My world

"If they deny it, next time when we come with the same 10-year visa, the visa will be canceled at the border and we will be sent back. Then I will never come here anymore, I will also never apply for an American visa anymore, too much trouble to go to Guangzhou. I traveled enough here, I will travel to other places. Never here again."

"If that really happens, I will get you guys green cards directly, after 2024. You can come after 2024."

"Green cards?! I need to be here for at least six months to maintain my green card status, when I'm so old, that's impossible to do! No, no green card."

"You know I won't go back to China to live. My life is here, my children will grow up here."

"Ya, it is what it is. We will just not see each other then." 

I spent four whole days compiling all the documents USCIS required for issuing a B2 visa extension for my parents. China doesn't want them to go back, they have to extend their stay here. 

Nobody said they won't get the extension. It's just a procedure. USCIS listed clearly what they needed, and I have enough capacity to get whatever they want to see. 

Four documents, one 74 pages, one 40+ pages. the other two 10+ pages. 

The 74-page document is all about our travels together, since the day they landed last November. It was so much happiness to work on that document. 

Raj booked and planned everything. 

Back and forth. Canceled our Europe trip at the end of December, instead, we went to Napa and Lake Tahoe. 

Because their passports were expiring so we canceled the Mexico trip in March. Raj asked me 10+ times if we could go alone, leaving my parents behind. I said no, no no no, cancel everything. We didn't get all the cash back, some in credit. And instead of Mexico, we did an 8-day RV trip to Death Valley and Zion.

Joshua tree national park for Thanksgiving, San Diego and Lego land for autumn break, many rounds of Napa hot spring retreat, and many rounds of central and south California for beautiful beaches and happening cities...

I don't think I owe them anything. In fact, I don't think America owes them anything either. If USCIS for some reason doesn't want to validate their visas anymore, they are fully entitled to do so. 

But I try. I do try.

Every time I am torn into pieces, I collect the pieces and try to put them back together. 

Always a little bit different, compared to the last figure. 

I try to add better things to it, so it doesn't feel too deformed.

I try very hard not to let it be cold. 

Ya, I might have added a lot of free-style cursing once in a while. But what can I say, grew up hearing those, day and night, cats and dogs, somehow it's just in my blood. Plus never got the soil to wash those off.

I do believe now I have enough experience with close family members, Raj, Leena, Noah, and my own children... You are not supposed to always try your best to stab people who are the closest to you.

Maybe I really couldn't fathom how toxic that environment must be, that poverty and that kind of malice in the society, that desperation. Always someone on your back, ready to chop your head off.

Maybe I don't want to know. 

Guess what, now every time I pull myself up, I don't deflate myself anymore, I don't cut myself inches short anymore. 

They were never allowed to build confidence and trust, but I escaped and rebuilt myself on a different ground.

I don't take it by words anymore. I don't breathe in the toxic anymore.

I don't cry anymore.

I trained my brain to calm down, floss and brush my children's teeth, put them to shower, applied night cream on them, put them in pajamas and tuck them in bed. 

Then I take a good shower, drink some water, and sit down.

Write it out, write it out, write it out.

At least I got this space to hide that nobody in real life knows.

See? I didn't cry. How easy it was.