I went to Japan to visit my family and friends this summer.
This was the first time I experienced the summer in Japan in almost 20 years. I had forgotten the heat and humidity.
I made a decent quality time with my own family and heritage. My parents and relatives are getting older just like anyone else including myself.
Japanese culture and atmosphere were much different from what I remembered. We visited many places and saw lots of things. Met many people and talked with them.
Stimulated by the Japan trip, I suppose so much feelings, emotions and thoughts are overwhelmingly storming inside of me. I will need more time to sort them out and describe them in a certain format.
I have traveled abroad many times. I visited Japan 5 years ago with my husband, children and a Canadian friend. Interestingly none of the other trips caused such a deep “aftereffect” as this time. I can’t help thinking why I have been so brain dead since I came back. I suspect this is related to my own aging with life experiences.
A few years ago I lost my best friend who I could talk with about anything. I could believe he wanted to listen to me anytime and I could talk so freely. Now he is gone. I wish if my lost friend was here to talk with me. It would help me clear the chaos up a lot. On the other hand, wishing for something you don’t have is depressing.
I still have other good friends and family who love me and listen to me. I rely on them and appreciate them yet tend to consider their lives such as busy schedule and health condition over my want to share. My own life is busy so that I can’t spend time with someone as long as I want either. Looking back, the time I could spend with my best friend was almost luxurious.
So I was brain dead and probably a little bit depressed. Then, I happened to read a line on an e-mail magazine. She has been sharing the knowledge she gained from her abuse experience and as the result she gets a lot of comments from readers. She was grateful to be shared many people’s stories and said ‘all joys, dilemmas, frustrations and other individual, unique life experiences… How wonderful a life is!”
She doesn’t judge if someone’s experience is good or bad. She just accepts the fact that life is full of events and we react through each incident. Sometimes it brings pleasure, sometimes anger and sometimes regret. Regret doesn’t mean you did a bad thing. Each experience is the real life, and the life is wonderful because we experience the each incident. The actual experiences make the life rich, interesting and meaningful. That is life.
It is alright to be chaotic, depressed and unfocused for now. At least I feel and recognize them instead of pretending there is nothing like that. I can feel something, which gives me hope.
‘How wonderful a life is!’ sounded just right to me, not ‘You are okay as you are’ or ‘Nothing wrong to be brain dead’. Sometimes a ‘too sympathetic’ phrase makes me feel choked more.
I may be quite simple to be influenced by someone’s subtle action. But such a simple, gentle influence has been pulling me out of struggling again and again in my life. This real experience makes me keep believing the importance of connection.