...I got home from Japan

Let’s start at the end. Doesn’t make much sense but making sense is for the weak.

Returning to Estonia after my year abroad was not easy. Sure, I missed a lot of things about Estonia. I missed my family, my friends, my apartment, the food... But leaving my friends, Japan and the life I built there was one of the hardest things I had to do. I always knew it wasn’t going to last forever but I never actually thought about leaving until the very end when it became too real. I guess a part of me just hoped that at some point time would stop and I would get to stay in Japan and party with my friends for an enternity. All good things must come to an end though and before I knew it I was back in Estonia and everything looked and felt like I’d never left.

The first month was bad... but not as bad as I anticipated. When I first got to Japan, knowing I would be there for almost a year, I expected to be nervous. Actually I thought I would have a panic attack. That never happened though. I just got to the apartment, unpacked my suitcase and fell asleep. The next day I already felt like I’d been there forever so there was no need to worry or panic.

Returning to Estonia, I was once again expecting to panic. I thought that leaving my friends and my life in Japan would cause me to fall apart – if not on the first day being back then surely in the first few weeks. That never happened either. Yes, I was sad, distraught and even claustrophobic (it comes with living in a small, small town) but everything considered... I was doing ok. Not great, mind you, but... ok... I wasn’t a miserable mess like I had been the first time I had to leave Japan (after only two months of doing volunteer work). Sure, I wasn’t jumping up and down out of joy but I was keeping my shit together.

That being said, I wasn’t really that happy to be back. I’d been away for a year but somehow it seemed like nothing had changed at all while I was gone. Everything was the same only... smaller? It’s hard to explain but I felt that, even though nothing had changed, I didn’t quite fit in anymore. It felt like wearing a pair of old jeans that don’t quite fit as well as they used to but you squeeze yourself into them anyway because its your favorite pair and you bought them when you were 15. Then you go out in them and realize that they you don’t look good in them, the color is faded and there’s a hole in the crotch that you didn’t notice before. Being back in Estonia felt like I was wearing crotchless jeans that also made me look fat. In short: I felt uncomfortable and wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

One problem with returning home after a year abroad is that not many people can relate to what you’re going through. Sure, people might act all sympathetic and say things like „I’m sure it was though leaving your friends behind“ or „It must be hard to get used to being back“ but they don’t know what it’s really like. They don’t understand. And that’s why it was hard for me to talk about it to anyone. I felt like neither my parents nor most of my friends would truly understand what I was going through and honestly, I feared I would annoy them with my stories about Japan. For the first few months I started almost every sentence with „When I was in Japan...“ and I’m pretty sure people were starting to get sick and tired of it.

Thankfully I had my sister who, after 4 years of living in Spain, was moving back to Estonia, at least temporarily. She was as excited to be back as I was  and we bonded over our mutual dislike of living in Estonia. Slowly but surely things started to get better. Life wasn’t as painfully dull as it had been in the beginning and even though I still plan on leaving Estonia as soon as possible I feel okay for the time being.

Wow, that sounded so patriotic just now. I swear I actually do love Estonia but I love it like a very old close friend. You know the one – you have so much history with them that whenever you’re apart you can’t wait to meet them again. But when you actually do meet you realize pretty soon that you don’t have that much in common anymore and after a few hours and a few uncomfortable silences you are more than ready to say goodbye and get on with your life. Because while you still love that friend, you love the memory of them more than the actual person. And you can only visit memories, not live in them.

That... wasn’t supposed to sound so deep. Anyway, by now I’ve spent waaaaay too much time with good old friend Estonia and the silence has gotten pretty awkward. After I finish school I’ll probably move on to greener pastures. Until that time, however, I shall kill time by writing memoirs about the good old days and trying to ignore Estonia who’s been staring at me with a disdainful look as if to say „You know it’s not polite to be on your computer while you’re visiting a friend.“

Random picture from Japan is random.