Yeah, I’m here.
I just packed up my entire apartment, said goodbye to all my Toyama friends, spent two and a half days traveling halfway across the world, finished another round of developmental edits on my novel, and met up with my New Hampshire family and friends for the first time in two years, all while battling jet lag and struggling to find the clean socks I’d scattered throughout the darkest regions of my luggage to save space.
How you doing?
Goodbye Toyama Life, Hello America Visit
As I mentioned in my four-part Leaving JET series, July was my last month teaching as an elementary school ALT on the JET Program in Toyama. I’ll be spending the fall semester teaching at a university in Yokohama, and in between I wanted to visit the States, meet my family, and go to my best friend’s wedding. Planning the trip was a whirlwind of moving logistics, visa logistics, and travel logistics. Damn.
On the COVID-19 front, I was able to get the vaccine in Toyama during a special drive that my city did for teachers. I got my second dose on July 25th, and two weeks after that I was cleared to enter the US easily and legally. I was still required to get a COVID test before getting on the plane, but no one at the border was checking vaccination statuses (!!!). Still, I was glad I followed the rules and did the safe thing.
I made a lot of friends in Toyama, and there were a lot of people I was sorry to leave behind. I spent a lot of time meeting those friends and saying goodbyes those last few weeks—these were important, special gatherings that I’m glad I made time for. While I don’t regret them at all, it meant that my time was fairly divided those last few weeks.
After I finished work, I took a trip to nearby Ishikawa prefecture to hike Mt. Hakusan, one of the three holy mountains of Japan. The hike was incredible, beautiful, and fun, though we spent ten hours on the trail, had to outrun a thunderstorm (!), and I was left with massive soreness over the next few days. Still, no regrets. Here’s a pic from the summit:
View from Mt. Hakusan in Ishikawa prefecture, one of Japan’s three holy mountains (along with Mt. Fuji and Mt. Tate).
On the apartment front, this was my first time moving in three years, and it was…kind of a bitch. Because June and July were incredibly busy months for me, I was only able to get a marginal start on packing and cleaning out the apartment, which meant that I did 90% of it the week before I moved out. I was able to finish and leave a clean, orderly apartment for the next ALT, but damn, that last day was a rush.
A late night of apartment cleaning meant I didn’t get much sleep my last night in Toyama, which made me bleary-eyed and headache-y during my trip to the airport. As luck would have it, my plane was delayed a full day because of a mechanical problem, and after the chaos of getting a hotel and going back through immigration, I spent an extra day at Haneda Airport while texting my family to update them on my status.
Now, at long last, I’m back in New Hampshire. It’s been great seeing everyone these past six days, but I’m suffering some reverse culture shock, as well as severe jet lag that makes me feel exhausted around 8:00pm and has been waking me up between 4:30 and 6:00am. I also haven’t driven a car in two years and want to practice before heading out on my own—here’s hoping I don’t forget which side of the road Americans drive on…
Oh, and did I mention that my best friend is getting married the same weekend as my younger brother’s one-year wedding vow renewal, I’m attending both, making a speech at each one, and needed to get my groomsman suit tailored with a week to spare?
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been dealing with this past month.
Upheaval Makes Writing Hard
With all this going on, it’s not surprising that I’ve stepped away from my writing life for the past few weeks. Work on my new novel is still on hold, and I took two weeks off from this blog. I feel OK about both of these things because I planned to take a break during the beginning of August, but it’s a shame that said break feels forced during an otherwise busy time, rather than serving as a much-needed vacation.
Still, the past week has actually been pretty productive: I’ve been hard at work on the next round of developmental edits for MFA Thesis Novel based on a schedule I made with my Vine Leaves Press editor, Melanie Faith. I’ll do a longer post about this later, but I did the bulk of the work over three quiet days in New Hampshire while everyone else was at work, and a few scattered hours working at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
It felt good to have the time for editing and to get everything done on time, though ideally the process would have been less of a scramble… :-/
Still, I feel good about my progress, and I’m trying to remind myself that this is an INCREDIBLY chaotic time when I’m facing a lot of challenges—that I was able to get the edits done at all, and on such short notice, is something to be proud of for sure.
I’m also trying to remind myself that I’ve made it through a LOT, and that this hectic period of my life is almost behind me. I made the change from JET so that I could move forward and ultimately move closer to my goal of forging a writing life—rather than being a gradual progression, that change comes in spurts, with sacrifices and backward steps that are ultimately going to help me move forward.
You have to crack the eggs if you want to make the omelette.
One good thing has come from this busy time, though: I’ve spent almost ZERO time on social media, including during down time at airports (where I read a Hemingway novel and listened to podcasts instead). I’ve felt burned out and tired these past few weeks, and didn’t want social media to make that problem worse. Staying away from social media felt good, and this week I’ll probably get back into posting and trying not to get sucked in (!).
Moving Forward
From here, I’m looking at closing up some of my final obligations (wish me luck on the wedding speeches!) so I can enjoy my month in the States before heading back to Japan in September. Once there, I’ll have a Japanese government-mandated two-week isolation period, during which I can prepare for my new job and get back into creative work—including my new novel draft.
After that, though, I’m seriously looking at setting up a work schedule where I’m not super busy all the time, where I’m not overbooking myself, and where I’m not constantly scrambling for deadlines. I also want this to be a work schedule that’s not reliant on bringing in a lot of income, and more about moving forward in my creative career.
This new schedule will require some careful planning, as well as some severe willpower to keep myself from taking on too much. I know that setting all that up required me to leave a lot of things behind in Toyama, so I expect they’ll be some more growing pains along the way.
I’m feeling good about the future, though—wish me luck, and of course, I’ll keep you posted ;-)