Mid-Winter Blues: Retroactive Post

Maybe it's something about the snow, or the cold, or wanting to stay in and revel in the warmth...but winter, a real winter, seems to bring out an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and the need to reminisce, and of course following that line of thinking in time and inevitably wondering about the future. Leaving Sapporo yesterday morning, I was struck by that sense of natsukashii (nostalgia) as we made our way via train of course, from Sapporo station to Chitose airport. Looking out over land, trees, houses, cars, everything until the horizon, covered in snow, I couldn't help but remember the only other time in my life when I spent a winter like that.

It was when I was interning at the legislature and living down in Olympia. It was my first time living away from my family, and I was renting a room out of this woman's house, along with two other UW Asian girls, Sunny and Mary. Our landlady was awesome, our rent was really cheap and she pretty much let us have the run of the house. Sunny and Mary were great roommates, we got along on pretty much everything including a requisite love of good cheese, though they did force me from the kitchen the mornings that they made their tuna-fish sandwiches...

My family helped me move my stuff down earlier in the day, and then Sunny arrived in the afternoon. We had a fun time trekking to the capitol in our landlady's sons' old-school snow pants, as we were petite Asian girls and they were tall, tall boys. Mary arrived the next day and by then, there was lots of snow already on the ground. I remember our mornings checking how our outfits looked with one another and trading clothes or shoes when necessary. I also remember staying up late into the night with them making frosting and cookies from scratch to make heart-shaped cookie sandwiches to give out to people all over the campus for Valentine's Day.

I miss them and I miss that time in my life and this then led me to thinking about other people that I miss. Staying up with the girls to make cookies reminds me of staying up with Albert one night to make lumpia or something for one of our classes last year. And trekking to the capitol reminds me of trekking with him over the bridge to Fuji city in the middle of a winter night and getting midnight ramen. Traveling with Travis made me miss traveling with Sean-kun and his seemingly endless knowledge of Japanese festivals and souvenirs. Walking around Akihabara and going to Mexican for dinner last night reminded me of doing the same thing with Sean, nearly a year ago. Some bands were playing music up on one of the giant snow sculpture stages in Odori Park, and two of them sang songs that Brian from Hawaii used to sing at karaoke.

Remembering all these people that have gone before, and realizing that I'll have to say goodbye to even more this summer is beginning to be really hard. The people that I hang out with most frequently, Rebecca, Pin and the Shimiz crew, Louise, Amir and the Numazu peeps, are all going. Even Travis is still unsure about whether he's going to be here for another year, and if he is, where he'll be and what that might mean for us. He could move even farther away than he already is. He could stay and maybe miserable for another year and the continuous long-distance travel could start to put a strain on our relationship.

But, I decided to re-contract knowing that all of that might be a possibility, that our relationship could end depending on our separate decisions. And I guess that's what it all comes down to and what Pin had to remind me of after Albert and Sean left: They made the decision to go back for their own reasons and ultimately they're happier, and as their friend, I should be happy for them. So, I'll gaman and try, though I can't promise I won't shed a few tears along the way.

The one silver lining in all of this, well apart from getting to live in Japan for one more year and seeing my 15HR graduate, is that if all of my gaijin friends leave, I'll probably hang out with my Japanese friends more and hopefully improve my Japanese. So we'll see.