2018

2018 was a year of constant stress and turmoil. But it was also a year of great change and learning. Towards the first half of the year, I felt as if I were being ripped apart, spiritually, mentally, and even physically. I was dealing with a broken arm in a city of ice, slipping and sliding and fearing another fracture. I was trying to come to terms with being so far from my family after being so happy with them during the holidays. I was dealing with all sorts of other things I'd rather not mention here. It was the darkest, lowest place I have ever been in my life, or at least up there. But my father once told me a story, about a cathedral he visited in Dresden, Germany, which had been bombed on Valentine's Day in 1945. The outside was gorgeous and beautiful and lovely, and the inside was designed to look scarred, charred and broken. The interior represents the scars of that bombing, that entirely unfair and unnecessary bombing, while the exterior represents what those scars eventually blossomed into. And that's life, he said, that's the human experience, a beautiful construct made possible only through the things in life that hurt you and scar you. Even the things that should have never happened.

I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.
Eventually, I had had enough. No more holding back. I decided I wasn't going to let life beat me down, and that I was going to give it 200% from that point forward. And I went home a second time for the summer, deciding that when I returned to Japan I would be a different man. No more holing myself up in my room, no more brooding, no more waiting to go home and get things over with. It was time to embrace where I was, then and there, adapt to it, and make the most of it.

Around this time, a song popped up on my playlist, titled Phoenix. A powermetal song about leaving the old self behind, being reborn. "From the ashes you will rise," the lyrics say. "Trial of fire, born again," they say. "Another life begins, sanctified," they say. From then, I started to see themes of rebirth everywhere. In music, in my interactions with others, in television and in games. Maybe it was because I was looking for it, maybe it was divine providence, who knows. Another theme I began to notice was the nature of this rebirth. I was sitting there in late October, just after my 30th birthday, playing Red Dead Redemption 2 of all things. One of the major themes of this game is the moral descent of one of the major characters. As the game progresses, people comment on how he's changed, how he isn't who he used to be.

But then people slowly come to notice that the signs have always been there, and that he's just finally showing himself for who he always was. Circumstance, especially unpleasant circumstance, only helped to reveal his true character. The same is true for the characters who do the reverse, and develop positively over the course of the game.

The game is about a group of old west outlaws, living at the turn of the century, finding themselves in a world that no longer accepts them.

That's life, too, I think. Change, in a sense, but more so becoming who we always were at our cores. Circumstance and experience only help us get there.

2018 helped set me on a path towards becoming whoever that person is. And because of the path I was set on, the turmoil and misery and stress slowly melted away, revealing a new world of wonderful experiences and people and places to see. I really, really cherish the people and communities I found as a result of deciding to set out on this new path in life. Especially the people. I've heard that the strongest relationships in life come not from friends or significant others or family members who strike off bullet points, like similar interests, similar mannerisms, similar senses of humor, traits we find admirable or pleasant, the things we thought we wanted from people.

They come from people who react to the world around us in similar ways, people who deal with life's problems and questions and wonders and come up with similar answers.

Maybe there's some truth to that. I've met some really great friends in Japan, and very few of them are all that similar to me in terms of what music or media we like or what have you. Something about acclimating to an entirely new world together creates bonds with people stronger than ones created based on smaller things like taste in music, or hobbies. I've even found their interests rubbing off on me, rounding me off as a person. I hope I'm doing the same for them. There's some overlap, obviously, but you get the picture. Spending 2018 in Japan threw me way out of my element. But like the lyrics of that song said, "Trial of fire, born again, "Another life begins, sanctified." The new life I found was much better than the old one. I think living in a foreign land is a bit of a trial by fire for everyone. Even if my experience was especially unique in how many things went wrong, consecutively, being thrust away from home - so far away from home - will be hard for most people. It's tough, but so is life in general, really. Might as well jump in the fire and get it over with, right? That sanctified life at the end is so nice. Ok, I guess it doesn't have to sound that extreme. Moving away from home is fun, enlightening, and rewarding despite being difficult. That's the point I'm trying to make. I hope 2019 is a little softer, though. Knock on wood.