I spent the Lunar New Year in a hospital I love, with a little boy I love - bravely waiting for a new heart, with doctors & nurses I’ve loved for years. We ordered dumplings & rice & watched Over The Moon. It was quiet & simple & once he fell asleep, I responded one by one to the messages coming in, from my people across the world. Xīn nián kuài lè, Tang Mei, Chūn jié! Over & over, emojis came through of red envelopes & golden coins, dancing dumplings.. Chinese fireworks. I was homesick. Am homesick. It’s been a year since I’ve been in China & I haven’t really talked about it here... or been here much at all. It’s the strangest kind of thing, to feel estranged from one home & like a stranger in another. I can’t say I’ve done it well. I find myself missing things - wishing for things - I loved, places I went, people I saw. I even find myself romanticizing things that made me lose my ever loving mind - the #becauseChina moments that must be seen to be believed. It’s been a year of questions, a limbo I don’t quite know how to describe. When will China open, when will you come home? Where is home anyways, where - do you belong? I am grateful for this year & grateful for this time. All my years in Asia, I lived firmly planted there, hardly here. This year has held friendships & memories & different kinds of dreams, ones I know will last a lifetime - no matter where I am. I think I’m still unpacking it all in my head & heart (& also in my suitcases because LOL that never stops). What I know is that I’m grateful, to be here & to be there. So there I sat on New Years & all of festival week. We ate Chinese food nearly every meal & talked about China stories. My home of babes & brave little hearts, of trains & noodle shops & dancing grannies in parks. Tonight’s the final night - the Lantern Festival, & my phone’s blowing up again. I’m out of the hospital & in another “America home”, sitting in the tension again. Fully here, but heart there. Missing there, but grateful for here. Maybe next Lunar New Year, I’ll wish you well from there, but for today, I can’t let it pass without a resounding “Xīn niàn kuài lè”, to all of you. Even if from here 🤍🥟🏮.