10 years on here, really?
I have a friend who is just now studying in Japan and I gave her the link to this journal to let her see my take on my time in Japan (not as a student however, that predates LJ). I thought I should look and see if there were any useful insights about my life in Japan back when I was living in said country and so I started with my earliest entries, January 2003. Yipes!
Although I do have melancholy entries on leaving and missing Japan and on my adorable students it appears 80% of the time all I did was gush about bands. I love SMAP/Sclatch/Dear Loving blah blah blah... This is almost painful to read. How very like a real journal.
However in stumbling through my carefully transcribed days of youthful infatuation I came upon one of those quizes one gets from time to time and here is what I wanted my life to be like right now:
42. In 10 more years, you want to accomplish: I'd like to have a healthy marriage and be raising happy kids. I'd also like to have a job I love that leaves me with enough free time to enjoy life and pays well enough to give me money with which to enjoy life.
Well, okay then. I am happily married. I am not sure if I'm healthfully married. My husband and I have so much in common and also almost diametrically opposed life energies. I am happy (it takes practice, but I generally am) and he is an Eeyore -- "Knowledge for the sake of Complaining About Something."
It can be draining to be with a pessimist who calls himself a realist and our biggest arguments stem from my insistence that quantifiably "true" or not being positive makes life better while he asserts that nothing is more important than knowing and living the Truth (yes, with a capital T) and even if he may not have grasped the Truth in all its completeness just yet, he will trudge through muck and mire, bleed from a thousand weeping wounds, and press ever forward until he grasps Truth.
He is a philosopher and I am a poet. I think truth is in a moment perfectly captured -- displaying the essence of life in its very minutia. However I am, admittedly, not seeking Truth.
Is that a healthy marriage?
I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know just what my 25-year-old self meant by "a healthy marriage." Probably she was using the phrase to stand in for "perfect" in a societally appropriate way. I want a marriage where we are what all writers writing about ideal marriages in the abstract say we ought to be. Always understanding, supportive, loving and respectful. We would always speak in I sentences, "I feel underappreciated when you don't say thank you for the cupcakes I baked." And we would be world-class listeners, "I hear you saying that you feel underappreciated." We would have dealt with every bit of baggage and all family of origin issues. We would be emotionally mature, fully self-realized individuals striving toward the upper reaches of Maslow's hierarchy of needs together.
Certainly in a "healthy" marriage we would never find ourselves yelling at each other because he said I could watch another episode of "Inuyasha" and now I can just feel his annoyance at watching another episode as he slumps beside me on the couch and plans strategies for some RPG and it's not my fault that he doesn't understand Japanese I want to watch it subtitled because the English voices sound all wrong!
However it is my marriage and every day we say thank you and I love you and every night we cuddle together and I can say in all honesty being with him makes life better.
We don't have kids and I don't think we will for at least another two years but we shall see.
I don't love my job but it's okay. I like my coworkers and I have a great boss and that counts for a lot. I am helping the public and the environment and that's good. Plus it's not so taxing that it burns me out so I do have free time to enjoy life along with money with which to enjoy life.
Self of 2003, I think you would be startled by the happiness your 2013 self has found but I also know you would be pleased that happiness is still within your grasp.
Although I do have melancholy entries on leaving and missing Japan and on my adorable students it appears 80% of the time all I did was gush about bands. I love SMAP/Sclatch/Dear Loving blah blah blah... This is almost painful to read. How very like a real journal.
However in stumbling through my carefully transcribed days of youthful infatuation I came upon one of those quizes one gets from time to time and here is what I wanted my life to be like right now:
42. In 10 more years, you want to accomplish: I'd like to have a healthy marriage and be raising happy kids. I'd also like to have a job I love that leaves me with enough free time to enjoy life and pays well enough to give me money with which to enjoy life.
Well, okay then. I am happily married. I am not sure if I'm healthfully married. My husband and I have so much in common and also almost diametrically opposed life energies. I am happy (it takes practice, but I generally am) and he is an Eeyore -- "Knowledge for the sake of Complaining About Something."
It can be draining to be with a pessimist who calls himself a realist and our biggest arguments stem from my insistence that quantifiably "true" or not being positive makes life better while he asserts that nothing is more important than knowing and living the Truth (yes, with a capital T) and even if he may not have grasped the Truth in all its completeness just yet, he will trudge through muck and mire, bleed from a thousand weeping wounds, and press ever forward until he grasps Truth.
He is a philosopher and I am a poet. I think truth is in a moment perfectly captured -- displaying the essence of life in its very minutia. However I am, admittedly, not seeking Truth.
Is that a healthy marriage?
I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know just what my 25-year-old self meant by "a healthy marriage." Probably she was using the phrase to stand in for "perfect" in a societally appropriate way. I want a marriage where we are what all writers writing about ideal marriages in the abstract say we ought to be. Always understanding, supportive, loving and respectful. We would always speak in I sentences, "I feel underappreciated when you don't say thank you for the cupcakes I baked." And we would be world-class listeners, "I hear you saying that you feel underappreciated." We would have dealt with every bit of baggage and all family of origin issues. We would be emotionally mature, fully self-realized individuals striving toward the upper reaches of Maslow's hierarchy of needs together.
Certainly in a "healthy" marriage we would never find ourselves yelling at each other because he said I could watch another episode of "Inuyasha" and now I can just feel his annoyance at watching another episode as he slumps beside me on the couch and plans strategies for some RPG and it's not my fault that he doesn't understand Japanese I want to watch it subtitled because the English voices sound all wrong!
However it is my marriage and every day we say thank you and I love you and every night we cuddle together and I can say in all honesty being with him makes life better.
We don't have kids and I don't think we will for at least another two years but we shall see.
I don't love my job but it's okay. I like my coworkers and I have a great boss and that counts for a lot. I am helping the public and the environment and that's good. Plus it's not so taxing that it burns me out so I do have free time to enjoy life along with money with which to enjoy life.
Self of 2003, I think you would be startled by the happiness your 2013 self has found but I also know you would be pleased that happiness is still within your grasp.