Any kind of journey has joyous highs, but also inevitable lows. This past weekend might have been the low point of my time here in Japan, but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. 

It’s not a bad thing, because it puts into contrast all the great times I’ve had here in Japan. Sometimes you also just need a low point, to help you start climbing your way back up to the next high. 

Now, this low point feels like a confluence of factors. I just got back from spending the holidays back home, I’m leaving Japan before the end of the year, it’s the dead of winter, I was a bit sick, and I just can’t get excited about anything. 

I took Friday off work, since I woke up with a fever and a sudden cough, and spent most of the day in bed. I dreaded having to leave the house for food, and was angry at myself for not going grocery shopping earlier in the week. Saturday was more of the same, but by Saturday evening my fever broke, and I started to feel better. 

Even so, on Sunday I couldn’t seem to convince myself to leave the house. I needed groceries pretty badly, but I didn’t want to go outside, I didn't want to be seen. It reminded me of when I first arrived here in Japan, where after some initial enthusiasm, I got super self conscious about being out in public. 

I thought I had gotten over the fact that I stick out like a sore thumb at basically all times, but I think it can pretty easily depend on my mood. In a good mood, I’m not really paying attention to that sort of thing. When I’m having a harder time though, all I can think about is how others must see me, what they might be thinking about the foreigner. 

Eventually, I forced myself to get groceries, and it was fine. We as people often have a bad habit of making things feel so big in our heads, or at least I do. Simple things that we do all the time can feel like insurmountable tasks, problems we could never begin to solve, until we finally start trying to do just that. 

On Monday, which was mercifully a holiday, I could feel things start to change. I cleaned the house some, took a shower, and was just feeling more like myself. My suitcase is still fully packed on my bedroom floor one week later, but one step at a time. 

I think I really just needed some time and space to feel bad. Sometimes I feel like I have two modes, I either push things down and try to keep barreling forward, or I get stuck in the “everything is awful” cycle. 

Barreling forward is great, until all of a sudden you're running on empty and never noticed. For some people, they might just need some rest to refill their tank, and that does help, but for me, I need to let things out. Karaoke has been a good source for that, but this time around, a good cry really helped me feel better. 

We’re often taught, especially boys, that you’re not really supposed to cry. It’s a weakness, it’s not masculine, yada yada. Frankly, crying is perfectly natural, and if I don’t do it for a long time, even over something trivial, I do begin to notice. There’s a lot of sadness that comes from living as a person in the world, and from time to time it’s important to express that. 

My other mode of operation tends to be a pity party. I’ve done my best to ditch this back in high school, since it’s truly miserable, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You become sad, disillusioned with life because it’s difficult, messy, and more than anything, lonely. You resent it for those things, withdraw, and do your best to escape from reality. 

The problem with this method is that by embracing it, nothing ever changes. Often, once I’ve been running on empty for too long, I feel myself backsliding into misery. I never want to leave my bed, and everything feels indescribably heavy. It’s easy to feel crushed under this weight, and to let that weight paralyze you into believing that you can never be rid of it. 

Thankfully, that’s a lie. While you can’t just ditch whatever weight you have to lug around, it does get lighter, if you put in the work. Lying on the couch, assuming the worst, binging TV isn’t going to make the weight lighter. What makes it lighter, bit by bit, day by day, is trying. 

Putting yourself out there, doing those tasks you’ve made so big in your head, and finding things to get excited about, no matter how small. It’s finding those reasons to keep going, and remembering the things that helped you get this far. 

I’d love to give some grand universal advice here about how to navigate these low points in your life, but by their very nature, they’re incredibly specific and personal. If anything, all I can offer is give yourself some space. Let yourself feel bad for a while. Sit with all those bad feelings we can be quick to chase away in our daily lives. More than anything, be kind to yourself. 

Once you’ve had a chance to feel all those terrible, difficult feelings, don’t give up. Find something small that feels like a first step, and do it. For me, it was cleaning up my kitchen table. Currently, my kitchen table is the cleanest it’s been in months. Every time I walk by it, I know I haven’t given up. Maybe this week I’ll even manage to clean the rest of the house. 

It’s small, but it’s something, and it could just be the first step towards my next high point. Or maybe it won’t be, but that doesn’t matter, because I have to keep going all the same. My journey here in Japan isn’t over yet, and I want to see just how many more highs I’ve yet to hit.