As I traveled alone through my birth city—the one I have no memory of, where I was born, left, found, cared for by aunties I wish I knew to thank, and then adopted by my now-parents and taken to the United States—my mind returned to my childhood hours spent playing Pokémon. 

There’s this joke that only children are always third-wheeling their parents. Maybe that’s why I was an awkward kid who didn’t quite know how to play at school. Not in the normal ways, at least. At home, the only games we owned were Scrabble, chess, and a ton of puzzles … though I’m not sure puzzles are games? And when we played, we played to win. Someone always kept the score. That way, the game had purpose.

Maybe it had something to do with my adoptive parents being physicists—tried and true intellects. There were always science articles lying on the coffee table like magazines, right next to the janky timer that counted my breaks between practicing piano. Growing up, every minute had a purpose. Every minute was measured.

It was only when I flipped open my pink Game Boy at night—well past my allotted 30 minutes—and entered the world of Pokémon, did it feel like I could truly … play.

If you don’t know anything about Pokémon, it’s one hell of a game. The slogan is “Gotta Catch ‘Em All,”and your goal is to travel around the world catching and training creatures. In the beginning, you get to choose your starter Pokémon: A Fire, Water, or Grass type. Supposedly, you can’t go wrong because they all have unique strengths and weaknesses. But, I always chose Fire.

The game begins in your hometown. You go downstairs to the kitchen, where you’re greeted by your mom, who encourages you to go out and explore the world on your own. So, you leave, setting out on your journey, despite not knowing what you’ll find.

Soon after, a stranger gives you a map that reveals all the cities, forests, mountains, and islands that you can visit. Along the way, you encounter wild Pokémon, battle other trainers, stop Team Rocket from taking over the world, and learn from world-class gym leaders. In return, they all help you and your Pokémon grow stronger. If at any point you lose a battle because all your Pokémon faint, you simply get teleported back to the previous city’s Pokémon Center to rest and recover.

It’s the kind of game where the side quests matter more than winning, and that’s what kept me obsessed. Winning wasn’t the goal in this world. Plus, you could start over anytime—but the catch was: there was only one save file.

This meant that if you started over, you’d have to delete everything first, and start from the beginning. Back in your hometown, back at the lab, choosing your starter Pokémon again. So I turned that into a game of its own—hitting the reset button, making the same choices, taking the same route, battling the same people. But each time, it was still a different game. Sometimes my Pokémon would faint during the trek through Mt. Moon, while other times they’d miraculously push through. No matter how hard I tried to keep everything the same, the game veered onto a different path each time. Sometimes annoyingly so, as if an unknown force made sure of it. 

In my fifth month abroad in Asia, while visiting my adoptive mother’s hometown in northern China, I found myself booking the next eight-hour bullet train to Changsha, in southern China. My motherland, rather than my mother’s land.

It was an odd feeling, being a tourist in my birth city. The romantic part of me naively hoped that the minute I stepped off the train a wave of nostalgia or familiarity would hit like the gust from the next arriving train. But it never came. My foot hit the platform, and it was just like any other end to a long train ride: I had to pee.

The air was muggy, and I had zero plans for what to do next. Just a hostel address and a nagging sense that I was supposed to be feeling more than I was. I spent a week there, and between all the amazing spicy food I ate, everything else was a blur. 

Wandering down random local streets, I found myself in a gruesome, yet beautiful, cycle: first imagining that any middle-aged woman might be my birth mom—and then, any nearby man, my dad. I’d picture what I’d be like if I had grown up with them, together. But by the time I reached the end of each street, my imagined parents would disappear from sight, and I’d hear reality sneer: “Time’s up, kid. Move on.”

Like in Pokémon, there were three main types of fantasies I defaulted to:

Fire: I was the youngest daughter of a chef, playing on an iPad in the corner of her family’s noodle shop while her older brother helped her parents get through the lunch rush.

Water: I was the only daughter of a fruit stand owner, helping her slice watermelon after school. We had the same nose, and my mother was pleased with how well business was doing this summer.

Grass: I was the eldest daughter of the farmer couple who sat across from me on the subway, hoping their sun-worn arms and tired eyes would return home with good news from the Sunday market. 

No matter what stranger I projected these fantasies onto—no matter how vivid they felt or how much I enjoyed or hated them, it always ended the same way… with the harsh reminder from reality that there’s only one save file. Only one life that’s real. And for me, it’s the one where I was born in China, adopted and brought to the U.S., and raised as an only child in the suburbs of Georgia. 

And now, here I am. Back in my hometown. Beginning again.

This time though, I think I’ll choose Water.