I've been going over in my head for a good two weeks about how to write this post. I still don't even know if it will make any sense once in print.
I'm having a hard time of it. Please don't misinterpret anything I write here. I am not wanting to go home tail between my legs and forget Japan. That is not what this is about. I think I simply need an outlet to get out what I'm feeling and I suppose this is the best place for it.
Not sure what you know about me but I'm 32 years old. In those 32 years, I've lived in one state. Different cities within the metro Phoenix area but same area nonetheless. So this girl, this girl decides to pack everything up and move to Japan. Japan! Different time zone, different day zone, different climate, different language. Different everything. I love Japan. I really do. I was unhappy in Arizona and the main reason for that was my job. Now I could have gotten another job at another place in Arizona. I could have. But I used this opportunity to go to Japan.
It's my two month-iversary in Japan and so far, I have no regrets. I love my job. The people I work with are great. Upper management is incredibly easy to work with and there is no one I don't get along with. What a great place to work right? So, it's almost the same as before. The work is hard but unlike before I am happy where I work.
Challenges. There are a lot of challenges to living anywhere but I believe those are multiplied when living in a foreign country. If you've never been to Japan, feeling like an outsider is unavoidable. Japan is not very culturally diverse. I am constantly surprised when I see diversity here because in the day to day life of Japan, it simply does not exist. I feel like I stand out more than your run of the mill foreigner because I have a lot of tattoos and I don't eat meat (this means no fish either). I always look for people with tattoos and I am excited when I see them here because they are simply not prominent in Japan like they are in America. I knew this moving here. In addition, I get stared at a lot. I think this behavior is rude. There are certain things you are not supposed to do on trains here. This includes things like: eating, putting on make-up, falling asleep on other people and I guess overall you're not supposed to be a jackass by making anyone's train ride uncomfortable. I have seen all of the above happen. One time I had to change my shoes on the train. I'm sure that this falls into the above category; however, it was unavoidable at the time. An older lady across from me rudely stared at the entire time. In America, we teach our children not to stare. I don't think they teach this in Japan. I may be wrong. When people stare at me, I like to talk to them in English. I said to the lady on the train "what's the problem?" I'm sure she didn't understand me. Last night at the park a group of boys were staring at me so I said "hi" to them. One did say "hi" back. When people (obviously) stare at my chest tattoo, I like to say things like "I know right. It's pretty cool." I know this behavior is probably pretty childish but it helps me cope with being treated like a wildlife attraction.
This biggest challenge I face here is language. I think my Japanese is better than someone who just fell off the boat but I still feel like a colossal idiot the majority of the time. As far as Japanese goes, I can read and write hiragana and katakana. I can recognize and write basic kanji. I know many many words but it's difficult for me to construct sentences. I can introduce myself using full sentences. I can tell people some basic information about myself using full sentences. When it comes to doing seemingly simple things I hit a communication blockade. So after recovering from an awful cold (85%) I decided that I need to get my ass to a Japanese class. When I got there, everyone in the class knew so much more Japanese than I did so it was back to feeling dumb again. It took me like five minutes to think of a question to ask my teacher. He tried to teach me verb tenses and I felt incredibly overwhelmed and it wasn't even a full class hour because we left early to watch fireworks. Now I'm not going to quit the class obviously but I am feeling frustrated about the language. It's very difficult and I don't have the advantage of youth on my side.
The need for speed. In Japan, you don't need a car. Public transportation is phenomenal here especially in a big city like Tokyo. Trains are excellent, there are busses and I can walk to just about anywhere in my neighborhood. There's one thing I don't have though, a bicycle. Just about everyone I work with has a bike. They all need it to get to work. I don't. That's why I cannot justify purchasing a bike. I really want one though. I would love to cycle through the city trying to discover new things. I would love to not have to walk heavy groceries back to my house. Maybe when I get more than one paycheck, I could afford one but right now it just seems a superfluous expense.
Maybe these all seem like silly piddly things to you but I am alone a lot of the time and these are the things I think about. Maybe that's the scariest thing about being here is being alone. I haven't been alone in two years. I've had children with me, my two girls, for the past two years. I've had my dog children with me for the past 8 years. Now here in Japan, it's just me. No children of any kind. Maybe after all that time, I don't know how to be alone. This is a big hurdle for me.
I am learning to live alone once again but this time very far away from my family and friends in a country where I can barely speak the language with only a few friends to help me through it. I am learning that this is a difficult thing to learn but I want to believe that my strength and my desire to succeed will get me through all this. I don't know if anyone will make any sense of this. I don't know if anyone with even read this whole thing. I do know that I won't be linking this to FB like I usually do because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. So if you happen here by being subscribed and you read this whole mess and you have anything encouraging to say, I'd appreciate it. Regardless thanks for reading.
