Leaving Japan: thoughts

8:00 pm, 12 hours before departure, standing in the absurd mass of people at Sushiro waiting for our chance to attack the endless stream of conveyor belt sushi, I can already feel my heart slowly contracting. It knows what’s coming and is clinging to Japan with vice grip strength saying “I won’t leave!” Trying to put this feeling at the back of my mind to enjoy my final dinner, my final night and my final hours spent with my new and amazing friends in Japan isn’t easy.

Sushiro, my favourite place in Iizuka, didn’t fail to disappoint as I certainly had a small countries share of shrimp avocado sushi to myself. Glutton. I’m not ashamed to be the one who wasn’t finished with sushi as others are ready to go home after they’ve eaten desert. Ooops, sorry guys “my last meal in Japan”. As I said that, I looked around the table at my friends; Yara, Yukari, Ayumi, Yuko, Chris, Ken…this was the last time I’d be seeing any of them for a very long time. It’s then that it struck me hard…my 6 months in Japan are over and I’m leaving tomorrow morning.

8:00am, Yukari and Ken join me for the car ride to the airport with Yano san. Didn’t he just pick me up when I arrived here in March?! Where did the time go? The car ride was silent as we made our way closer and closer to separating from each other. Leaving them at my departure gate was more difficult than I had imagined. I could make the trip to Narita airport alone, that wasn’t the problem. It was in the seconds that I walked away from the three of them standing just before security, I realized that I was leaving a piece of myself behind. It was like a portion of me, this girl who had been living in Japan, my Japanese self, who had developed inside me without me realizing it, was slowly separating and melting away from me. The girl who shared meals, drinks, words, jokes, quiet moments, laughs so intense her stomach hurt, with these people and in this country…couldn’t come with me. I realized that she lives here, in Japan, because she is the wonderful combination of all of these things, in this place, in this time, together and couldn’t exist where I was going. That was the problem.

Sitting on the small Jetstar plane to Narita was a surreal experience. All I could feel was “I can’t believe it. It came too quickly; I’m not finished here yet.” while my heart swelled up into my throat. Being torn between leaving Iizuka, Fukuoka and my friends from returning home left me with an internal struggle for longer than I was comfortable with. The hardest part was accepting that it was time to leave, and that I had to. And the hardest part was knowing that I was enduring this feeling entirely alone.

With those thoughts rambling around in my mind, I began my 26 hour trip across thousands of miles back to the place I used to call home...