Trying to Beat the Leavin' Blues

So, I'm still having a really tough time with the thought of leaving in just over two months. I counted the days that I have left to teach at my high school: 19. And at my deaf school, only 5. This is pretty much a large-scale tragedy I have on my hands here. I could go into repeated detail about how and why this is basically the end of the world, but instead, I've decided to proactively battle the leaving blues. From now until the time I have to get on that damned plane, every time I write an entry on this blog I will write one thing that I will miss about Japan, and one thing that I am looking forward to having again in America. I realize this plus-one-minus-one approach will not really pull me to either side of the spectrum, but it will at least (hopefully) neutralize my panic and help me to chill the freak out a bit. Here goes:

Things I Will Miss About Japan:
1. MY STUDENTS. This should come as no surprise. Especially my new first years, my English club girls, my deaf kiddies, and (<3<3) Japanese Boy, Googly Eyes Boy, and Baseball Captain-san. They make my day, every day. Today, Japanese Boy came from his classroom to the doorway at the back of my classroom towards the end of 2nd period, and grinned and waved at me, *while* class was still going on and I was teaching about the "not only...but also" sentence pattern! Ha! Warmed my heart right up.

Things I Am Looking Forward to Returning to in America:
1. My parents. I'm not gonna lie, I am not exactly looking forward to having to live at home for an unspecified amount of time, but once I'm settled and on my own (hopefully in Honolulu) it'll be nice to be a bit closer to those two crazy old birds. They can be fun, in moderate doses.

I like this game. A good way to process and reflect on my time here and my time to come... In nice, easy-to-digest amounts.

Actually, I'm not done yet. Let's add one more category:

Favorite Memories in Japan:
1. This might sound strange, but I think my first night in Takaoka was certainly one of my most meaningful memories, if not exactly one of my favorite. I had just eaten dinner by myself in the Gusto diner, and I came back to my empty, hot apartment and laid down on my then-strange tatami mat floor and CRIED and CRIED and CRIED. That was, I think, the worst I'd ever felt in my entire life. Period. So yeah, not exactly a peachykeen memory... But an important one nonetheless, because now, when I look back on that, I can remember how inhumanely shitty I felt, and I can look at all the progress I've made since then, and how far I've come on this journey. Now, I freakin love this place and I don't want to leave! Haha! How do you like them apples? Just goes to show you, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Now, in my future hard times, I can think about my arrival here, and I can remind myself that, despite all the tears and heartache and fear and uncertainty and hatred for life at that moment, things DO get better. That's something we all need to learn for ourselves, and it can only be done the hard way. I'm certainly glad I did it.