Recent thoughts

So as the time draws nearer for me to go home, I am caught between the fact that I'm going to miss so many things about Japan--the wonderful friends I've made, the foods and such that I can only get here, looking around me and seeing that everyone is Japanese, etc.--and the fact that I really miss my family and friends at home.

I think that this is the first time where I have had to leave a place where I have made so many dear friends and I don't know if I will even see them ever again. Then again, I have never lived in a place away from home for so long before. To leave the people here is like leaving behind a second family. They aren't as close as my true family of course, and I don't always feel that I can push myself upon them and open up as easily as I can to my true family, but that doesn't change the fact that I have come to love so many people here.

When I talk to other people about this, they often sympathize with me and think the same way, but today, one my friends said, "Yeah, I'm going to miss the fun times, because those were great. But the tough times were really tough." Yeah. That's true. Having to deal with sickness, sadness, loneliness, heartbreak, etc. all on my own has been truly hard on me. In general, I'm a 'sabishigariya', someone who doesn't handle loneliness very well, and I'm not very good at keeping my feelings to myself. I think I'm probably someone who needs someone else to spit my feelings and emotions out to, or else it builds up and up until finally it overflows one day in a flood of tears. And then to act normal in front of everyone right after that overflow and no one ever knows about those tears is painful, too. Perhaps I'm being selfish and childish to expect others to support me whenever I feel down.

Anyways, it's not over yet! Two more months to enjoy and suffer through the good times and the bad times and build up and enrich the being called Kenia.