I’ve been thinking about memory a lot while I’ve been traveling. What our brains hold on to, and what they quietly let go.
Some things came back so easily it startled me. Chinese words I hadn’t spoken in decades arrived whole: Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? Hěn hǎo. Zhēn piàoliang! Xiǎoxīn! Entire sentences, just there. Where had they been hiding for 28 years?
And yet the ordinary things were gone. I couldn’t remember where my classroom was, or the path to the cafeteria. Maybe too much had changed. But in my mind I could still see the guard dogs and the field of flowers behind my house, now a junkyard.
Some memories came back through my senses. The chili oil, the little stools where we sat eating meat sticks, all of it felt familiar. My body even knew which way to walk to find the man who sold my favorite potatoes. But my students’ names? I said them every day, all day, and now they’re gone. Most of our ordinary moments simply disappear. It’s a little sad, because, to be honest, the ordinary, everyday moments are the best part of life.
It took me half the trip to realize what I was really doing. I wasn’t just traveling back. I was chasing memories, those epic stories I once lived. I was looking for the girl who was brave and wild and free, who hadn’t yet known heartbreak or grief or deep loss.
I soon realized that version of me? She’s gone. And that’s okay.
I can’t travel with a small duffle bag over my shoulder anymore (too many medications and face creams!), and I definitely don’t want to spend all day on a train in the cheap seats. But it took returning to the place that shaped me so deeply to understand that I’m not that girl anymore. Even more importantly, I don’t want to be.
I loved experiencing China as an almost-50-year-old, and it was wildly different from what I remembered. I don’t think a place can ever feel the same, especially after a generation, because we’re never the same people when we return, no matter how familiar it all looks. I’m a wife, a mom, a therapist, a responsible adult who pays taxes. None of that was true when I was 22.
So let my memories keep the young woman who didn’t carry all that I carry now. My wrinkles, my stretch marks, my wedding band: they hold the ordinary, everyday memories of the last two and a half decades, even the ones I can’t recall. They are the best part of my life. I want the weight I carry. All of it.
I really liked that 22-year-old and her spunk. But I wouldn’t trade my ordinary, beautiful days for her carefree youth. Turning 50 and realizing the best days are right now might be the best gift I could ask for. And that realization was worth traveling to the other side of the world.