A long way from home

1.

We are two old friends catching up in a busy café. The smell of fresh bread wafts over the lunch crowd, everyone abuzz with pent-up energy from the rainy day and waning holidays. My friend is so tall that I feel like a child sitting across from him. But I listen attentively as he describes the various heartaches and struggles he has faced over the past four years.

Needing distance and a change, he has decided to leave our hometown and strike out on his own. I’m proud of him for making such a bold and difficult decision. I’m excited for him and all the new things he will experience. But I’m also sad that it has come to this, that he couldn’t find what he needed in the place where we grew up, with the people who were supposed to nurture him. He’s strong for all the wrong reasons.

Now he’s taking that strength and heading out a long way from home.

2.

When I left home over ten years ago, it was for college, not forever. At least, not intentionally forever. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know when — if — I will go back. I’m not opposed to living there again, but I’m not drawn to it either. I guess only time will tell.

Meanwhile, it’s harder than I expected to live far away from my parents. I worry about them a lot. About their age and their health. About their house and their cars. I worry about them working too hard and not eating very well. Most of all, I worry about whether or not they’re happy. And I worry about them worrying about me.

If you could put all of our worries into physical form and lay them end-to-end, maybe they would cover the the hundreds of miles that separate me and my parents. Maybe that’s their purpose, in a way. To bridge the gap. To connect us. To keep us intertwined, in each other’s hearts and minds, even when we’re far apart.

3.

This year, my mother and I will return to Taiwan for the first time in over a decade. I’m excited, and I’m scared. I can’t wait to see the teeming capital, taste fresh scallion pancake from a street vendor, smell the damp green mountains and the smoky sulfur pits. But what if Taiwan doesn’t live up to my treasured memories? Or worse: What if I don’t live up to Taiwan’s expectations of me?

I don’t know if everyone has these kinds of complicated feelings about their grandmotherland. I only know that I’ve been battling a sense of inadequacy my whole life, when it comes to my Asian heritage. Yet at the same time, it’s such a strong part of me. My values, my personality, my experiences. I don’t speak much Mandarin, but I sense there’s a deeper sort of language that I share with the place where my mother was born.

Maybe going back will prove that. Maybe not. I have to remind myself that either way, that’s not what this trip is about. This trip is about visiting with family, both living and dead. It’s about walking the same streets that my mother walked as a child, and listening to her stories. It’s about introducing my husband to one of my favorite places on earth. It’s about reacquainting myself with the part of my heart that lies an ocean away.


10 responses to “A long way from home”

  1. Mieke Zamora-Mackay Avatar

    I share the same thoughts about my own motherland. My best piece of unsolicited advice is to go with the flow. I need to remind myself of this as well. Our home countries are vastly different from where we call home now.

    1. Kristan Avatar

      Mieke-
      That is great advice, haha, thank you. I’ll do my best to channel it when the time comes.

  2. Melissa Avatar

    Safe travels to you, through territories both inner and outer.

    1. Kristan Avatar

      Melissa-
      Inner and outer territories. Perfectly put!

  3. Diana Gallagher Avatar

    I feel #2 so hard. Lovely!

    1. Kristan Avatar

      Diana-
      Thank you!

  4. Anthony Lee Collins Avatar

    Home is so different for so many people (and yet universal, too) that I suddenly have the urge to write a book of short stories, variations on the theme. No one story can cover it.

    I’ve lived most of my life in the same place, so I know I can’t go home — it’s a very different place, now (even apart from how much I’ve changed). I guess that’s why everything I write is set in an alternate future of this city from about forty years ago.

    1. Kristan Avatar

      Anthony-
      Sometimes I think every story is a variation on the theme of home. ;)

  5. Shari Avatar

    I love these — and also your perspective on worries. I am a chronic worrier and have been for years. I often wish I could change it, but I can’t, and so to imagine it the way you have, that the concern is actually a way of caring and forging connections … I adore that.

    1. Kristan Avatar

      Shari-
      I’m glad to have maybe turned the perspective for you. :) It’s funny, because right up until I wrote this, I basically thought of worries as negative. But as soon as I wrote it, I stopped being so sure.