Awoken from the Dream

In the last month I’ve been late to update because of a few reasons.  The end of the academic school year in Japan kept me somewhat busy.  Tack on a few side projects I had taken up and saying goodbye to some friends as they leave for hometowns and that kept me pretty well occupied.  Almost immediately afterwards I left for my own Japan tour around Honshu Island for about a week.  One day of rest and recovery back in Fukuoka and I took off for China.  Two weeks later I returned to Fukuoka and spent the better part of my remaining week in Japan mostly organizing goodbye dinners/parties, working a few nights more at Cream and strengthening some connections I hope to keep for the rest of my life.

Noticing Differences

Now I’m home, which is a strange word to me now.  What is home anyways?  Why is Los Angeles, America my home more than any of the other places I’ve been this year?  Because I was born here, because I was raised here?  I admit I’m still struggling to adjust to American life.  I pretty much can pick up everything that I left here as if I had just been gone a day.  I sit with my friends in the same places they’ve always sat and seamlessly blend back into the surrounding as if nothing has changed, as if I haven’t changed.  But I have.  I know that I’ve changed.  I see the world I lived in now with totally different eyes.  I try to find occasions to walk because I miss being reliant on my own two feet to get me from point A to point B.  I’m astounded by American portions and wonder how I was able to eat so much before.  When I left Japan, it was over 90 degrees and humid.  Today is 60 degrees and dry.  My lips are chapped daily and I miss the moisture in the air. 

Home…

Mostly, the most difficult thing is having nobody to relate to about my year.  I can tell them stories, but I can never convey what it was like to live a life in Fukuoka.  Nobody here will ever understand what I know now.  I feel a bit alone in that no one will ever know or care about the little things that have made up my life.  And it is nobody’s fault, it’s just something that I can’t possibly communicate and that they could never know without having done it themselves.  In that regard, I feel a bit like a stranger in my own country.  I had gotten used to understanding only about 10% of my surroundings at any given time.  Suddenly, I understand every word that is said and written and around me with ease and it feels not normal.  I’m happy to regale my friends with stories from abroad, but I will be telling these stories for the rest of my life.  And right now I feel like the people who I’ve known most or all of my life don’t know who I am, not yet anyways…   

The life I’ve lived for the last year was merely a dream and now real life looks gray.