Game Over
I’m renewing my contract; it will now terminate on August 1, 2013. I’m not sure when I will go home again.
Up until this point, my time in Japan has been… Well, I don’t know. Fun, sure. But it’s not all puppies and rainbows. There have been some crappy times.
Some really crappy times.
But through all that, there’s been some sort of glitter on my life, some sort of haze. Like everything was new again, even bad things. It’s like life was a game again. Fun, even if something bad happened.
I’m renewing because that feeling of newness is gone. I see things around me like I haven’t seen them before. Most of all, I’m hit with the weight of my own life. I told a friend recently, “I feel more alive and more alone than I ever have before.” Here, all accountability is on my own shoulders. And if something is wrong in my life, no one is coming to save me. It’s all up to me to fix it. It’s a weight and a freedom at the same time.
This isn’t a game anymore. This isn’t some fun job where I learn some Japanese phrases here and there and then my co-workers exclaim, “Oh wow! Your Japanese is so good!” Where I’m a guest-star in a classroom. Where I’m some funny foreigner that people look on the train. This is my life. And for better or worse, I’m here for another 18 months.
It’s game over. I’m playing for keeps now.
