356.

I realize that I haven’t been the best at keeping up with my blog.  There are a handful of reasons, the most likely/plausible of them all is that life gets busy and I get lazy when I have time that could be used to write.  I have all of the time in the world this weekend, though, and so I write.

I have lived in China now for almost a year.  356 days to be exact.  For the past 356 days, I have called China home.  For 356 days I have said “Xie xie” more often than “Thank you.”  For 356 days I have learned to make due without a space bubble, especially when standing in line.  For 356 days I have driven a scooter more often than I have been in a car.  For 356 days I have taken public transportation regularly and confidentially in one of the world’s largest cities.  356 days.  Wow.

This weekend, in celebration of those 356 days, I am taking a break from life as I know it here in Chengdu and have splurged a little: I’m staying in the Sheraton.  I can sit in my room on the 30^th floor and watch the city below me from a healthy distance.  The blaring car horns and bustling streets are distance echoes from my perch.  I can watch the rain and not worry about being caught in it (I don’t intend to leave my hotel until check-out on Monday, after all).  I almost feel like Rapunzel up in her tower, however I have absolutely no intention of letting down my hair and letting someone into my little retreat.

As a part of my little retreat, I’ve been reading quite a few of the books that I’ve been stockpiling on my Kindle for such a time as this.  I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but many of those books happen to be about some aspect of the TCK life.  As I sit and peer through the windows that these books are into the lives of other adults with childhoods like mine, I can’t help but be so thankful for who I am, where I am, and where I inevitably will some day go.  Let’s think about it for a minute together, shall we?

My first memories are of hiding under the baby-grand piano in our living room with my brother, crafting little snakes and other sculptures out of modeling clay and hiding them on the little ledge that lined that musical masterpiece.  A fairly normal memory, right?  Wrong. We lived in rural Rwanda in the early 90’s, a land that was in turmoil and soon to be thrown into an even more extreme state of disaster.  I was oblivious to the dangers, though, as I lived out an idyllic childhood in my land of a thousand hills.  I seem to remember a little nook in the tree where we had a tire-swing that was an equally marvelous hiding place.

Fast forward a few years and I found myself in my completely unfamiliar homeland: Washington State.  The people were familiar and actually looked like me for a change, but the culture was so backwards from my vantage point.  They didn’t want you to climb the trees by restaurants?  What are the trees for then?   Why couldn’t we eat with our hands?  Where were the grasshuts?  Why didn’t they have dolls that looked like my friends (white dolls just didn’t do it for me)?  While my seven years as a American living in the United States were essential for my crooked sense of home, there were many times that I felt like a bit of a cultural refugee.  I wasn’t meant to be there.  It wasn’t my home.  My home had been torn apart by war, so I was simply biding my time until my parents declared that we would be moving back.  How can you settle when that is what your mind is telling you?  You can’t…you really can’t.

Finally, in August of 2000, we moved back home.  Now this time home turned out to be Ethiopia rather than our former central-African surroundings, but it was home all the same.  I quickly learned to love macchiatos, injera, and shirro watt.  I learned how to read the language that first year and found myself with a new code to use when writing down personal thoughts or ideas.  I lived in a city of 4.5 million that was at my fingertips.  I always felt safe.  And I was different again…blissfully different.  Blending in while living in the US always felt so foreign to me.  Being at home meant being odd, and I was so comfortable there.

After three years in Ethiopia followed by two-years in boarding school in Kenya, I found myself at a terrifying crossroads: that between high school and college.  For any 17 or 18 year-old, this time is an adventure.  For me, it was an adventure that was coupled with the great loss of everything that I had known.  As I flew out of the Nairobi airport in July of 2005, I felt my heart leave my body.  I’m still not sure if it’s completely back, although pieces of it have returned over the past 8 years.  I left my homeland and knew that every time I returned would not be the same as it was.  I was leaving a river that was going to keep flowing without me.

College had its string of ups and downs, followed by three years of living back in Washington State and attempting to get back in touch with my roots.  I was thankful for many friendships, new and old, that I was able to cultivate and the family members that I was able to grow close to again, but something still felt off.  I was becoming comfortable in a place that I didn’t truly belong.  I could blend in most of the time, apart from those conversations when I let my true colors shine through and everyone around me realized just what an odd duck I was.

And then came China.  It was an idea that I was completely opposed to at first, but eventually the appeal of the adventure outweighed the fear of the unknown.

And here I am.  A part of my heart that was silent for 7 years in the US is back.  I’m odd again.  I don’t fit.  I can’t understand 99% of what is going around me.  It is impossible to buy a DQ ice cream cake or run out for Taco Bell.  And yet, I’m happy. Of course there are hard days, but everyone has those no matter where in the world you are.

This is home.

Who knows if this is merely the first of two years in China that I have completed and if I’ll jet set to another foreign location in a year for another adventure.  Or maybe this is the first of twenty years.  Either way, I’m thrilled to be here and so thankful for each of you who are going through it with me, near or far.

Happy 356 days!

Location: Chengdu, China

Local Time (CST -- GMT+8): 9:52 a.m. (7/28/2013) 

Auburn Time (PST -- GMT-7): 6:52 p.m. (7/27/2012)