It's been one month and one day.

I'm feeling a lot better in a lot of ways, and that's a good thing. It's 9 a.m., I can hardly keep my eyes open at my desk--the exhaustion of 18 hour days spent between school and work has inevitably began to catch up with me--but when I think about her, I don't feel as empty as I used to.

My mind is on a lot of other stuff. Namely, the future.

I think I'm probably going back to Japan for a long time. But when I think about it I don't see myself going back because I really want to--not because it really makes me happy--but because I'm being pulled there, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's inescapable. It's what happens to be in my future, because it's what I got caught up in as an undergrad. It could have been anything, but it happened to be Japanese.

Thinking about Japan, when I'm in America, brings about this really honest, unfortunate discussion with myself.

Japan is full of asshole white guys from America, all trying to be cool, all trying to live the Tokyo life, all trying to be more Japanese than you. They speak better Japanese than you, they've lived there longer than you, and they are cold, callous people who think they've cracked the code and broken the locks that keep foreigners so separate. They offer advice the same way they offer their glances in the street: only in the most condescending fashion.

They know-it-all, and they are you, 10 years from now.

Whether I like it or not, if I live in Japan for any substantial amount of time, that's probably the guy I'll become.

They are jealous people.

I am jealous.

I get jealous when I least expect it.

I saw a picture in John's blog that brought up feelings in me I hadn't felt in a while: a dull, "your getting to have that experience and I'm not and I hate it" sort of jealousy that just kind of sits in my chest not really going up or down or away, but just festering and throbbing painfully.

It was two pictures that I saw, actually.

One of Midori and another of Kyohei, just hanging out at the old dorm, drinking with the new exchange students, singing karaoke, just existing in that shared international space next to the Odakyu line. Two people who I had extremely close bonds with, who are now building the same type of bonds over the same activities with a whole new set of people.

It's amazing that simply looking at a picture of them having fun with other, newer people can make my experience feel cheap.

Just seeing their faces makes me feel forgotten.

How wonderful and terrible it is that simple images frozen in time can affect us so profoundly!

Seeing Midori's huge eyes and long black pigtails, still the same but oh just a little bit different makes a part of me die inside, wishing I could be there in that place so that she can become tangible.

Looking at Takayuki--my best friend in Japan who was just in Lincoln living with me for a month--lead a karaoke sing-a-long with the new exchange students makes me feel more left behind than ever.

But aren't I living my life too? Aren't I having fun in Lincoln and leading my own (metaphorical, of course) karaoke sing-a-longs?

Yes, I am.

Perhaps, every now and then, those old friends of mine pick up a photograph of our good times and our spent memories and then let their minds wander to me.

It's a comforting thought, knowing that they too, can feel forgotten.

But they aren't.

And then I ask myself, is that why I'm going back, because of the emotions these images and memories wrest from me?

Is it because I'm jealous of all those foreigners, having the "Japan experience" while I sit in America, trying not to die from my 18 hour days?

It might be.

But then, I don't want the Japan experience.

I want my friends, and I want to laugh and cry and drink gallons of Asahi beer while eating shitty edamame and talking about nothing and everything. I want to do it all again, only to come home and feel these feelings all again.

What kind of cycle is this, and what's the best way to deal with it?

I don't know.

...

For a less despairing take on things, see John's blog, which looks back through a more positive lens.