It has been hard to find time to write about things as they happen. This year one of my resolutions has been to write more often, even if I don't write much. I would like to share more thoughts when they are fresh and unfiltered.
When we first moved to Japan, I wrote a lot about how we were settling in and how I felt about it. It was easier to write about those things then because we had just moved, and so these reflections were not only predicable but expected. Now that we are nearly four years in - negative reflections, uncertainty - these feel more like complaints and character flaws.
It takes so long to adapt to living somewhere new. I thought the first months or even year would be the honeymoon period. In reality, this took two or three years, and I might even change my mind about that in the future! The homesickness set in last year, and with it came a lot of negative emotions about our life here. Why is there no electronic health record system? Where are women's equal rights and social gains? Why are so many things regulated by culture rather than policy? How can people be so rude on the metro when they are world-renown for being polite everywhere else? The list goes on because my thoughts begin spiraling when I go down this line of thinking.
At the same time, my memory of all the things we didn't like about the U.S. is not as intense. It's not fading (just a few glances at the news will do the job) but strangely the memory of good things has gained ground. Is it human nature to remember the bad now and the good before? It sometimes feels like a struggle to stay positive in the moment. Maybe I'm just a pessimist.
For me as an individual, the biggest push factor was the prevalence of guns in the U.S. After having children, I just couldn't normalize living with the risks. No pull factor matched the impact that this one push factor had on me. The tension was always between my career and a safe environment. Japan was the natural choice because at least one of us could function at full capacity here. Not that my other half was not sacrificing anything - he is but at least he can still do what he was trained to do. In fact, the U.S. is probably one of the best places to build your career if you are the ambitious type. On the other hand, leaving the rat race by virtue of being significantly less employable in your profession of choice was almost a relief.
I got lucky in a way. I stumbled upon a job that offered some reprieve from staying at home full time and an opportunity to engage more with local society. I work for a Japanese company as a non-lawyer. To be honest, it has been one of the most eye-opening experiences and one of the biggest challenges of my life. It takes time to understand the nuances of every society that you were not raised in, but this is especially true of Japan compared to the U.S. I plunged myself into a world in which everything (I am exaggerating a bit here) worked in the opposite way to which I expected. Details in favor of big picture, wordiness over conciseness, heirarchy over efficiency, appearance over substance. It wasn't just American culture vs. Japanese culture but also public sector culture over corporate culture (but Japanese corporate culture at that!).
As I get older and make more major life decisions, I am left thinking about the parallel possibilities, the what could have beens, sometimes the what should have beens. I know, conventional wisdom mandates us to leave the doubts behind and look forward! Sometimes I am able to, but the sharp divide of starting life in another country places reality and possibility in stark contrast. As I see friends moving through the familiar milestones I had grown up to anticipate, I find myself grasping at some familiar milestone in my own life that I can look to and think, ah at least I have achieved this. Being American, that milestone is usually career-related. And having given up much of that career, I wonder about my own decisions.
This is not to say that I regret moving to Japan. Any creeping ideas about returning to the U.S. were dispelled in November of last year. Human emotions are complex, and toggling between cultures and societies amplifies those complexities. Some people would say that you come to understand yourself better this way.
This year, on this blog, I want to share these some of these challenges and thoughts.
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