An End to Fear

An overly ambitious title! I arrived in this country on such a high, dreams and imaginations filled my mind and even the first weeks grueling training couldn't suppress my joy. The moment I stepped into my apartment though and the manager who showed me to it closed the door I was overcome with fear and loneliness. One way or another these two feelings have predominated in my experiences in Japan so far. No matter how many wonderful things I have done or great people I have met the overwhelming feeling has been one of depression and fear and misery.

Now that is starting to lift! Have you been depressed, dear reader? I imagine you have, as most of us have at one time or another. The lifting of that veil is itself a frightening process. It is scary to let go of feeling bad all the time. To contemplate the fact that perhaps the joy you are looking for is already present in this moment. It is raining in Saitama Prefecture right now. How can I put into words the beauty of rain in Japan. Rain that doesnt flit in and flit out but sets in and pours down for hours and days at a time. Rain that truly deserves to be called rain.

I have been grieving the end of my long term relationship for three weeks now. Three weeks are nothing really when compared to the many years of my life I am trying to come to terms of. In many ways this is just the beginning. At the same time the intensity of the grief is getting less. I am starting to feel more secure in myself. In the last week I have even experienced extended feelings of joy and contentedness even amidst the work week. Twice this week I went to bed before midnight. Simple things like this are quite unfamiliar to me. I am beginning to think I might actually be able to enjoy my life here. I am so used to thinking myself into all kinds of traps which take me away from the lived experience of each day. I search for epic projects which will overwhelm my time and capacity to just sit and read a novel for the sheer pleasure of it. I am reading Harry Potter now. The guilt I feel just sitting and reading in the morning, despite the fact that I have nothing more pressing to do, is intense. Emails I might vaguely want to write press on my mind as if they are matters of life and death and I am a bad person for sitting with my book instead.

Ha! I will defeat you guilty conscience! I have nothing particular to do here in Japan, everything is up to me. I am free. I am even learning, somehow, to enjoy work! Something I never thought I could say and something which itself scares me quite a bit. Yet I have many beautiful children with whom to play English language games and a mass of interesting people from whom I can learn different things about life.

Perhaps this is the most vague and rambling of my posts so far! I know not. All I know is I had to give voice to the joy which threatens to infest my heart. Pure and simple joy of living.