Two years before I was born, my dad moved to America to study after college.

Imagine if that had never happened.

I'm not saying the alternate story would have been a bad one, but I know it would've been drastically different from the one I lived. I would have grown up in China, probably in Beijing. Instead of learning English and Chinese side by side, I would have spoken only Chinese first. I probably would have waited until preschool, or even elementary school, to learn English.

Rather than spend my days rolling in grassy fields, I would have accompanied my grandpa to the grocery store every morning, the way I do when I visit him in the summers. We would wake up, eat a hearty breakfast of egg, tomato, and noodle soup, and then embark on our journey to the market. I can picture this routine clearly because it's happened to me before, except it's a memory from summer vacation, not every day life. Even as five year old me hopped on the back of my grandfather's bike every June, July, and August morning, I knew that I would soon go back to the States and live my American life.

School would have been way more competitive than it is in America. I would have dedicated my days to studying, rather than learning ballet. Instead of taking swimming lessons on the weekends, I would have been in a supplemental math class. These may sound like stereotypes, far from any reality Americans can imagine, but it's what I see my cousins do in China. When I go visit for the summer, they are still in school. They have a much shorter summer vacation; even on break, they keep their minds sharp and are wary of getting rusty.

I can't even begin to imagine what my life would be like without the friends I've made in America; I would still have friends (hopefully, haha), but they wouldn't be the ones I know today. We wouldn't have the inside jokes about freshman Honors Bio, or the shared memories of AP Chem. We wouldn't go on nature trail runs and make hot chocolate afterwards. We wouldn't stay up all night, waiting for the sunrise on the top of a ski hill in the summertime.

I wouldn't be able to drive. In China, one has to be 18 years old before they can learn to drive. Even then, I'm not sure the hectic traffic there would appeal to me. As an avid lover of driving (never thought I'd say that in my life), I can't imagine what it would be like to not drive my worrisome thoughts away.

But growing up in China would still have been a good experience. Some of the most brilliant minds in the world come from the rigorous schooling system there, and to have the opportunity to learn alongside these geniuses would have been eye-opening and humbling: to be able to immerse myself in Chinese culture even more, to be able to travel to some of the most breathtaking natural landscapes China has to offer, to be able to meet Chinese people from every province, every city, every village.

I drool at the thought of learning different Chinese dialects -- something I would have had the time to do, if I lived in the country full time. I dream about being able to conjure writing from my mind in Chinese like I do in English.

I can imagine experiencing a Chinese way of life, laughing with Chinese girls my age about the silly boys at school, wearing a style of clothing Americans would consider to be daring yet modern. Drinking normal coffee and calling it "American coffee." Seeing Pizza Hut as a fairly unique restaurant.

Even as I imagine a possible alternate reality -- even as I imagine a million possible alternate realities -- I wouldn't trade my experience for the world. I could have grown up in Italy, Israel, Japan, Russia, Peru, Ireland, England, Canada. Anywhere. Sometimes I wonder if I was destined to live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of all places. I've never felt more comfortable in my own city -- of course, because I haven't lived in a great number of cities anyway. Everything I know about my own life has stemmed from this amazing community. It's impossible to know what it's like to have grown up somewhere else, because I only grew up once.

Sometimes, I wish we could experience life a million different ways. I wish we could rewind back to a younger age to experience life in a different country during those years. But we only have our own consciousness, and when we live somewhere, we give up the chance to live somewhere else simultaneously. This is the opportunity cost of being alive, here and now. We learned in AP Macroeconomics that when you make a decision, you're giving up the next best option -- the most valuable forgone alternative. Life is made up of these choices, and nothing's more influential than the environment you live and grow up in.

I could spend my days wondering if life would have been better, if only I'd lived somewhere else, but the experience would have been different. I would not have lived my days -- truly, my days -- and I would not be the same me that I am today. I'm not perfect, and by no means am I even that great, but I'm me. Every piece of DNA in me has been shaped by my past. I wouldn't change a thing.