Watching the Waves in Japan

 

Finding ways to stay positive and productive while living abroad long term can be challenging. Depression abroad is significantly more encompassing than that at home, at least in my experience. In your native environment, the same old triggers are lurking in all the familiar places, but the further from home you get, the more surprisingly lost you can feel.

It’s been six years since I left my hometown, wandering instead through much smaller towns in Japan where I teach English and pretend, sometimes convincingly, that I know what I am talking about.

But not today.

Today I am looking out into the sea, and letting the waves consume my thoughts.

This ritual has become a necessity, though I only do this from time to time and most frequently when I am at odds with my husband or confused by the cultural barriers I see daily. The natives must think me strange, a foreign woman pushing a baby stroller out to the tourist spots and staring mindlessly into the water, but I need it.

For sometimes only in those tumbling waves do I feel at peace. Reminders that I am not smart enough or quick enough or good enough all die out under the chorus of crashing water. I’m left with a brief look into infinity, and I can remember what it is to breathe. The cool constant flow reminds me that my problems, however overwhelming they feel, are nothing compared to the sea. The waves will come no matter how many dishes I wash or meals I make. If I fail, the waves will still come. The world won’t end for any mistake I can make.

But for 30,000 people in 2011, this spot and others like it were the end of the world. The beautiful bay I look out into and take comfort in was home to the tsunami caused by the largest earth quake on record here in the land of the rising sun. A significant part of the population of these little coastal towns was washed out to sea. The lucky ones were able to find and bury their loved ones, but many more were lost to the water.

A tiny voice in the back of my head claims that those people were more entitled to the life I am living than I am. This was their home and they lost their place in it for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am just a visitor who didn’t leave. They were citizens. They belonged here.

For half a second, I almost believe it.

Scores of men, women and children– more people that I have ever known– were gone in the blink of an eye, and I cannot explain or understand why I am alive when so many people are not. It wasn’t intelligence or money, class, creed, or anything I can so easily identify. Even if I could, it wouldn’t change anything. They deserved to live. Everyone does. Even me.

Continual motion conveys force from one medium to another. Waves crest and fall. People are born and die. Choices and mistakes are made. Accidents happen. Watching the water, I feel that twinge of survivor’s guilt perish the way my thoughts in this place often do, replaced by the sound of the ocean and the knowledge that some things are not mine to control. The best thing I can do is keep my head up and keep moving forward, helping who I can when I can.

Years have passed and some scars have healed. Many people are still homeless, unemployed, or otherwise disadvantaged. Others are getting lives and businesses back on track.

We are surviving.

And watching the waves.

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