There was a 13 minute movie about the peoples and their lives, an amalgamation of scenes and snippets of commentary. They talked about their culture, relationship with nature, showed dancing, and then showed a short segment about whaling and how special it was for them to catch a whale.

People applauded when it was over. The children I was sitting by shared their opinion with their parents.

“That was creepy.” – I heard that from a couple of different kids

And my favorite – by a little girl:
“They killed a whale! What if it was a baby whale?!”

Problem: it’s not a regular sized battery, it’s an A23, half the length of an AAA and we don’t have any spares (and we’re feeling like one of the 10 virgins a little). The *real* problem is this: there is no other switch to control just the light with while leaving the connected ceiling fan on. There’s only the main switch to turn them both OFF.

If you were in our position, would you have:

a. Gotten dressed and gone back out to the closest 7-11 hoping that they carry those batteries (since Walmart isn’t 24-7 here).

b. Turned off the main switch and try to sleep without the fan on – and hope you won’t sweat buckets.

c. Tried to sleep with the lights on (it would be sunrise soon anyway)

The answer is:
>
>
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None of the above. Just unscrew the light bulbs and go to bed, silly. :)

It was the most beautiful moment of our lives.

I promise I will post tons of pictures of the event and tell you all about it soon enough (as soon as I sort through them all – there are so many!) but I would like to write a little about the decisions I am *so* glad I made that led to the day becoming as amazing as it was.

1) Deciding and preparing to be sealed in the house of the Lord.
For those friends and family who only made it (or were only invited) to the reception in the evening, I’m so sorry, but as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the reception (despite a lot of it being the pinnacle of chaos) you were there for the worst part of the day. It was still great, don’t get me wrong, but as much as it might have had its beautiful moments, it was nothing compared to the sealing. Not even close.

I never once thought that I would be as glad as I am that it was that special sealing power in the temple that bound us together as husband and wife.

The sealing itself was such a perfectly simple ceremony, but it meant so much more because Christopher and I had gone through together for the first time just 2 days before and for us, each of those times were inseparable from the other. I will never be able to adequately describe the spirit and power that we had experienced there on both days. It is far too sacred.

Christopher and I have heard of couples who are nervous before being sealed, and also of couples who went through the ceremony in a whirlwind and left not feeling like anything had changed, and being surprised that they were all of a sudden a married couple. Neither of that was true for us.

We were perfectly calm before entering the sealing room. I was eager, but there were no butterflies, no anxiousness, no worries about anything at all. All I felt was a feeling of absolute rightness. We were exactly where we needed to be – with who we were meant to be with. That feeling alone is worth planning your entire life around.

We were able to watch guests entering the sealing room before we were brought in and I was brought to tears by all those who had made it there. It reminded me that the Celestial Kingdom is a place of reunions and a shared love for and understanding of the gospel.

Christopher and I definitely felt married after. I can’t understand what it was exactly, and am amazed at how something so simple and concrete could evoke such a significant change within us, but where we had thought we felt like a very almost married couple before the whole event (and more of a couple than some newlyweds who haven’t known each other near as long as we have), we left feeling like our relationship had a scared seal of approval and that we were a *real* eternal family now. This, I know for sure: it is not just a ceremony. Behind it, there is a real power to bind in earth and in heaven within the temple.

I know it would have been a completely different day if we had chosen to officiate our marriage in any other way. We would have deprived ourselves of that sacred spirit that brought meaning and lasting significance to our marriage. One of the reasons why being sealed in the temple meant as much as it did to us was because of the struggle it has been to end up right where we were. We were there because we had earned it. It was the ultimate reward.

People often think that the reward is to simply still be married to your spouse after this life. The reward isn’t to just BE with them past this life, it is to have the ability to GROW with them in this life and in the next and the next and the next.

As I wrote to my best friend, Lindsay soon after the event:
“People throw around the word eternity so much at these weddings, you just kind of brush it off to mean “a long time”. Christopher and I are not looking to be together simply for a long duration of time. We are planning on being together through all the phases of growth and development in this life and beyond. We aren’t just talking about building our careers and having a nice little LDS family in the near future. We do that only as a stepping stone to
creating whole worlds together. That is our destiny we strive toward fulfilling. And I can’t imagine myself ever reaching that state with anyone else.”

If being sealed in the temple had not been first and foremost in our minds, then our relationship would be built on very earthly and temporal foundations and would lack the depth and the blessings that we need to go even further with our potential than we can even imagine.

2) Not eloping/having an actual wedding
I’ve always hated the word “wedding”. I despise how the day often becomes more about the event and less about the marriage. And even more, I didn’t like the thought that our marriage was everyone else’s business too.

Christopher and I had seriously fantasized of getting married privately and civilly on our own a year before having our family present at the sealing. Almost every young couple in our era romanticizes the thought of running away to be married, doing their own thing and not caring about and fleeing from social obligation.

I eventually decided that I wanted to have an actual wedding, not only because I didn’t know how I would deal with our disappointed mothers, but because I had seen from a few examples how the absence of one meant a lack of integration between both families. I decided on doing it “the right way” or even the “boring, normal way” because I understood weddings to be the time for welding, melding and integration, not just between man and wife, but between them and the new in-laws. Without a wedding, there would be a missing connection between the two families. We’d love weddings to be only about the couple and their love and only what they want. But as much as we’d love for it to be that way, marriage isn’t just about romance and love and 2 people. It is about the coming together of two families and two cultures to become one. Not involving our immediate and extended families as well as our friends would have cut us off from the blessings that we could receive from having them in our lives. And what blessings they truly are!

It took a while coming to a decision about our wedding: why we were having one, what we wanted it to be, who we wanted to share it with and how we would accomplish those things.

For me, the wedding was never about making it the most beautiful or romantic day of our lives. Christopher and I have had very, very many of those moments we share, and I’ve always thought that if people have to look back on their wedding as the pinnacle of their happiness, they must have very unhappy relationships and lives. For me, the ultimate “highs” should come from those pockets of pure happiness that you find in every day life, from sharing a meal together, nightly bedtime conversations, dancing together at home (and not just in the reception hall on your wedding day). Happiness should be found in everyday things, however mundane, not from a larger than life, once-in-a-lifetime event. For me, the wedding would be more of a celebration of those moments, and less of an opportunity to create them. I guess I just didn’t know how great a wedding could be.

I tried to narrow down what “once-in-a-lifetime” things you could only do at a wedding and made sure that I made decisions based on making sure I would not have any regrets about how it could’ve been.

For many girls, the wedding is a day about aesthetic beauty. Their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend lots of money on looking their most beautiful and have lots of pictures taken of them. Having a (now) husband who is a photographer and likes having me model for him, I have plenty of opportunity to look more beautiful than I really am in daily life and my only goal was to look especially beautiful that day for Christopher and not for myself.

The conclusion I’d come to was that the most special thing about a wedding was a gathering of people. Call me morbid, but the only other time in which ALL your friends make special effort to gather on your behalf is your funeral. Therefore, I decided that I wanted our wedding to be the excuse for all our family and friends to get together, a big reunion for the purpose of celebrating our union, and that the reception would be a small opportunity for those who haven’t known either Christopher or I to get to see – if just a little bit – what we are all about, hoping that they would leave believing in true love and good marriages (and that we have it).

While I was looking forward to the social nature of the wedding events, Christopher had a few more reservations about how big it was going to be. We kind of planned the whole event around giving other people what they wanted out of it. Christopher especially felt like he was doing this for his mom and for me. We certainly did not expect to get so very much out of it.

I wrote soon after the wedding:
“I never planned out the wedding to be the happiest day of my life. I planned it to be somewhat unique, meaningful, and just the kind of fun we enjoyed having. I knew it would be significant, but I thought we were doing a lot of this for other people and that it was more a process of giving than receiving. That’s just not how it worked. We gave nothing, it turns out, and received more than we could ever dream of receiving.”

“Milestones, however concrete/excruciatingly detail oriented executing them can be, are important vessels for heightening emotions and creating memories that you can hold on to for a lifetime. Marriage really is a big deal, and it deserves the attention we gave it. I get that now.”

Christopher said to me that night that it had been the best day of his life. For me, without having planned it out that way, it was a whole week of dreams coming true. We had claimed that day (and week) and made it ours. It truly was the best wedding I have ever, ever been to.

3) Choosing to integrate Chinese wedding customs and traditions
I don’t think I would have gone all out with the Chinese traditions the way we had if we had been married in Singapore or Malaysia where those things are so commonplace. I had originally decided to introduce those elements as a way to create something unique and to share with my new family a little taste of my culture, and to add a good bit of extra fun to the day. What I did not expect was how meaningful the tea ceremony would be, especially that morning. It brought me to tears. I’m glad we decided to share a little bit of that with the guests at the reception that evening.

I see now that it was an important statement, turning toward my roots on my wedding day. As much as I am a very Americanized individual – and I cringe when I think of intercultural marriages because I don’t feel I have one – it is very much an East meets West relationship. It was an important acknowledgement I made that day by making that culture a part of my life and our family.

One day, I’ll truly grasp the importance of these customs and traditions, but for now, I’ll just enjoy the blessings of their presence in my life.

4) Choosing to involve Grandma/having it in Logan Utah.
As a small compromise from eloping, Christopher and I had seriously considered being sealed in Hawaii instead, kind of as a way to intentionally *exclude* people. Since all our closest friends and immediate families had to travel to be in Logan anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a more exotic destination where only the people we were really close to would be. Hawaii is where we met so it would have been both intimate and meaningful. I know that would have worked out beautifully as well, but I changed my mind as soon as I realized that Grandma Wyatt would not be able to attend as she doesn’t fly anymore.

That was the first time I made a conscious decision to involve Christopher’s family in my life. I didn’t understand just how important it was at the time. It just didn’t seem like an option to exclude Grandma! Everything was extra special all throughout because Grandma was there – not as Christopher’s grandma, but also as mine. At our reception, Mom gave a little speech about where I came from, and she talked a lot about her mother, my grandmother. It is because of our predecessors and the way they chose/have chosen to live their lives that we are where we are today. It was very special having Grandma there at the temple with us, and now we are bound together by our shared love for that special temple and that special place.

5) Deciding to wait till the end of May for a Singaporean school holiday, at the minuscule chance that one of my brothers would be able to make it.
One of the saddest things when planning the wedding was realizing that not all of my immediate family would be there. My parents would fly out, and my sister is already in the US, but I have 4 brothers in Singapore, and getting them all the way across the globe at once is very unrealistic. I really missed them all that day, but I’m so so SO grateful that I was at least able to have my “baby” brother Ray there. It would not have been *nearly* as fun without him there. I hope that one day he’ll understand the significance of everything that transpired that day.

6) Involving our friends in the way we did
We were so hesitant to ask, but am so glad that it was CJ and Julie, Christopher’s best friends from the midwest, there as our photographers and Julie as my cosmetologist for the day. Not only did they do a *spectacular* job, it was a wonderful way to strengthen ties. Those were jobs that could have been done by any other professional, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as special or memorable. I’m ever so grateful that my favorite people in the whole world, Lindsay, Glenn and Jessica flew all the way in from far away to be there and were utterly *indispensable* all throughout, for all our friends and family who gave and gave and gave so much for us the entire week and for everyone who came out to share our special day with us. It really feels odd having so many people there specifically for just the two of us, and to having a whole week where we are the center. But the love I felt that day and that week still fills my heart with gratitude.

7) Planning out the details, communicating them and PRINTING them out!
There was chaos all throughout the day. When you get enough people together, there will always be chaos. It would have been much, much, much worse had there been less planning. It’s tedious, and feels so frivolous, but if you want your day to be as close to perfect as possible, take ownership of it, and plan it out. It won’t go just the way you imagined it, but at least it will head in the right direction. I’m so glad I made it our day, our way.

8) Having our short honeymoon in Logan/Providence
Actually, the awesome honeymoon was all Christopher’s doing. I’m glad I let him plan it out. I joked about spending our honeymoon on the I-15, heading back to San Bernardino. We had a couple of nights before then, and we spent them in the beautiful bridal suite at the Providence Inn. You know, we would have loved to go away to some far away exotic place – maybe even have gone back to Hawaii – but we’re not the kind of people that need the excuse of a honeymoon to go to those places. We have had many opportunities to see some of the most beautiful places in the world together, and will continue to seek them out. I am so glad that we had our honeymoon in Logan. It is a beautiful place we would gladly visit to escape from the world. We love it so very, very, very much, especially now, and we will always be able to return to it. I never thought that we were both such sentimental people but we’ve truly made it another one of our homes away from home.

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There are so many little insignificant details I could list: having been able to design my own wedding dress, having a wedding website, having funfetti wedding cupcakes, insisting that my mom bring me a BLUE parasol, having bubbles at the reception, deciding to have it at the Bluebird… but those aren’t the things I will remember with gratitude in the long run.

The essence of our special day, and what made it so significant and meaningful to us was that we chose to make it a day filled with everything that was important to us. Everything we involved that day, we would like to be a part of our family for the rest of our lives: our families, our dearest friends, Logan Utah, Chinese culture, but most importantly, the Temple.

We made it just the way we make our lives: filled with great things, and simply ours. And we can’t help but love every minute of it.

We are only 8 days away from the wedding – can you believe it? I have dreamt about something going wrong that day every night for a week now. Even Christopher has had a couple of those nightmares – that’s how you know it’s real I guess.

That and we got his wedding ring in the mail today and it’s the first time I got to see him with a ring on. It makes him feel something to the equivalent of a collared dog, I think, but I love it. It is interesting though, how much just that ring seems to age a person.

At the end of the interview, the Stake President gave us a few words of advice (all married people are filled with advice for us, it’s funny but annoying considering how long we’ve known each other and been dating/spending every free moment together) and left us with this list – particularly for Christopher he said, written by a non-LDS female columnist named Sharon Randall. It was originally titled 25 Tips on How to Stay Married, but I guess it got slightly modified. :)

When Christopher and I were reading the list, he smirked and said, “Hah, I do almost all of this already! I’m such a good boyfriend!”

:) I don’t think my mom has received any flowers from either him nor I, but we do actually do a lot of the things on the list, consciously or subconsciously, and through the occasional grumpiness, crabbiness and not-niceness, we really do have a very loving and strong relationship. We just have to keep on going.

Hope you like the list!

25 Tips On How to Build a Solid Marriage/Stay Married

1. Always put her first – before work, friends, even basketball. Act as if she’s the best thing that ever happened to you, because we all know she is.
2. Keep no secrets. Pool your money. Allow nothing and no one to come between you.
3. Pick your fights with care. Play fair. Show some class. Hurtful words can be forgiven, but they’re hard to forget.
4. Fall in love again every day. Kiss her in taxis. Flirt with her at parties. Tell her she’s beautiful. Then tell her again.
5. Never miss an anniversary or a birthday or a chance to make a memory. Memories may not seem important now, but one day they’ll be gold.
6. Never give her a practical gift. If she really wants a Shop-Vac, let her pick it out herself.
7. Go to church together, and pray every day for each other and your marriage.
8. Pay your bills on time and make sure you each have a living will, a durable power of attorney and life insurance, lest, God forbid, you need them.
9. Love her parents as your own, but don’t ask them for money. Never criticize her family or friends. On her birthday, send flowers to her mother with a note saying, “Thank you for giving birth to the love of my life.”
10. Always listen to her heart; if you’re wrong, say you’re sorry; if you’re right, shut up.
11. Don’t half-tie the knot; plan to stay married forever.
12. Never go to bed mad; talk until you’re over it, or you forget why you were mad.
13. Laugh together a lot. If you can laugh at yourselves, you’ll have plenty to laugh about.
14. Never criticize, correct or interrupt her in public; try not to do it in private either.
15. Remember that people are the least lovable when they are most in need of love.
16. Never fall for the myth of perfectionism; it’s a lie.
17. When you don’t like each other, remember that you love each other; pray for the “good days” to return and they will.
18. Tell the truth, only the truth, with great kindness.
19. Kiss at least 10 seconds a day, all at once or spread out.
20. Memorize all her favorite things and amaze her with how very well you know her.
21. Examine your relationship as often as you change the oil in your car; keep steering it on a path you both want it to go.
22. Be content with what you have materially, honest about where you are emotionally, and never stop growing spiritually.
23. Never raise your voice unless you’re on fire. Whisper when you argue.
24. Be both friends and lovers; in a blackout, light a candle, then make your own sparks.
25. Finally, be an interesting person, lead your own life. But always save your best for each other. In the end, you will know you were better together than you ever could’ve been apart.

Here’s to happily ever after.

I started writing that last post soon after I’d gotten here and hid it as a draft because I didn’t want to sound like I was struggling with loving my dream life. I posted it after going back to reading it because I feel like it’s important for me to be honest, and to record and remember -down to the detail- the process of adjusting to this life phase.

The first couple of weeks was all about savoring the newness and learning the ropes. The next couple of weeks were all about dealing with all the negative emotions. Those were not a fun 2 weeks. Starting a new family (even of just 2 people) is positively the most exciting thing in the world, but not having a full time job, a job-title, or any kind of means to contribute monetarily, or a role in the community or anything to show for outside the home is HARD. It’s hard not feeling like a burden and it’s difficult maintaining a healthy understanding of your value when the things that had contributed to it before are suddenly ALL GONE.

But you know what, after the first month of struggling and questioning and doing a fair bit of crying, this last month has been absolutely wonderful.

People have interesting ways of compensating for not feeling like they are living up to their fullest potential. In the absence of a much needed job offer, Christopher spends all his spare time applying for every new job he comes across that could loosely fit the bill. It helps him feel like he’s doing all he can as the sole bread-winner.

Me, I’ve discovered baking and working out at the gym. I research and then bake yummy treats that make people around me happy, and make me feel like I have something that I can do relatively well and I have completely delved into the vain rewards of working out regularly. And then, in the evenings, I teach Christopher how to blues dance and we work on our Chinese together (he thinks I am helping him work on his, but it’s actually improving mine a lot).

Sure, it’s not the same as having a group of children to care for, or making enough money to pay for necessities and luxuries, or having a crucial role in whatever community I am involved in. No, my days are short and simple. But I’ve learned to fill it with things that develop myself and our family and have found gratifying meaning in my small existence here.

I still need to pro-actively seek out places where I can serve and be needed. It will be my fault if I don’t make something of myself that I can be proud of. I *love* being lazy but am only happy when I am constantly busy and looking forward to something (albeit a wedding, a vacation, a dinner with friends over, or even a treat I want to try making). I do all this, realizing that life for me and for us will not always be like this. One day I will be swamped and exhausted, but for now I am savoring the time that I have and hope that I’m doing well with it and filling it with all good things.

I feel like this is an isolation exercise. When we workout , we isolate certain muscles so we can work on them specifically and strengthen/tone them individually. I feel like I’m in a small part of God’s workout routine for me. Here, a lot of the “big and cool”, “pzazzy” things have been removed and I am left with these few things to focus on with my time.

My dream job has always been to be a mother and a home maker. I have always had a deep respect and love for the role women have in the home. I’ve always understood that they are responsible for their “family culture”, that they set the tone for the lives of their family members and are responsible for the kind of spirit that dwells in the home. Now that’s become my job.

We’re not parents yet (or even married) but we are a family. It’s just Christopher and I for now, but I am setting the patterns and working on strengthening the foundations that our family will be built upon. Here, I have (all the) time (in the world) to work on the me muscle and to prepare myself to do even more. And you know what, it really can be so so SO much fun!

A lot of times, it’s easy to go through the motions of an exercise without really paying attention to what you are doing and why. It’s easy here to feel small and insignificant. It takes effort to realize what I am doing that matters.

I could spend my time missing the things that I had, or I could spend it loving the things that I do have.

It’s a choice, and I hope I always choose the latter.

Mobility has become an issue: I don’t have a driver’s license and won’t be able to get one until I get a green card which would be 5-6 months after we’re married.

Even then, where would I go? To the store? Maybe visit Christopher at work to deliver him lunch. To the gym maybe? But without Christopher? Nah.

My main focus while I am here is to enhance Christopher’s life. I think that’s fairly easy to do. I was told on Sunday that he’s not smiled as much or been as social. I give him something to come home to at the end of the day. I cook him nutritious meals and do his laundry so he doesn’t need to worry about it. I truly, truly enjoying doing those things for him but at the same time, it is not my goal to disappear into the woodwork and simply become a part of the house he lives in. I am still trying to figure out what I am doing for me.

You know for most people, housework is what you have to get out of the way so that you can have time for you. For me, right now, I feel like housework is the thing that I am doing to fill the spaces. I save myself work to do so that I have enough to occupy the whole day.

It’s not that I’m bored. I can always come up with something I could do or need to do. I am wondering about finding a hobby – taking up knitting again, or learning how to garden, or sewing or making things that make this home more homey… maybe learning Spanish – but all of it sounds too forced. Like I’m looking for a hobby for the sake of having a hobby. Not because I really am passionate about creating – I really dislike arts and crafts and all that – but because I just want something to pass the time, kind of like that stupid farm game I’ve started to play, just to have something to “harvest” on my phone every hour on the hour, but maybe a little more productive.

Part of being out of your element as I am, is missing having an expertise. When I was teaching, I felt fulfilled simply by going in to work everyday (well, most days) because I was in my element, doing things I loved to do that I knew I was good at. Sharing my love for music, loving children, being able to understand their needs and striving to provide them, earning their love and respect and being able to manage them better than anyone else could. Those were the things I got to do that contributed to my self-worth.

Here in this new world, everything I am doing is quite the opposite of what I am good at. Managing a household, cooking, cleaning, organizing. Those things have never come naturally to me and though I enjoy pushing myself to be better, there are more parts struggle and less parts fulfillment in this process.

In a life that could be completely empty and meaningless if I let it, I’ve found that creating structure and routine makes a large positive impact. You have to make little rules for yourself like:

Go to bed by ______, wake up by _________
Begin and end the day with prayer
Always eat breakfast
Make the bed
Change out of your pajamas and put your contacts in ASAP
If you’re going to use the computer, don’t do it in bed, in PJs with glasses on.
Shower and shave everyday (I know, I know)
Look pretty before Christopher gets home
Read scriptures daily
Cook a meal everyday.
Do dishes as soon as you can get them done (and ideally before the roommates notice).
Exercise regularly
Find excuses to leave the house at least once every 2 days
Plan to have friends over or meet with friends at least once a week
Meet 1 new person at church every Sunday

….And the list goes on.

It’s a really silly list, I know. To say that I always follow those guidelines would be a huge, huge lie. But I have noticed NOT doing those things really results in feeling lousy and worthless. And it’s easy to have days like that here.

But I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to figure this out.

Home. That’s the strangest thought of it all, learning to call this place home.

Being here has been interesting. To begin with, I feel like I’ve lost that enamored feeling I used to have about living/being in the US. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I dislike it, or dreaded coming here. It’s not quite like that. It’s just that it’s not new. There’s little excitement to the newness unlike my first time moving to the US or visiting “the Mainland”. It’s just going back to a life that I vaguely remember and having to remember why I loved it, and how to love it this time around.

The first step out of China was actually stepping onto the plane that brought me from Beijing to San Francisco. Flying on United is very different from flying a Chinese airline. Service is different. It’s more genuine. It’s still professional, but people get to be who they are. They giggle, and laugh and joke. They can call you “Hon”, and you can have casual conversations with them. That’s America: everyone gets to be who they are, no matter what role they take on.

I feel perfectly integrated into this part of the world for that reason. Unlike in China where I was surrounded by Chinese people who I looked like but was so different from, here while I am still very different from everyone around me, I feel like there is more of a mutual understanding between us all, and more of an ability to connect to people, to talk to them, learn about them. It’s easier to understand who people are here, and easier for them to understand me. Culturally, this is home for me.

And yet, it’s still going to be a difficult adjustment. Coming out of the airport into San Bernardino, it felt like being back in Hawaii, because that was the last place I lived in that was American. The buildings, the people, they are just like I remember, but without the Polynesian Island beauty. No volcanic mountains, no beautiful beaches everywhere and no green. The pacific ocean is not far away, but this is a desert. It’s dry and harsh and very brown. I’m going to have to get used to the climate. I miss the climate in Beijing, even the winter, because I knew it so well. This is unfamiliar territory.

The first thing we did, after meeting at the airport, was to head to Joe’s Crab Shack and have a bucket of crab each to celebrate. Wow. As Christopher said, everything is bigger in America. I remember how much I loved the food here. Tonight, we’ll go out for Mexican. I can’t wait.

The other thing I’ve felt immediately, is the pang of missing the city. I’ve always been a city girl. I’ll miss living in the city. I miss the tall buildings, I miss the public transportation. Here, I’ll need a driver’s license and access to the car to get anywhere. In some ways I feel isolated from the outside world. It feels strange being dependent on Christopher for everything.

Living in Laie, Hawaii, I was far away from the city – and I really rarely left campus. However, living on campus masked how isolated we were from the outside world. It was always bustling and busy. Lots to do, lots of people to get to know – and almost all you need within walking distance. So even though it was a small town, there was enough to feel connected to the outside world and I never felt the isolation.

Here, I don’t have school, and I don’t have a job so it’s going to be harder to find my place. It’s strange having to start over from scratch.

I’ve met a few of Christopher’s friends. I really like them. I think I’ll fit in just fine. That helps.

I’m nervous and a little scared. I want to love it all, but I’m afraid that there might be some things that I’ll find difficult adjusting to. The things I miss, I hope I can be happy here without them.

I do know for a surety, that I’d rather be in a place I like less with Christopher, than a place I like more without him. As much as there might be more to do, whatever I do in a place without him, is meaningless. And whatever little I’ll have here with him, will be filled with love, purpose and meaning. That is a comfort.

My favorite part of everything that I’ve seen here so far, has been the house. I love this house. It has a beautiful yard with lemon trees!!! It has a nice kitchen. The living room is a little barren now, but it doesn’t take away from the immediate homey feeling I’ve felt from the moment I stepped in. This house was built with so much tender loving care. This is the kind of house you call home. This is a house you can have a family in. I love it. More than I could adequately describe.

Despite all my worries about finding my feet and figuring out what I need to do to be fulfilled here, I have a place here with Christopher. This house, it’s my refuge. This is home.

Tomorrow will be my last day of work, tearful goodbyes, I expect, as well as only day I’ll have to run all the errands I had planned to do over the course of 5-6 days that I ended up being in Guangzhou for instead of Beijing.

And then, my flight to Ontario, California will leave at 1.40pm from the Beijing Airport. Friday afternoon.

I’m really leaving. I keep thinking it’ll hit me tomorrow.

At the end of the session, I pulled her over, and made her sit by me on the couch and said,

“I know you feel the need to run now and I understand that but one day, it will catch up to you. When it does, it’ll be the scariest moment of your life, like the most terrible monster from your childhood you’ve always been afraid of finally getting to you. But you know what, then you’ll realize, that it’s just pain and that you’re strong, and you can handle it.”

Who says stuff like that in their dreams?!

Place. Yours. Belonging. I think those are the keywords to home – and why I feel so far away from it at the moment.

I never imagined it would be this hard for me, giving up an apartment I’ve only lived in for six months – something that I’ve always understood to be temporary. But having to put everything into suitcases, leaving behind what I don’t need/can’t fit, handing back those keys- it’s been an emotional experience and one that’s been extremely lonely. It feels meaningful, though, like a rite of passage – almost symbolic, but I can’t quite figure out of what.

I don’t know what I feel I’ve lost but the emptiness is there, and I feel the need to mourn for the loss, alone, until I’m ready to figure out how to fill the gaping hole it left inside.

Somehow, it makes it worse knowing that the place is there, as I left it, but that I can’t go back and that if I do, it’s no longer mine. This feels like a breakup. There’s just no going back. “Move on Fei, he’s not yours anymore.”

What confuses me is why this particular move has been so hard. I’ve moved away from lots of apartments before. I cried leaving a few of them, but not this hard. I still feel like those places are mine in some way – I’ve never felt like I’ve really lost them. I’ve kept them, the memories of them in my possession. Maybe it’s because I chose to leave them. Maybe it’s because I always had a better place lined up right after that I had something to look forward to with eagerness, to keep me from looking back with longing.

I thought perhaps that I would feel liberated, lighter, mobile – something I idealize. Yet I can’t help feeling a little bit like a freed bird that just wants to go home to its cage. Though I know there’s nothing to fear, though I am not afraid of what’s ahead, I am still scared. The worst bit, though, is not knowing of what, and why.

It’s been odd figuring out how to get settled here at Grace’s, a place I know I’ll only be at for 2 weeks. It’s odd because I have all my belongings with me here, and it is a place I am familiar and comfortable with, yet, it doesn’t warrant making this place home. It’s also different from being just a guest with a little travel suitcase. Then, there’d be no discussion about how comfortable I’m supposed to get. You can unpack everything without feeling like you’re too attached because there’s no need for you to cling to it – you’ll be home, at your own place soon enough.

Another reason why I’m confused at how hard this is, is because I’ve been in this exact situation before – but in reverse. When I first came to China, I had all my belongings in suitcases but no place that was mine to put them. I didn’t seem to mind it then. I had the person I came here for – and that’s all I cared about. I was home.

There’s a place for me. A few places, actually. Places where I belong. Places where I am welcome to put my things and claim a piece of for my own. There’s a place for me in Malaysia, and one in Singapore. Family. There’s an indescribable comfort in knowing that there’s always that to go back to – even when neither of those places were ones that I’ve lived in growing up, it can still be home. As long as my family’s there, I have a place. That’s a comfort.

Then, there’s that place in California. The one I’ve never even seen but is meant for me. It’s there, waiting for me and my things. Waiting for me to complete it. To complete him.

Home is Christopher and giving this one up brings me one step closer to him. I cling to that thought.

So maybe I’m not homeless after all. I’m just in transit.