Two YEARS Later...

March 13, 2013

Well, it has taken me two years to be able to write the ending to this blog. Several friends have asked WHY?  Why aren't you writing about what has happened? Why aren't you sharing?
Honestly, every time I would attempt to go back to those days and to that time...my heart and soul wouldn't let me.  For some reason I needed all this time to be away from it.  To make sure I was taking in everything that was happening in the here and now.  To appreciate.  To absorb and to not take for granted.

Every time I tried to go back to that - I couldn't.  I have only now, in 2013, been able to go back and read the entries from those days after the earthquake. 
Reading it all, I still cry like it was the day it happened.  I still feel the ground under me shake. I still know the terror that enveloped me when I was racing for my son. The uncertainty and hollow feeling, wondering if my husband was safe.  The sheer magnitude of it all...still makes me very uneasy.

Something strange washed over me today.  I realized that I am a different person now.  That day forever changed me.  Changed my inner self.  Changed my outer ways. Changed the way I look at life. The way I look at my family and friends...My husband.  My son.
Yes, I am still basically the same - but - very different.
I am happy about that.

This is what I have to say about the rest:


Two years ago today - we arrived back in the States after the scariest event of our lives.
Two years ago today - I have never been so happy to see the inside of a dirty American airport.
Two years ago today - I realized I may never see my friend Cindy again.
Two years ago today - I walked on Venice Beach at sunset with my husband and my son. Ate Italian at a beach cafe while a ram-shackled band played off in the distance on the beach.
Two years ago today - I wanted to be with my Mom.
Two years ago today - I wondered how this catastrophic event would impact my son.
Two years ago today - I passed out from exhaustion in a hotel in Los Angeles, while my husband and son watched mindless cartoons.
Two years ago today - I started answering the never ending questions from my son about how come we can not go back to Japan.
Two years ago today - the beginning of the end of our expat journey started .

So today, two years later, I wonder what life is like there now.  I see posts on FB from friends I met, but I wonder what it is REALLY like.  The day to day.  Do I want to go back...NO.  I do wish I had delved in more while I was there.  Even though, with a three year old and no Japanese speaking skills...I don't know how that would have been possible.


Now that he is six, my son understands that he lived there. Says he remembers the day and the earthquake - not so sure.   I know he remembers a little about the house we lived in.  He remembers learning to ride his bike in that house.  But not much else. He remembers his first real friend - Aiden.  He says he misses him and wishes to go to Australia to see him one day.  Maybe they will actually remember each other.

As for me...
I am so gratelful to be here. To be settled in what I consider to be "home". I know that my husband will have to go back in the future. That is part of his job and that is part of our life. I don't know if I will ever go back. As beautiful as the gardens are. As gentle as the people are...I believe my time in the Orient is forever over. 

Two years later - this will be the last entry to this blog.  I now have the courage to put an end to this chapter of my life.  The courage to come to terms with what we were divinely blessed to live through. 

God-Speed,
Deeds



**I will print this blog as a book and save it for my son when he is older.  I think reading this will help to really understand what he lived through.  What he experienced at such a young age, good and bad.  For him to understand that he was one of the blessed ones who actually made it home that day. 



 

Finally, a Little Healing

(this was written in May of 2011 and I just found it in my draft archives)

Well it has been over a year since I have posted anything.  Several reasons come to mind:


1.  I was alone in the USA for 6 months being a single mother while my husband was still in Japan.  That doesn't make for time to sit down and write.
2.  Part of me still didn't want to come to terms with all that had happened. And the things that were/are still happening.
3.  it almost seems too surreal to even contemplate and then deal with and then write it all out.


As the anniversary mark of one year approached this passed month, I found myself getting very anxious.  I was moody, brain foggy, emotional eating - you name it, and it seemed to happen.  At first I had no idea WHY it was all happening - but then when I started having dreams about the earthquake, and dreams about my son disappearing…I slowly figured it out.  Earthquake PTSD as they would call it.
Several expats and professionals have done research and they say it takes a full year to get your bearings when you move to another country…and it takes another FULL year when you move home.  I believe it.  Nothing is the same.  Your friends are still there but they don't seem the same.  You don't seem the same.  All the happenings are different that you remember, the local spots are different, your old haunts are gone or different, even the house you left and came back to is different.  Everything is just DIFFERENT.


We ended up making some new friends through my son's school - but even that is sometimes strange. It is like having to make all new bonds, all new chit-chat, all new EVERYTHING - all over again.  
While my dearest friends have still been there for me, even those relationships are different.  As an old song once said - "Time Marches On" - with or without you.   


While we have been back now a year, been back in our house for 6 months, the boxes are finally almost empty.  The neighbors are saying Hello when they walk by, and even the dogs are settling back into the old routine.  There is still some unsettled feeling that lingers in me.  I don't know if it is the feeling that at any moment things can change and you have no control, or if it is the fact that I don't feel like I am fully "settled" with myself ?


As hard as living in Japan was on me personally, I had the slightest longing to go back the other day.  The feeling really took me by surprise and made me stop and really think it all through.  Especially since I have never wanted to go back - EVER.


I made a very dear friend there.  I made a few good friends, but one in particular I miss terribly.  We had just started to become really close and the earthquake happened - and I never got to say goodbye to her.  I mean REALLY say goodbye.  We keep in touch from our different countries now - but there are days I long to spend time just sitting and talking to her.  Days to have our boys playing in the background, laughing and running while we happily sip wine and eat cheese and then walk home.  Those days, those times, are the purest and most fond memories I keep with me.  It didn't seem like much during those lazy afternoons - but now that they are gone forever - I miss them, and I miss her more than I could have ever imagined.


It was hard living in another country with my husband away working 16 hour days, a toddler to take care of in a country where I knew nothing or no one.  It was hard coming home to live by myself after the earthquake, with my husband still in Japan, and it was hardest to have him come home and us learn to live with each other again.  Being apart for the better part of 18 months can really take its toll.  We had to learn how to KNOW each other again.
Those days are happening and my son seems to be no worse for the wear after it all.  Although there are days when he is seems a  little bit more on edge, or when something non significant seems to set off a good cry.  I worry about him, I do.  I worry that whisking him away from his first real memories of a home and of his first friends - will always linger in him.  
I hope, as a mother, that the effects will be positive one day and that he can learn that change isn't always bad.


As for me, I still have reservations about the whole experience. About my husband's future health, about the earthquake, my son and his emotional state from it all, and about me - 


what will the final effect be on me?