...And I arrive! Bumped around, mussed up, with questionable hygiene (gotta love those airplane bathroom sponge baths), dog tired, and grinning from ear to ear.
Well, mostly. If we decide to forget the nigh-immediate onset of homesickness, missing one's family, pets, and the daily variety of visiting fauna (what's up, duck(s)?).
Even if you're new to this blog (lol. first post. everyone's new. me included.), you still perhaps were able to conjecture by this point that I have recently gone far away, for a period of indeterminate length (longer than it takes to get a cup of coffee at your local convenience store, but perhaps not as long as it takes to get an iced tall soy chai -with two extra pumps- latte double blended at a certain cafe at 8:30AM). And you'd be right! //confetti!//
So, yes, I am across the globe, pursuing an international education in Japan, for reasons that, honestly, at times have become unclear to even myself. Sometimes people do something for so long, that they forget why and what they were even doing. I liken it to a lifestyle version of walking from the kitchen to the living room and forgetting what you even wanted from the living room in the first place by the time you get there. You stand there for a moment, just thinking and staring dumbly at your surroundings - you know, a private moment where you quietly commune with your Universe (or just scratch Uranus) - and rather than coming closer to some logical resolution you only get even more confused. I mean, really? What on EARTH would you need from the LIVING ROOM in the KITCHEN? I have to ask myself that question frequently. What on EARTH would I need from JAPAN in order to make a decent living in the US? I don't know. Nothing, I guess. And yet... I've had my heart set on coming to this place and doing this very thing for so long that I don't know what else to do. I don't even remember my feelings or reasons why anymore. So here I am on the streets of Japan, standing in the "living room" so to speak, and staring around me and looking as dumb as ever, wondering what I'm doing here. That, and trying desperately to read half of the words and kanji characters I see.
Well, nah, that's a little over dramatic. I know what I want - in my heart - to get out of my education and experience here. But I am continuously plagued with self-doubt and self-recrimination. Statler and Waldorf are sitting up in the eaves of my head, making a schmuck out of me and my attempts to make a unique and fulfulling life that brings me some kind of happiness and personal wealth. Me? Speak a difficult language fluently? Understand a foreign culture? Make friends despite so many barriers? Get a stable job? HAHAHA.
Oh, and speaking of plagues of the mind, I am certainly not lacking in any amount of debt and guilt I have toward the ones I've left behind. It really wasn't an easy decision to make. But, as it has been wisely said, 'All's fair in love, war, and going abroad.' And, honestly, I do love it - and 'it' can be read as so many different things, from going to college and language school, to learning and comparing languages and exploring new literature, to feeling that super sexy and chic 'je nais se quoi' that comes with being a more "open-minded" and more "globalized" person. And, yes, sometimes I do even feel like I'm waging war (albeit a cold one) on some of what I've left behind. Frankly, the only way I can even begin to decide to do something like this is to try to shut off - or at least stop-gap - a lot of my feelings about a lot of the people and things I cherish and, yes, also the things I hate - like being given desperate pseudo-sign language for "no" when (*duh* //eyeroll//) I understand at least THAT much Japanese - and the burning shame when someone asks me something relatively simple in Japanese and I can't even answer them properly, or at least not without stuttering. The end result of all this of course is that lingering sense of being adrift and unsure. The "Why am I in the Living Room" syndrome, magnified to life-size and scary as hell, sometimes.
Man, what a drag. I have to somehow save this egocentric bummer-riffic mess with a cheerful, zippy little outro. SO... go ahead and enjoy these baby animal pictures.
