untethering

The title of this blog is Untethered, at least for now. When I was trying to make a decision about some kind of unique title, moving away from "Sayonara, Goodbye," untethered was the word that kept coming back to mind. I went through various ideas, scoured the thesaurus, slept on it (for a long time) but nothing else stood out. So I revamped my blog, slapped the title on a picture and called it good. Suddenly now, I'm realizing how prophetic that word is, in a way, according to my life.

These last few months, or maybe five, six months, have been challenging in so many ways. Rewarding and eye-opening in some, but certainly challenging. Though I'm on the mend now and most days I feel, more or less, normal, that significant chunk of time completely isolated me from the world. I find this slightly ironic as we visited Seattle for two weeks in December. That time was mostly good, and seeing so many familiar faces was also good, but at the same time, left me feeling slightly alienated and confused. I walked and talked and interacted with the same demeanor I had over two years ago. At times, I wasn't sure how to act, or I felt confused about the discrepancy in how I thought I used to be with particular people, and how I supposedly am now. I pushed the thoughts aside and simply tried to enjoy the little time we had in the US, but those thoughts and feelings that come with it have slowly magnified themselves over the past few months.

As my illness isolated me physically, the distance from the US, as well as circumstances in Japan, also created emotional isolation. Who did I talk to? David and the internet were my main links to anything outside of our apartment. We tried to go to church every now and then, although when we did we could never stay long enough to socialize with anyone or do much afterward. All the plans and invites from other ALTs in the area were postponed and subsequently forgotten, my RSVP always: "when I'm better..." As such, I felt the world around me had kept moving, while my world held the shutters closed and only allowed me to peer out every now and then to see what was going on, and left me wondering if I could ever get out again.

As of now, I still often feel as if I'm peering out the window. I see the social interactions happen around me (Facebook is like a window to everything social), and feel a pain as to how hopeless it is for me to even try to enter into those groups. I've always been the person that has difficulty in social interactions, particularly groups. I force it out, bending and twisting who I am to conform to some kind of person that I know will be accepted by others. I feel as if I'm shunning myself - condemning myself back behind that window while this alter-ego of mine tries to engage, make connections and friends. When it's all said and done, it wasn't really me at that table, smiling, laughing, talking. It was just the me that works in society - that works in circumstances so as not to make others uncomfortable or create social awkwardness.

Then I see all that is keenly familiar to me in the US. My friends, family, people I know so well and spent significant amounts of time with. Though some of these relationships still run strong, and have stood the test of time and change (and how thankful I am for those relationships!), others have simply dissipated across the world, both literally and figuratively. Some that I've known for most of my life, seem so strange to me now, not in any bad way, but like we hardly know each other. I feel like a completely different person from when I was twenty, fifteen, ten. So much so that these encounters bring with them a sense of confusion. Old traits and habits and demeanor haunt me and escape from within, though they don't show up in my current daily life. I feel foreign - who is this person that is waving my hand and moving my lips?

I want to relate to those I've known so long - those that have been part of significant moments in my life. Some of them still work quite well. They work despite change and developing identity and 4,000 miles of distance. They work despite differences or similarities in religion or beliefs or values. Those people that I met in random moments, and instantly clicked with, have been some of the best kind of friends. Even if a considerable amount of time goes between talking to those kind of people, I still know that I can always consider them a close friend. And yet other relationships, it hurts me to say, seem to have become more and more distant over the years of change and physical distance. They are almost a burden - a forced interaction that just doesn't seem to work. Or those relationships that I considered so close, that aren't in the first two categories I've mentioned, that don't seem to work simply because I am no longer a part of their daily life, and they are no longer a part of mine.

Sometimes thoughts pervade my mind in attempts to convince me that people in the aforementioned relationships simply don't care. Yet, I know everyone cares, in their own way. I know that life has just continued to take its course, and carried people with it. This is normal. Life carried me to Japan. And I'm living in Japan, with my best friend (who also happens to be my husband), and carving out a life here, for whatever is ahead of us on this road. To everyone who has not lived in a foreign country for at least a year, this is probably a difficult concept, although not as difficult if you think of it as moving to a new city, or state, or something like that. Those of you who are and have lived in a foreign country, you already know. You lose the community you left behind. Though, you may still have some of those cherished connections, you inevitably lose some (or a lot) too.

Though I hardly considered the US my main "home" to begin with, since I've felt disconnected plenty of times, it has started to feel less and less like a home base in really any sense. So if anyone asked me why I might want to go back, I would probably say (aside family), for Whole Foods or competent doctors. The US is awesome in a lot of ways, and Seattle and Washington are so dear to my heart and always will be. Japan has become so much more to me though, and my increasing knowledge of the country, language, and its people just fill my heart with so much love, angst and peace that it feels like it's the place to be, for me. Though I'm still in social limbo, and though I've yet to really integrate myself more and more into the community (foreign and Japanese), I realize that in the end, it is still a good place. It is the right place. Sometimes some things are frustrating, or difficult, or annoying, and yes, I certainly don't fit in here simply because I'm a foreigner. Foreigners are like me, and the US, and Western culture, since I am one too. The way I act around those I am more familiar with is how I'm accustomed to acting in those situations. Yet, around Japanese people, there aren't all those preconceptions. Oh, of course there are preconceptions and misunderstandings about foreigners, but oddly enough, in a society based on conformity, I don't feel like I have to be a certain way with those I meet. There is something strangely refreshing about knowing that this person you are talking to just wants to know who you are, and what you are like, as a foreigner. One of those few circumstances where I can exercise the "be who you are" mantra that is preached constantly in Western culture (especially in the States).

So this brings me back to my title. Normally, I love to engage people and make them laugh in what I write. I love to make light of my problems or issues or mishaps in order to make others smile or just give them a small break from the seriousness of life. I love doing this. Yet, I realized today, as I pondered my lack of sense of community, that I'd forgotten about this whole idea of being "untethered." Why allow myself to be tied down to one subject, to one way of acting around other people? Why does it matter? Why do I say I don't care what people think but yet sometimes still act like I do? Why don't I just allow my friendships and relationships to just develop naturally (as I've come to believe they should) instead of forcing relationships with those I just don't necessarily click with? Note: I'm not saying I don't want to meet a variety of people or talk to people, since I love hearing people's stories. I'm just saying I don't think I should feel like I need to be everyone's best friend.

It's a serious topic, I know. Please don't think I'm mentally depressed or on the verge of joining a cult or anything like that. I'm doing about as fine as someone in my situation could be. Not great, but good in the sense that I know I'm growing, and learning something about myself and the people around me, and just about life. So, in that sense, I'm thankful for process.