From Japan, With Love
It’s been 4 months since I left Canada. This is easily the longest I’ve been away from home, the previous record being maybe just 14 days. Between the snow making me nostalgic for home, and settling into a bit of a routine here in Japan, I miss home.
I knew homesickness was going to be an ongoing battle here in Japan. I was feeling it even just a few weeks into my stay here, wishing I could meet up with friends and tell them all about my new experiences. It comes in waves, bringing both happy memories, and chest tightening sadness at the same time.
I’ve only moved a handful of times in my life, and none of them were anywhere close to as dramatic as the move to Japan. I was always less than an hour away from my parents and the house I grew up in. Now, there was an ocean, time zones, and the date line between my loved ones and I.
I had to make the decision of whether or not to extend my contract with JET in January. I hoped committing to another year here in Japan would bring me some peace of mind. Slowly, as I begin to miss home, I’ve started to wonder if it was the right decision after all. I wonder if it’s still too late to change my mind, or if this is really the right place for me.
Second guessing myself, getting cold feet, it all feels pretty natural when I’m in an environment so unlike anything I’ve ever known. Rather than try to chase these thoughts away, I try to sit with them, as best I can anyways.
It’s just my fears, my anxieties rearing their ugly head, like they’ve done so many times over the years. I’m worried about being away from friends and family, thinking about what important events in their life I’m missing. Worried I won’t be able to support them as they face life’s daily hardships. Scared they could grow accustomed to my absence, leaving me behind.
I’m afraid I won’t ever feel accepted here in Japan. That I’ll always be the foreigner who can’t communicate, forever seen as the other, an outsider. I’m frustrated that I’m not working harder, I should be pushing myself more to achieve my goals, rather than relaxing at home. These thoughts feel so ever present, so constant, it feels as if they might swallow me up if I’m not on guard.
Ignoring these feelings though, these fears, won’t make them any less real. Pushing your feelings away, rather than facing them head on, just leads to feeling numb. Trying to drown out your own inner voice is a battle with no winners. Burying my head in the sand, forcing a smile, and going on with my life won’t do me any favors in the long run.
I had to learn the hard way that “negative feelings” are just a fact of life. It’s not a sign that something has gone awry, or that you're an unhappy person, it’s just part of being alive. Being able to sit with those feelings, name them, acknowledge them, and move forward alongside them is the only way to keep going, at least for me.
When I bottle up those feelings, they either bounce around inside until they explode, often at the worst time, or you shut down until you can’t feel anything, good or bad. You’re just empty.
So, to avoid those darker days of years past, I’m leaning on writing and yoga. Both deeply reflective practices that give me space to explore my feelings, reflect on them, and express them in a much healthier way.
This isn’t me trying to brag, just to share how I’ve been managing lately. Don’t get me wrong, these feelings still suck. I look at how much time I have left here in Japan, and a part of me just wants to skip to the end.
I made the commitment to staying longer in Japan because I believed it would lead to the least amount of regrets. I still stand by that belief. I want to look back and think that my time here in Japan allowed me to grow, and to truly experience a culture that was so different from my own. That doesn’t mean it makes the present any less of a challenge though.
Keeping in touch with people back home has been tough. For some, like my mom, it’s been easy. We shoot each other the odd few messages, and have a video call almost every other week. I always feel better after a call, even if I sometimes feel like crying.
For my friends, it’s been a bit trickier. Some of my friends have never been big texters, and we always relied on in-person get togethers to catch up and hang out. If we’d gone just 3 weeks without seeing each other we would all be bursting at the seams to grab a drink and catch up. Now, so far from home, that’s turned into sporadic messages where we gush about how much we love and miss each other.
For friends where I text them all the time, in some ways, it seems to be more difficult. It’s like a constant reminder that I’m not there, I won’t get to see them soon. All we can do is chat about what’s going on in our lives and what we’ve been up to and seemingly pretend all is normal.
In case it wasn’t abundantly clear, I love and miss everyone back home. Long distance isn’t easy, for any of us, but at least for me, it doesn’t change a thing. I left home because Japan had been a dream of mine, an adventure I hoped would challenge me and expand my horizons. I didn’t choose it because it was easy, or because I wanted to leave, I came here in spite of those things.
Regardless of how much or little we text, how easy or hard it’s been to stay in touch, I miss you all dearly. It feels, in some ways, that I left my heart back home, and I’m simply doing my best to get by without it. So, with whatever heart I have left, I want you all to know, I’m thinking of you.
From Japan, with love, Joshua
