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| So about that getting old...I am still a few months from what will only be my 22nd birthday, and yet I still feel old in a lot of ways. Relatively, at least. The fact that many of the people around me are several years older means that I am basically just being dramatic, but being halfway into your SIXTH year of undergrad starts to take a toll.
Classes are awkward because, ホリクラップ, most of the people around me are kids. I wonder what I must have been like when I first entered UW at 16...even more of a kid than everyone else. Wow.
I have to sit close now. Usually in the first two rows. My eyes have not gone bad, but they are certainly not as good as they were a year or two ago. And I have to sleep a lot. I used to be able to function on four hours pretty well, as long as it wasn't for several days in a row. These days, if I don't get a good 7.5 hours of sleep, I'm dead. Completely.
Little things remind me of memories I wish I could share or return to...and then the bittersweetness that comes when you realize that those people have moved on, that time has passed, and there's nowhere to go but forward. I look forward to the time when I will be able to look back on the past in general and on Japan in particular with only fondness, and not the kind of smiley-sadness that I feel now. I think it will be easier when I finally get closer to that sort of vague forward towards which I have nowhere else to go. Maybe it is time for me to get my eyes checked =)
I've finally come to be able to enjoy living where I live. Turns out I am living with a bunch of guys who are almost half as assholic as I am, so we do a lot of learning to live with grace and love and patience with each other. I think this will serve us all well in the future. We've also started meeting as small groups this quarter, getting to know each other better and sharing our lives together. It's nice to have that again.
It's hard to focus. Whether it be the whiteboard, schoolwork, the future, or the fundamentally important development of self that is so important in this confusing collision of spirit and flesh and thought and action and theory and practice that is life.
</meander>
I feel so far from Ayu. =(
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| So it's been a long time. I ended up coming back to Seattle. Often I wish I had stayed in Japan. Sometimes, when I am blessed to share moments with good friends, I am glad to be back in Seattle.
It was difficult, down to the last minute. I went back to Seattle at the beginning September, ostensibly to visit my family and friends before returning for one last semester in Japan. Also because I didn't have a place to live for those two weeks. I had gone through the process of applying, interviewing, and being accepted by Ritsumeikan for an extension semester, followed by the exhausting back-and-forth with the immigration office to get my visa extended. I had slammed my head against the wall of housing discrimination for almost a month before finally getting a place lined up. And then there was saying goodbye to all my friends as they left to go home.
It was not an easy month.
So I got to Seattle and, as I always do, continued to second-guess my decision to stay. I was back-and-forth down to the last hour -- literally. I thought I had made my final decision to stay in Japan, but then the combination of a less-than-pleasant conversation with my girlfriend and a conversation with my dad about his experiences as a young man made something flip. I packed myself back up and within an hour, I was headed towards the airport to fly back to Japan, pack up all my stuff, say goodbye to everyone, and get back to Seattle in time for classes.
Ultimately, I'm not quite sure what made the decision for me. A lot of little things, I guess. Likely the most important aspect, and the one that I still wrestle with myself about, is the necessity to graduate. If I am going anywhere with Ayu, I need to get myself a degree. Staying in Japan for another two quarters wouldn't get me any closer.
Coming home has been rough. I dislike the frantic pace of the UW, and the whole way knowledge and education are organized and administered here. I really, really don't like the weather. And, for the first couple of months, I was not sure I wanted to live where I now live...with nine other guys. (I still have my moments...white people are so competitive...but for the most part, I've come to enjoy living here.)
A lot of the things I feared in coming back have ended up being true. I find myself very lonely. Most of my best friends have graduated and moved on, sometimes moving away. Every once in a while, I get the chance to have breakfast with an old friend or coffee with another. I know what a toll loneliness has on me, if only by how utterly refreshed I feel by a good night out with old friends. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
(never finished this post...so let's just post it already, huh?) | | |
| To say that this week has been difficult, or painful, or trying, would be the understatement of my entire year in Japan. I've probably never thought so much, felt so much, cried so much, or analyzed so much in my entire life. Deciding between staying here until March or coming home in September has possibly been the hardest decision I've ever been faced with...and the past two days have been quite a climax.
I can't remember the last time I cried as hard as I did tonight. Ayumi was upset with me and said that, basically, she had had enough of me. And it felt like not just as a boyfriend, but as a person and a human being, she was ready to be done with me. I have felt the pain of that emotion and statement too many times from so many people over the course of my (only) 21 years, and so the floodgates opened. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of friends walking away. I'm tired of feeling rejected and unwanted and undesirable. But then God shatters through.
Despite the wandering back and forth I've done in Japan, despite the ways I have grown for the better and regressed for the worse, despite the many bad decisions I've made, some even willfully, I still find Yahweh, the great, creative, merciful, just, wise, kind, forgiving Love who Is, to be at the very core of my identity.
Even the liter or two of tears I shed into my girlfriend's pillow tonight can not come close to the expressing the pain I've felt over and over as one person after another has rejected or walked away from me over the course of my life. But it's in the midst of that hollowing, consuming pain that I hear most clearly the screaming whisper of God rush into the very center of my being. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I have always loved you, and I will never forsake you. You belong to me, and you will come home to me. Do not fear any longer, my beloved son." If it were not for this love, this deep and real and perfect presence that I feel when I am at my very lowest, I would have given up on this life a long time ago. Even in the midst of it, I find myself complaining "I am so tired, so very very tired. I just want to come home." But I am reminded again that "There is still much to see, much to do, much to learn. Remember this pain after tonight, because I will use it to heal many others. Hold fast to Me and you will be home soon enough."
Some guy is famous for his profound statement, "There, but for the grace of God, I go." I'm not sure if it will take me longer to understand God's great grace or that guy's godawful grammar, but I am savoring the flavor of it more with every passing day. Thank you Jesus, for opening that path home, for me and for all of us.
There, but for the grace of God, I go. | | |
| When I applied for my moped parking permit at Rits, though I wanted the west lot, I was assigned to the lot at the main gate. Most people get to write down their top two choices for parking areas, but as a short-term exchange student, I wasn't given that option. The main gate is really inconvenient for me; all of my classes are held in the buildings next door do the west gate parking area. Furthermore, the main gate is the most requested area by normal students and fills up quickly, with the west gate being a "backup" area, so it sure seemed to me like it would be better for everyone involved if they'd just give me the lot I wanted. I complained at the time, but they gave me the typical "Sorry, this is Japan, you don't get to complain" business.
So I took my permit and went to the west area and tried to make friends with the security guard, explaining my situation. He said "well, I can't stop you from parking here, and I don't particularly mind if you do, but do try to get your bike out by 7pm, if you know what I mean." So I've been doing that for about a month now. Unfortunately, the duty shifts recently changed, and the new guard is much stricter. Today he told me not to come back to the west lot. I tried to explain my situation but he was very committed to the "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them" bit.
Frustrated, I went back to the registration office and asked them why it was that exchange students, despite the fact that we pay to be here and pay for the same bike registration as everyone else, don't have the option to choose our lot. They said "because that's how it is." I said "well I think that's ridiculous, and borderline discriminatory." To this they replied "we don't make the rules," as expected, but one lady came to my rescue and added "but if you'd like, I can take you to the person who does."
So five minutes later I'm in the office of the guy who decides all these silly rules, and two minutes later he said "yeah, ok, that sounds reasonable. Please give this young man a permit to park in the west area."
I've left out of this story the amount of bureaucratic bs I had to fight through to get that far, but in the end, I was victorious! Honestly, I can hardly believe it. For the first time in my nine months in Japan, I fought against a silly rule and actually won. My hope in this country has been renewed.
By the way, parking at Rits is about eight dollars a year. Parking at UW is more than ten dollars a day now. Ridiculous.
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| もう飽きたね、こんないつも次の６，１２ヶ月どうすべきかなって考えて迷っていること。しかも、なんとなくいつでも日本にいることに関係あるそうだね。近年のブログを読んだらそれは決まっている。まあ、とりあえず延長の申し込みを出したけど、まだ迷いてる。お母さんも「まだ決めてないの？」って聞いている。まだ決めていないのだ、お母さん。ごめんなさい。色々な複雑な要素が絡んでて、まだ解きかたは全然しらねん。授業、卒業、住むところ、鮎ちゃん、友達、教会、京都、仕事、日本語…やばい。本当につらい、どうせやるなら。その上、両国の一番中よいと思ってた友達にも…裏切ってないけど、そんな気がしてる。基本はなくなりそう。自分の基本なしで、アイデンティティーどうなるかな。
どれはどれに依存かな。両方が両方に？
神様、パパ、助けてください。いつものことに、どうすべきか分からない。
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