Narrator’s Note August 2020: In a world of frequent and cheap travel, filled with travel Instagram accounts and international cell phones and connectivity, it’s probably easy to read this with a bit of an eye roll. But in 2005, I didn’t know many people who had ever left the country, and a lot of people I grew up with had never left Texas, or been on an airplane. I was the free lunch, hand me down, work every summer to pay for school supplies kid. It was like going to the moon to pick up and move to Japan, and doing it alone had me facing some of the biggest fears I had ever stared down in my life. Even now, looking back on this, I’m proud of 22 year old me for signing that contract, and getting on that plane, even though I was terrified. It might have taken a second pass for living overseas to stick, and to really believe in the possibility of having a life that looked a bit different from what I thought I should have, but it all started with my naive, terrified, and super green self saying yes to a random opportunity, not knowing what would happen.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
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Weird these past couple of days. Not weird bad. Just weird. I am just busy replaying my entire life here over the past year, not really believing that I am about to leave.
It’s so strange, usually you go places on vacation, or you go places as a natural occurrence in your life, like when you move, get a new job, or go to college. The first has a definite time limit, definitely frivolous, the second is your normal day to day life, and who really knows how long that period will last. Japan is somewhere strangely in between.
I picked up, moved, and jumped right into life here- within the first two weeks met almost a group of new people, new coworkers, almost a hundred new students, had a full time job, an apartment, a checking account, and a daily routine involving the local places I had to run my errands. I was playing taiko, taking Japanese lessons, I bought a bike and spray painted it with 100 yen paint (somehow that lasted).
It was just my normal life- honestly after the first week, once I got to my school and my place, I didn’t constantly think “wow, I’m in Japan!” It was just my life, happening in Japan. But still, I knew, going in, there was a time limit. I was to fully immerse myself here, just live and go to work and play and learn and such- and now, suddenly, my time is up, and a switch has been flipped and I am to just suddenly stop. On a vacation, you don’t get involved. It is a departure from your normal life. You relax. You generally don’t get much done. And at the end you pick up your life. “Real life” moves, who knows when you’ll move again. Who knows if you’ll get a different job, or if you’ll get married/divorced, have a kid, etc.
But this is just such a strange in between. Okay, time’s up, get out. Strip down and hand over your writhing life like a strange living outfit and drape it around this new person. It’s theirs now.
So surreal to literally see my Japanese life being taken over by someone new- I’m in a hotel for the last week, so she’s living in my old place, walking the same steps to my old job, teaching my students, working with my co-workers. She’s already frequenting the same restaurants, grocery stores, banks and post offices I have used, often in the company of the friends I have made here. If I already felt like my time here in Japan seemed a loophole in my life, or a dream, this reinforces that.
I can’t think of a similar parallel to this situation I find myself in; I can’t think of really any other opportunity to experience this. It is rare that you can so immediately see your growth in this way, the stunning exactness of the moves, right down to getting a hanko with manager and being presented with a bouquet on move in day.
I can almost squint my eyes and see the outlined edges of myself in this new person, the me from a year ago, and I can also understand my outgoing teacher much more. It is interesting, and surprising, but still on some level very strange. As though life is something separate from you. The trappings of life at least. I guess it also just makes me realize on an ever deeper level how very different all humans are, that even in this completely unnatural identical life that my replacement is stepping into, her time here will still be completely different in every respect.
Has anyone else ever had any situation like this? I can’t stress enough, it really is like teachers step into a colossal set of life experience double dutch, and then once your time is up you skip on out and the new one skips on in, everything the same save the person jumping, a seamless transition. It doesn’t matter who’s jumping, as long as someone is. It’s bizarre.
Almost like an out of body experience, but an out of life experience, like a bad soap opera where across the bottom of the screen runs a ticker that says “the part of Cortney will be played by________”.
Awesome for perspective. Very revealing actually. But still kind of creepy. “Here’s your Japan womb, it’s all set up, just jump on in, but keep it nice for the next person”.
On a related note, my heart feels like it could burst with love for my students. I have been on the brink of tears all day, and it is nice to see they have been, too. I know that sounds strange, but I think you understand what I mean. I know that in spite of the difficulties of the brutal schedule, the questionable educational practices, and the ever changing classes that we did connect and we did have a meaningful teacher student relationship.
I am just altogether just so happy- even with all of the creepiness above that I failed so miserably at describing. I just keep thinking, I own this experience, it is complete, finished, and mine forever. I never dreamed that living and working in Japan for a year would be part of the narrative of my life. I look forward to telling my daughters they can do anything they want, on their own, and being able to speak from experience. I never thought I would do half the things I did here. I am just so grateful. So so grateful. There really aren’t words, and that is saying a lot for me. I am just filled up with sheer pride, and elation, and such a feeling of hard won accomplishment. And that surprises me at lot.
Before I left, people kept telling me how brave I was, how proud they were of me. And I kept thinking “what are you talking about, this isn’t courageous, and it’s nothing to be particularly proud about”. But now I think I know what they were getting at. By going away, alone, it wasn’t courageous because of where I was going, or what I was doing, it was that I was doing it _alone_. Just me. No distractions, no family.
For so many people just being alone by themselves is a courageous act- nothing to divert your attentions away from your faults, nothing to catch your attention away from pondering deeper and deeper into yourself and realizing that it is terrifying how you can live with yourself you whole life and not even know who you are.
And it’s not because I moved to a foreign country. It’s not because I was teaching. It’s not necessarily the place or what I was doing- it was the fact that I was terrified, did it alone, and then had to figure shit out. By coming to Japan I faced a lot of my problems head on- I was forced to, granted, but I did it thoroughly. I didn’t shirk away or put them aside when picking at them became too trying, when all the little tiny knots and gnarls made my head hurt and my eyes burn. I just kept at them.
Maybe I could have had the same experience by getting away to anywhere. But I had it while I was here, and it needed to happen. I feel I am coming home a healed person. I feel all the bits of me that have been scattered and bruised and left to be in disarray have been put right. I have done nothing but take care of myself this year. I have been selfish and solitary and reflective and I feel like I really and truly can say that I know who I am. I know I can depend on myself to the end. I can trust myself. I feel I can really and truly, with utmost confidence do anything. Anything. There is so much freedom in that feeling.
If I died tonight I would have peace in my heart. I wouldn’t have any regrets. I would be whole and happy having felt the exhilaration of understanding even a tiny fraction of the strength of my potential. I don’t even care if this sounds ridiculous. I am just so joyful that I can’t express it. So I’ll stop and go to bed. Because regardless of how much potential I and everyone else have, you still need to sleep. And I need about fourteen hours.
