Andover is perhaps the furthest yet the closest place to home I have found. Fourteen hours of flight from Shenzhen, and a dorm full of people so close to my heart that they made home.

 It was on a night of our dorm meeting. The girls were assembled in the dorm after dark, the brightly lit common room was full of cozy coaches with babbling girls and house counselors lounging in it. Just like any other dorm meetings we had.

But all started change miraculously as Elizabeth shouted enthusiastically after a few simple announcements, “Who is born today?” An interested murmur arose in the dorm as all turned around searching. Their eyes found me, as I raised my hand slowly, still in the happy shock of the surprise.

At this sign, like someone had pushed the “on” button on the remote control, the dorm meeting shaped itself into a surprise party, all for the 14th birthday of me. Beth threw her arms around me from behind the coach I sitting on and whispered in my ear, “Happy birthday!” My four friends were smiling joyously in my face, bubbling over with good wishes; another of our house counselors—Rev—nimbly slipped into a corridor which led to her room as one of the girls snapped the lights shut.

“Happy birthday to you…” the joyful song rose in the darkness of the common room, Elizabeth leading the girls in chorus. I watched eagerly with the 30 or so girls in my dorm as our house counselor Rev entered slowly, balancing a cake in her hands, decorated with a glowing candle. The flame danced on the windows and lit up her beaming face, the smooth surface of the cake, and the eyes of the girls; it glided closer to my upturned face, the warm brightness bathing my heart, awakening something soft and familiar inside me.

Reality changed as it rose. The Andover dorm transformed into a home; the faces of the girls transfigured into the soft features of siblings; Rev standing behind the candle became grandma, smiling lovingly on the “birthday girl”.

Tears suddenly welled up in my eyes at the strange vision, a lump rose in my throat and my heart overfilled with the memories and loving faces and people. The candle in Rev’s hands blurred and glowed with the red radiance of the birthday candle in Sydney, flickering in the face of my mother as she caressed me adoringly; like the bright flame in the Brisbane birthday noon, surrounded by faces of Australian friends, their eyes shining with happiness; the yellow light on the cake in Hefei, with crowds of relatives and my little niece’s voice yelling in a zany accent “happy birthday” …

I have experienced so many birthdays away from my apartment in Shenzhen, China, have known so many benevolent people over the globe, have found so many homes in their hearts and love. A sudden understanding rushed into my mind with the reminiscences and emotions: I don’t belong to a place, I belong with the people who love me. Where they are, where my home is.