Friday, September 30, 2005
I’m lost in the throes of culture shock. Five hours early for my flight from Haneda to Aomori, I’m listening to the screams of small children in the playroom. Is this what I have to look forward to? Again I’m saying to myself, “What have I done?”
I want nothing more than to give myself over to this adventure, but I’m sick to my stomach with fear. I’m not even sure what I’m afraid of – if it’s loneliness I fear, I have plenty of that in Hood River and on Maui. It’s certainly not failure – failure would bring me home, the thing I want most at this point. I think what I fear is fear itself: the anxiety that led me into the pits of hell last winter. It’s only too easy to see myself curled in a ball in a closet, wishing for a quick death.
Why can’t I enjoy this? How long will it take before I see this as fun and exciting?
Also, I’m jet-lagged as hell. I went to bed at 8:30 last night – couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, and woke up at midnight. That was it for sleep. I tossed and turned and stressed until the sky lightened around 5am. Then I pulled out a book and read for a couple of hours. It’s 11:30am now, and my eyes won’t focus, the world spins if I move too fast, and my muscles are tense like I’m about to take a final exam.
Please let me change my perspective and embrace my choice to come here. I don’t want this to be a mistake; I want it to be a fantastic and most importantly, enjoyable, experience. I don’t want to give up, because if I do, I’m afraid I won’t try anything so cool ever again.
Relax, miss Temira. Relax and enjoy the journey. Stop worrying about money and time and the future. Chat away in Japanese and enjoy the small victories: enjoy making it to the hotel, doing the bus transfer to Haneda, asking for an exit seat on the plane, communicating in this very cool language. Let go for a short time of your struggle to find a tangible role for yourself in the world, for your need to have a community of friends to support you, let go even of your windsurfing for just a little while.
I’m trying to think back to my first time going to Maui. I was scared then as well, not like now, but still scared. Funny, but the only place I wasn’t scared to go was Hood River – I moved there with no fear or anxiety whatsoever.
Those are my tortured thoughts for this morning. Hopefully they will change for the better when I arrive in Aomori, meet some of my coworkers, and begin to integrate into my new community.
I miss my friends, I miss my cozy condo, I miss the potential of going windsurfing on any given day, and mostly, I miss my safe little life in Hood River. Thank god I don’t have a boyfriend, or I’d never have left at all. And thank god there’s nobody near to see me crying in the airport. How embarrassing!
