想家: Thinking of Home

Sorry for my absence again.

I imagine that all my readers in the States are gearing up for Christmas. I hear wind of Michigan receiving lots of snow this year already. Well, I can tell you that in Zhengzhou, we haven’t seen snow yet. Cold nights have been passed inside my toasty room, playing video games. The food on this side of town just slightly worse than downtown, which, after a long stint here, has yielded little other than sheep on a stick, chicken legs, and this fancy new place where you can sit on couches and eat. They have steak [or something] and it is pretty good. They soak all their steak in spicy sauce, though, before they cook it. [Wish they wouldn’t] And it is still a half hour and 25RMB to get to the nice place. [I eat a lot of fried rice and chicken leg.]

So what I am trying to say is that I am becoming less of a grinch. For the last few years, I have hated Christmas a bit. Last year’s just about killed me. Twice.

This year, though, Tricia and I talk about what we need to do to make space for ourselves to experience the holiday. We have decided that it is really important for us to enjoy Christmas, to feel a little taste of home here and there. We talk about doing stockings, and giving little gifts. I am not a gift-y kind of guy, but the thought does make my heart a little fuller.

And aloof as I have been from all of you, the truth is that I spend a lot of time engaging with you, thinking about you, and remembering you all the time. I walk to class and I think about video games with Niko and JD, and last Christmas, and living in Grand Rapids. How good that all was. And how much I miss you all.

So I have come to China, adventuring. I am here figuring things out; things that I never knew I could figure out. I am changing a lot. I am growing, and sometimes I am squirming because things suck here from time to time, too. But after a year of two, I know that I will need a time to recover and feel connected again. No regrets, so far, but I am really look ing forward to July.