaming. They kind of scowl when they see us outside. We hear the laughter of students, the rattling of carts, and the roar of trucks bumping along the road just below us. Over a hundred windows look into our own.

Outside, we are watched. Not in a creepy way, but there are always people around, and they are always curious about the foreigners. Random strangers turn to watch us every day, every where we go. Students gasp as they catch sight of the girls, taking their pictures or summoning the courage to say hi. The girls are used to this attention but they do not always receive it benevolently.

Even Juliana, attention lover that she is, gets tired of people touching her. After stopping a random stranger on the street who is trying to pick up Adalyn, I explain to her, “You don't have to let people touch you and hold you. If you don't like that it's okay to say so. But you do need to be kind.” I watch Nadia closely to see how she responds – is she comfortable with the attention or do I need to intervene? Will this person be gentle or pushy? Why do people love playing the “I'm going to steal you away from your parents” game? What kid thinks that is funny?

Our own neighbors are familiar with us. They watch us kindly as if we are unusual but relatively normal people. At the park or the supermarket or on the street, however, we are more of a spectacle. In their excitement or curiosity, strangers sometimes forget we are real people, not just a fascinating display for their viewing, touching, picture taking pleasure.

Our weirdness comes out in the most normal of circumstances. I think about it whenever I drink cold water or eat bread instead of rice or put on a bike helmet or home-school my daughter or write with my left hand or step outside the door with my white face. I am foreign. I will always be foreign.

There are other stresses in China that I am realizing will never go away. Language has always been a stress. Even after all these years, it is still a big challenge. Chinese is no joke! Kevin teaching English and me spending so much time at home with kids does not place us in optimal language positions. We can do all the basics and carry on conversation, but there are always things I don't understand.

Almost every Chinese conversation involves stress. Even if I do understand everything, or enough to get the general idea, there is always the fear that I won't understand and will look like an idiot. Or I will understand but won't be able to think of all the right words to respond. When I interact with Juliana's teachers I want to say, “Really, I'm smart! I know I sound like your kindergarteners, but I actually have a masters degree!”

I feel stress whenever the children are sick – will they need to go to the hospital, where I don't fully understand the doctor and don't necessarily trust what he says anyway? Will people blame me for not putting enough clothes on them or feeding them the right food or letting them sit on the tile floor?

There is the stress of travel – the ridiculous 30+ hour trips to see our family and the jetlag and the suitcases and the children shuffled from one place to the next with too little routine and too little sleep.

I feel the stress of uncertainty – What if something happens and we have to leave China? What if the school decided they didn't want us to live here anymore? Will Juliana be able to go to primary school part time next year and how will we figure out the system? Will Adalyn's kindergarten teachers know what to do with a foreign kid, and how will she handle being the only foreign kid in an all-Chinese environment?

There is the stress of responsibility – Am I using my time well? Is it worth us being here? Are we spending enough time with students? Why don't we know our colleagues better? Are we friendly enough with our neighbors? At the end of the day how do you ever do enough?

Many things about life are easier than the used to be. We understand the culture much better, but with children we are constantly venturing into new aspects of life. Just like everyone, we worry about their schooling and their social life – and we also worry about how they are handling always being the weird ones.

So what do we do with these stresses? That is what we are trying to work out. I think the first step is recognizing these areas are still challenging so we can give ourselves grace.  Beyond that...well, I'll let you know when we figure it out.