Goodbye, Hong Kong (Pt. 3)
Being back from Hong Kong, all I can think about is how lucky I am.
When I was 5 years old, my family moved to Canada with practically nothing. Money was tight, and my parents worked hard to make ends meet. The higher we climbed up the economic ladder, the better things got. When I was 9, we moved into an apartment in The Kingsway. Our rental building was surrounded by million-dollar mansions. To me, our spacious 2-bedroom apartment wasn’t a luxury. It was a minimum requirement. After all, my peers were going to Europe with their families and ripping around on speedboats at their Muskoka cottages. I wasn’t poor, but I wasn’t “lucky.” I felt average.
Last January, I was selected to be a Cansbridge Fellow and was set to go to Asia. I also realized I had enough money to do a semester abroad in France. Within a matter of months, I went from dreaming about faraway places to buying plane tickets. I definitely felt grateful, but was this trip really so extraordinary? Hadn’t I seen my friends post hundreds of Instagram pictures abroad? Again, I felt average.
When I showed up in Hong Kong, my first apartment had cockroaches and no front door. Fresh lettuce cost $6 at the grocery store. I couldn’t drink the tap water. My room fit nothing more than my bed. I kept having anxiety attacks. What was going on? Wasn’t I supposed to be average? Is this what average looks like in Hong Kong?
At the end of my 3 months in Asia, I got on a plane to Europe. I was so excited to be back in the comforts of the ‘Western World’. I spent a month recovering from my anxiety on the beaches of Croatia, at the Coliseum in Rome, and in the moon-lit streets of the French Riviera. But I stayed in hostels and took the bus… so that’s all average too… right?
Before I went on this trip, I thought my life was just OK. Not lucky, not unlucky. But I’m starting to figure things out. My life isn’t perfect, but it’s so much better than “average”. It’s filled with choice and opportunity. If I don’t like something, I have the power to leave or change it. When I feel down, I have loving people who are ready to support me. This doesn’t mean my problems don’t matter, or that my anxiety in Hong Kong wasn’t real and challenging. All it means is that I have a new perspective now. Yes, my life isn’t perfect, but I am so damn grateful for what it is. In Hong Kong, I felt like I was scrambling to meet my own needs. My mind wondered if I had enough bottled water, and how I could manage my anxiety that day. Now I feel like I have enough. My mind has room to wonder how I can use my security, stability, and comfort for good. My life is anything but average, and I’m so lucky to be able to do something with that.
