As I sit on someone else's kitchen stool listening to the pitter patter of little poodle claws on someone else's kitchen floor I came to this conclusion; it's time. Time to move into a more permanent arrangement you say? No, actually what I have finally been driven to is to process. Yup, two months stateside and 5.2 "homes" later and I am now forced to think through the emotions and reality that is post-Japan.
Ready? Yea, me neither, but here we go nonetheless. Upon reading previous posts (I have to try and remember things in my own life sometimes) I realized that I have decently thought through my time back "home" in Georgia. I miss my mountains and have seriously considered working on choosing my southern drawl as the dominant accent, but here I am in Minnesota where little has changed to the untrained eye. Road construction still shows your GPS the fool more times than not, and my current state of residence is nomadic. That may be what's contributing to my lack of processing. That and the swirls of lives that I continue to work at sorting, catching up on, and adapting to. That's the part I love about being home. Since being back I have laid my head down in 5.2 homes (I don't count dog/house sitting to be an entire "home" experience), and I have 1.2 to go (yup, another dog/house sitting gig).
I have attended 2 weddings and helped out with one other since arriving back. I currently have 6 newly wed friends. Not only that, but there is also the corner house which has disappeared. No, you don't understand. More than the dating and wedded friends, more than the nomadic living situations, this disappearing house was the event that shocked me into post-Japan reality.
For months friends have been asking me what it was like being back. Scary, joyful, sad, overwhelming; those words would all be true, but for the most part I felt groggy. Being back has felt like a the awakening process of a really long nap and suddenly my eyes, ears, and emotions are called on to process changes in my surroundings that weren't there a moment ago. Hence, the house. Ok, this particular house to which I am referring has graced one particularly confusing 5-way stop since as long as my Minnesotan mind can remember. What it used to be I have no idea, but every summer it's vacant lot was used for overflow parking, neighborly chats, as well the one stop shop for all your locally grown produce needs. Imagine my surprise as I make my lawful stop in honor of the red, octagonal sign and see...nothing! Not only nothing as in no building and no lot, but the existence of its ever being a past reality was wiped away by dirt and sun-parched grass.
Oddly enough, this was the moment it hit me: I didn't just wake up from a long nap to find minor changes. I had been gone, living in another country. Me. The quiet, motherly-type, never do anything that had a danger ranging in the yellow meter in her brain girl had lived in another country long enough for a building to be wiped out of existence and have months of grass cover any hint of it ever existing. Yes, I know the reaction is extreme especially considering others who come back to this type of thing after years and not a measly 7 months. Can you imagine what's it's like for a long term missionary or overseas worker?
The other surprise came when I realized the random moments of loneliness didn't disappear the moment I stepped off the plane into the familiar. In Japan I was the kind of lonely that comes from not knowing the jokes in another language and living alone near a rice field. It was a loneliness from situations outside of myself. The loneliness I have now is in my head. My thoughts, random Japanese replies, and experiences have closed me off.
If you're reading this wondering what you have done wrong as a caring friend, please know this is not a diatribe or call for repentance and more refined questions. I am as much a wall builder in this scenario. I am finding I need to relearn how to answer people's questions. Sometimes the person asking really wants to know, "what was it like in Japan?" Those times are sweet, especially compared to the passing questioner who challenges you to respond satisfactorily in the 5 minute time range. There's give-and-take in all of this as I learn to distinguish between the two. What I found surprising is how closed off I feel the more often I keep memories and trained Japanese responses to myself, and the fear that if I don't then the other person will feel apart from me and unable to relate. Even whilst writing the above paragraph I know that this response has a wrong bent to it that will take more processing time to work out.
If only all those people asking me, "how does it feel to be home" could have a mulligan and ask me one more time. The answer they would receive would include wider eyes, a little bit of a furrowed brow, and the words "shocked" and "lonely," but so glad to be back. It was a painfully wonderful experience in Japan that I love and miss more than many here might realize. And it is a painfully wonderful experience to be back. Something I wouldn't trade even for a moment of relief.
