Cleaning it up

(Friday, March 28, 2025)

Wednesday night, Valérie had a friend over for dinner. Thursday night, I went out with classmates from language school. So Friday morning, before heading off to her leadership training, she said, “We’ll have a nice dinner together tonight—to catch up.”

That felt unexpectedly nice. When your host notices your absence and wants to catch up at the end of the week, it makes you feel like you matter. We still had our long breakfast conversations each morning, but those aren't quite the same as winding down together over dinner.

Nina, Valérie’s 16-year-old daughter, has been crying almost every night since I arrived. She’s also been skipping dinners, so once again, it was just Valérie and me at the table.

“I don’t want to overstep,” I began gently, “but I’ve heard Nina crying every night. I just wanted to make sure she’s okay.”

Valérie sighed. “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She explained that Nina had broken up with her boyfriend—again.

“She’s done this so many times. They break up, get back together, break up again. I’ve tried to help, but I think she needs to process her emotions herself.”

“The tall guy who was here last week?” I asked. I remembered the sound of soft laughter and kisses from Nina’s room just a few days ago—now replaced by muffled sobs.

“Yes,” Valérie nodded. “He’s a wonderful boy. Respectful, thoughtful, smart, positive… and madly in love with her. But Nina keeps pushing him away. She tests people’s limits—friends, siblings, even him.”

“I’m her mother, I’ll always stand by her,” she said. “But she can’t keep doing this to people.”

I felt even more sorry. As someone who’s pushed people away before, I knew this wasn’t what Nina wanted. I see how sweet she is. Sometimes pain wears the disguise of distance.

Trying to lighten the moment and connect, I said, “I was a very difficult child for my parents.”

That one line cracked something open.

Valérie was genuinely surprised. From what she knew of me, I seemed like a dream child. I had moved to the U.S. alone, built a life, started a company, had a strong academic record, and now was here in Lyon—reading, writing, running, doing yoga, learning French, making friends. She thought I was confident, warm, engaging. The idea that I could have been “difficult” didn’t fit.

So I told her.

—

At 16, I chose to attend a strict, rural boarding school far from my city home in China. The decision was part ambition, part impulse: the school was known for sending students to China’s top universities. And I had a crush on my desk mate from middle school who said he was applying.

He never ended up going.

The school had nearly 7,000 students, all tightly regimented under military-like discipline. We studied from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., six days a week. Everything was scored, ranked, and compared. The dorms were rough, the bathrooms worse. I avoided drinking water to avoid using them. Showers were in a separate building, which no one used.

As a city girl, I stood out immediately. I spoke Mandarin instead of the local dialect. I dressed better. I was “other.” The local students bullied us outsiders, especially girls from big cities. My food and money were stolen. The class president targeted me publicly. My dorm mates gave me the worst bed—near a broken door where icy winter air poured in. I wore every piece of clothing I had to sleep, and still froze.

I cried every day. During class. Walking across campus. In bed at night. I even tried to sneak out of school by lying to the guards and climbing the fence, planning it in detail. I hated everything—the bullies, the dorm, even the air.

Still, somehow, I placed in the top 15% on our first exam. I hadn’t studied. I was too busy crying. That caught the attention of my chemistry teacher—a kind, awkward man with a metal tooth and a constant smile.

He pulled me aside one day and said, “You’re not even paying attention, but you still did well. Aren’t you curious what might happen if you actually try?”

That single question shifted something.

What if I fought back in my own way? Not by reacting, but by achieving—outperforming the mean girls academically, and, I’m ashamed to admit, trying to be thinner than them too. Those were the only two things girls seemed to care about in that environment.

What followed was a dangerous spiral—of obsessive studying and starvation. I buried my emotions. I smiled all the time. I read that smiling could make you happy. It didn’t work for me.

But the studying did. Books became my escape. Control became my comfort. I stopped caring about clothes, friends, anything else. I wanted out. And I would earn my way out.

After the college entrance exam, I never looked back. I skipped the farewell party. There was no one I wanted to say goodbye to—except one boy I secretly liked, who I later learned had planned to confess his feelings to me that day. I wrote him a separate thank-you letter, years later. Quietly. Just for myself. 

I got into one of the best foreign language universities in the country. Everyone else saw success. But I knew I was a mess—still trapped inside the shell I’d built in high school, while weighing only 35 kg (77 lbs) at 172 cm (5'6"). .

I was chosen for an elite translator program. I felt constantly behind. My English and French lagged. I was anxious, starving, overwhelmed. Outwardly, I seemed confident and carefree. My friends said I was inspiring. They didn’t know I was playing survival as a chameleon, hiding everything.

I didn’t know what “mental health” was. Neither did my parents. But I knew something was wrong, and I needed to breathe.

During my second winter break, I asked to visit New York—to “practice English.” Really, I just needed to escape.

It was my first time abroad, second time on a plane. I forgot how seatbelts worked. A kind British family sitting next to me helped out and chatted with me the whole flight. They even gave me their nephew’s contact in NYC.

It was snowing when I landed. But I felt warm.

Times Square was chaotic, loud, packed—but it felt like freedom. No one knew me. I could just be… me. Not perfect. Not pretending.

A one-month trip became six. I volunteered at soup kitchens, helped my off-Broadway Airbnb host organize parties, and even tutored a woman I met at Starbucks.

The “old me”—the curious, fearless, joyful child—started to return. I dropped out of my Chinese university. I was ready to start over.

In 2014, I arrived at the University of New Hampshire. That was the beginning of my new life—and my American dream.

—

As I spoke, Valérie’s expression shifted constantly—shock, empathy, admiration.

And I hadn’t even gotten to the next chapter: Yishi.

She already knew about the company from our previous dinners. But last night, she understood something deeper—why it still hurts so much.

She looked at me carefully. “What you’ve done is an amazing success story. You don’t need to avoid telling the ending, you need to change your relationship with failure.”

I nodded. I already knew that.

“I also think you’re grieving,” she continued. “It was your baby. It’s in the past now.”

I knew that too.

What I didn’t know—what I hadn’t thought about—was what she said next.

“You need to clean it up.”

I looked at her, confused.

She pointed to her stomach. “There are still pieces from your past—resentments, grief, guilt—that don’t serve you. Like your anger toward unethical people you dealt with. It’s time to clean it out. Close the book. Let it go.”

Then she told me about her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz. She never spoke of her experience until she was in her eighties—when she was interviewed for a documentary. She died two years later.

“You have to clean it up, Lin,” she repeated.

And I will.

I know I will.

Just like I always have.