Still Learning

         On Sept. 9, 2011 we moved from Silverdale, WA into a small rental condo in Bellingham, WA on  military orders to the area for three years.  Since I had just completed my Associates transfer degree, (first two years of my bachelor's degree in Anthropology) it was a perfect opportunity to transfer to a Four year University and knock out those last two years of school. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but when I applied  I knew I was a shoe-in since I was an honors graduate. On the morning of September 29, I received the official acceptance letter to Western Washington University as a transfer student, where I would happily continue my adventure in higher learning. I was looking forward to finally taking the classes I had so far worked so hard to get to for my major in Biocultural Anthropology. I was ecstatic about finally being able to focus in on my major and getting to the really fun classes: Osteology, Forensic  Anthropology, even the more wacky and less relevant ones like Cyborg  Anthro. (Do they really have a class for trekkies like me to study Data!?). The day after I received my acceptance letter was the same day my husband received the most heart breaking email of my life.          

          I was in the kitchen cooking fajitas for dinner, our almost three year old son was in the living room playing, and my husband sat literally 5 feet away from me at the computer desk to read me the email he had received a few minutes earlier via his blackberry while he was out on a hike with our Boston terrier, Frank. My husband had been preparing to leave on a short deployment with his Naval squadron that was based out of NAS Whidbey Island in a few weeks and was starting to correspond with the ship's crew for details. The guy he was corresponding with basically and as casually as possible mentioned that we shouldn't get too comfortable because we'd be in Japan by April...and that was all the email said. We were left completely in the dark about any details.

          After my husband read me the email, I felt a literal shifting in the planes of existence as I knew them...and with the realization of what that email meant for me, tears I could not control starting pouring out of my face. Tears were falling down into the frying pan of chicken, peppers and onions I was  robotically stirring. Looking back on it, it seems like an out of body experience...almost as if my very being  took leave, if only for a moment to look down at my body spiraling below.  I managed to finish dinner for my hungry boys and serve it to them, then everything from there is fuzzy. I don't know if I ate, but I remember my bed and grabbing a roll of toilet paper to blow my profusely snotty nose into. I was in our bed between sleep and crying for two solid days and nights, mourning the loss of my college education and the future I had planned...and all the while the universe was spiting me...taunting "I thought I taught you not to plan for the future...the future is not in your hands"...but that was really just my sub-conscience reminding me of a lesson I had let myself naively forget.           

        Life has this funny way of letting you think everything is on track, and just when  you've got your future plans laid out before you, BAM! You take a sharp turn. Sometimes it's the loss of a someone we love dearly, and sometimes it can be as simple as having to move out of the country you need to be in for your plans to happen. Losing my opportunity to finish college was as heartbreaking for me as if my own mother had died. Seriously. I LOVED college, and when I say that I loved it I mean it. I loved the work, I loved how one day of learning something new could change my entire perspective on humanity, which for me is everything. I drank in the knowledge like a starving child, because up until that point I had never felt I had a purpose on this earth and education gave me a sense of worth. Coming home from an hour long class and having to close the blinds, and lay down for a mental break for an hour or two just so my brain could process thoughts without the light of day interrupting was a kind of high I had never felt.

 

          I knew nothing about Japan, aside from the fact that Tokyo is a huge city with lots of technology (i.e. robots)(I wonder how many times I can mention robots in one blog post that doesn't have a thing to do with actual robots!) and there were a lot of weird American kids totally obsessed with Japanese pop culture and anime ....also I like sushi.  Needless to say after we received the news that we would be moving to Japan there were a lot of quick and stressful decisions to make. From what do we do with our dog and our cat, to how can we afford new furniture that isn't being held up by a cement brick so it will actually survive the journey across the Pacific. When my husband left for his deployment, I decided there was no better time to spend with my family. So I took my three little boys (human, dog and cat) back home to Wisconsin to spend quality time with my side of the family from just before Halloween through Thanksgiving. It was much needed quality time, and a good distraction from the big changes in store.  In that time I was able to say goodbye to my last surviving grandfather, reconnect with my father, and catch up with other family members I had not seen in many years.

          Sometimes good things come from dark places...in my personal loss of opportunity, I gained back some good things. Didn't Gandalf say "There is always light in dark places"? Ok, it wasn't him...but I got that from LOTR(Lord of the Rings). It's true though, with everything  in life there is a trade-off of good and bad. or the Ying-Yang...and is something I believe in whole-heartedly. I returned home to Washington with only my human child in tow after saying the most heartbreaking good bye of my life...to Our  7 year old dog Frank (a.k.a. my first born, who is in the loving care of my sister in Chicago and will probably never want to come home to us).

 

Frankie, as happy as can be on the Beach at Lake Michigan (photo by: Amie Sell)

          For the next few months...in between doing productive and necessary things by day,  I mostly sat around on my crusty old broken couch, wearing sweatpants in my own misery/ boredom watching Downton Abbey and other various selections from the British Romance genre of my Roku.  As miserable as part of me was, the other part of me was starting to come around and look forward to aspects of living in Japan. I was also reading a lot of books about Japanese culture, food and history which really helped me become more comfortable with the inevitable. The more I learned, the more I started to look forward to it as a new chapter in our families adventure. In March, we left Seattle and after about 24 hours arrived to our new hometown in Kanagawa, Japan nestled in the countryside between Mt. Fuji  and Yokohama. (You can see my other blog posts for more info on our new life in Japan.)

"Oh Matthew...!"

           The ability to live in the present is especially important for those of us who are dependents of military members because we have to live our lives in short increments.  Our spouses are pretty much  property of the U.S. Government, we can't really look too far into the future. So I am always starting some new project, volunteer job, or like now, searching for a real paying job. If you asked where I see myself in five years, I have no idea...Where do you see the U.S. Economy in five years?! Same question in a round about way...But surely, I can tell you where I am now.

          Here it is just over a year from the day we received that email. Our family has been in Japan for about seven months, three of which my husband has actually been home. Life is decidedly more difficult on a daily basis than I care for it to be. I don't really have a simple answer as to why. Mostly, I think it's because my son is having an especially hard time adjusting to life with his Daddy being gone on a ship, not having his grandparents around, and at times some general culture shock and anxiety. Dealing with what this does to his behavior and general  disposition takes up most of my time,  and every bit of effort I can muster. His behavior has even effected my social life. Truth is, it's been a bit of an adjustment for me not having my incredible husband around to help out. Navigating the social circles around here has its challenges as well, as you can imagine, living on a base in a foreign country requires making friends that you can trust as though they were your family. You find out pretty quickly who is worthy of that trust, and who isn't.

           Living in a community where most of the women are part-time single moms is practically a battlefield! It is much more of a political game, then simply making and keeping friends. In college, you easily become pals with you Bio lab partner, or befriend the nicest, crazy-smart older dude in your anthropology courses because you share the same interests. I quickly realized that in a community such as this many other women do not have the same intentions, opinions or perspective as you do. This is true in any community, but is especially difficult for those of us who, like me, stray from the norm in the subculture of military families. I do not see the world through the same perspective as many of my peers. I quickly realized that there are certain personality quirks that just don't go over well with some people and you kind of have to hide part of what makes you you.  Let's face it, not many military wives get all dorky about things like human evolution, biology, and the anthropology of death and dying as I do, or can spurt off Jeopardy-like trivia in quite the same way...my dark, yet silly sense of humor also rarely mesh's with other people in my community.  To be very general, most of my peers are Christian, listen to country music, conservative and Patriotic...and I am about as opposite of the corresponding stereotypes that go with those labels as humanly possible. Love it or Hate it...that's me, it's who I am.

 

          I see humankind as a continuous entity. At the end of the day, we're all connected, and we are all the same creature. Our cultures, religious beliefs, or non-beliefs, the foods we eat, and the laws that govern us are different, but at the end of the day we are all still just Homo sapiens sapiens (except for the androids).  We all feel, and think, and have the ability to love (or hate).  I still sometimes think about where I would be if I was in Bellingham, toting my backpack through the woods on my way to and from the University every day.  The truth is, it still hurts  a bit that I'm missing out on that. I could keep going on in some melodramatic fashion...but it's been over a year since we received that earth shaking news and I'm trying to move on.  Frankly, it doesn't matter anmore...I'm still standing, still waking up every morning and actually finding  real joy in my new life abroad. And guess what...I'm still learning.