Where was I?
This is actually posted on January 8, 2012 when I realized there was a month when I didn’t update at all. That’s because this was the month from hell. I ran out of money in Europe, to my infinite shame, barely got home and then was completely dependent on the charity of my friends for a month… and while I was able to find a job in only a few days, it is, even now, barely covering my expenses. I had to take out a $4000 personal loan to survive. And I was numb from reentry culture shock. My friends were all disgusted with me and I am still earning their trust back, and the relationship with my siblings was incredibly strained. I had to give up on music school (for now) because the financial aid proved impossible given my credit history. I spent two weeks in Nice, Paris and London and it might as well have been in a video game for all the impression it made on me. I was so afraid of starving that I was only able to allow the smallest amount of pleasure in.
But the learning was rich, some of the richest I have done. Turning 32, I realized how much I was trying to literally have a second adolescence, as if I could actually go back to the moment when I sent the break up letter to Richard and step forward into the new era before me with the wisdom I had gained in the 13 years since. As if I could be 19 years old again and not go through all the pain of giving up on love and my future. “If I could do it all again, I would throw myself toward my dreams, even if I didn’t believe in myself yet, because now I know what I can do so I know I will make it.” So I threw myself to China, then to Japan, then to Music School via Europe and now here I’ve landed on my ass in Boston expecting my friends to pick up the pieces as if they were the parents I should have had to support me when I was 19. There was a lot of success, much more than there was failure, for sure. But it all felt like running, falling, shoving, flailing, forcing, hiding, pretending. Not all, that’s not fair to the moments I was awake. But I didn’t realize until I came home to Boston how much my trip had been a teenage rebellion against the limited existence of my post-Richard life. That’s fine. Everyone needs a rebellious stage. But now it is time for me to be an adult.
The question is, how can I create the adult life worth living? A life that holds up to my ambitious expectations, overflowing with my reasons to live? And what is that subtle difference between this life and the rebellious one?
I have some of the answers already. It would include money; enough money that the days of anxious paycheck waiting are behind me, that my debts are decreasing steadily like the weight I burned off my body. I wouldn’t be lonely; friends and loves and family would surround me. And I would feel like I was walking, not running; dancing, not dodging; touching, not flailing; confident, not afraid. Like I said, the life I have in mind is an ambitious one.
But as I sit here today, 4 months after the date of this entry, contemplating moving back to Japan, I have to remember how it felt when I first came home, and I MUST make sure I am not running again.
How can I return to Japan as an adult?