I’m drowning, and I’m worried I don’t care.
My job used to be my passion; it was my childhood dream job. Now, it feels like nothing but a source for me to pay off my rent and electricity. I tried to be friendly with everyone at work because before Japan, that’s how I thrived at my previous workplaces: creating meaningful relationships with my colleagues. I learned Japanese, tried to be polite and respectful, tried to go with the flow—and people said I was Japanese-esque and a very hard worker. But I soon I realised from the subtle and seemingly negligible actions of my Japanese coworkers that I was never going to be fully be a member of the workforce; I was always going to be the foreigner, the odd one out.
So to protect myself, I went with their narrative. Since I was always going to be the odd one out, then I might as well be. I was still polite and approachable but only when needed. I focused on work, myself, and my students (and I continuously told myself that I am working in this school not to make friends with my colleagues, but to help the students). I survived that phase, but I am seeing just now how ever since I took on that mindset, I have become more jaded of this society deep inside—that everything and everyone feels fake and superficial.
I got great comments from our principal during our mid- and end-of-the-year reviews. And I was happy. I thought I was slowly finding my place. I thought that if I just suppress these feelings of abandonment and focused on the positive things, then everything would be okay. And for a while it did. Until summer vacation came.
And went. So quickly. Like a faint breeze on a summer afternoon.
For the past few days, my attendance had been sporadic. I didn’t want to go to work. It also didn’t help that I live in Kanto and my partner lived in Kansai. I thought the feeling would pass as it always did after coming back from my breaks, but now, it stayed. And it reminded me of many things: how much I hated the city life; how commuting to work was a b***h; how people on buses and trains ignored people with red tags and just pretended to be busy or asleep; how my co-workers would never see me as a member of their circle; how my partner is so far; how lonely I feel.
One of my coping mechanisms has been writing. Poems to be specific. And I’ve seen this pattern before in my life. When life gets a little bit harder to live, I start writing poems. I did when my father died when I was 12, during my breakups, when my mom passed on, when I was extremely broke. And last night, I just finished my fourth one. It was hard. Intrusive thoughts kept on going in and out of my mind but I knew I was too cowardly to do it because I am scared of pain.
And now, I wake up this morning feeling nothing yet feeling everything. My partner is out with friends. My best friend is at a conference. I am an only child, so I have no family to contact back home. I have no one to talk to. And I just feel alone and lonely in this society where I tried so hard for so long to understand, and yet seemingly to have failed to do so. But part of me is afraid that sharing these thoughts with them would just worry them.
And so here I am on Reddit. Coping, I guess. Thank you and sorry for whatever this is.
People say, “Don’t ever try to meet your idols.” That’s how I feel about Japan, my once idol, right now.
I did try though.
by AdNo6111