So a couple of days ago I got my fourth pay packet since I've been in Japan, and there are only eight more to go. My stay here is a third over already and the time has gone so much faster than I ever imagined it would...

And so I find myself thinking about the transitory nature of this... of life, the universe and everything. But let's start with this year. I like my life here. I am happier than I have been in a long time; none of that sickly content but actual passion and emotion, actual happiness.

For starters I am proving to myself on a daily basis that I have the ability to do something that a mere year or two ago I never would have believed myself actually capable of... actually being in a strange country for the first time (I never count New Zealand :) and doing a job I have never done before and not sucking at it. Fuck, I feel good about that. By the end of the year of course it's not going to be enough and I am going to need to seek out the next challenge, but for now things are difficult enough to be satisfying and easy enough to revel in my accomplishments now and again.

Then there's the whole cultural experience, the stuff I have never seen before and may never see again beyond this year... I think Australians don't really have a sense of what 'old' is when it comes to architecture, art, culture... nothing in Australia is really old in that sense (with the obvious exclusion of Aboriginal culture I guess). The feel of this place is altogether different and I know that sounds incredibly obvious but it's a revelation if you have never been out of the country of your birth before.

And then... there's the people, and I know that the cultural experience should probably be the big thing but for me the people here is the clincher. On Tuesday night I was musing to the Writer about coming to myself in CoWorker's living room while watching DVDs, surrounded by people I did not know mere months ago and feeling so comfortable there and that is kind of strange when you think about it... but we are kind of close knit, us gaijin in this city, and sometimes it really kills me to know that it's for such a limited time. I mean, even back home friendships run a course and some die and some thrive but you never quite know how it's going to turn out... but I know for certain that this has no way of continuing beyond a year. Even if I were to stay, others would go, as they do... Japan is limbo for the majority of gaijin, this community is in a constant state of flux. We can only enjoy each other for so long.

CoWorker is one of the particular people that it is going to hurt me to part with... I see her every day and when I don't we notice. Our friendship is one I almost can't fathom, I'm sure we wouldn't have even met under ordinary circumstances because we are so different... so I can only be grateful for my current circumstances.

The other particular person is of course the Writer... and what can I say? With every passing day I only get in deeper and deeper as far as he and I are concerned. The future is something which has come up in conversation from time to time, though I think it is something we'd both prefer not to think about. A few nights ago I was trying to tell him that I was here for him to talk to, and it came out that I was not going anywhere... his somewhat barbed response did not upset me, though it again reminded me of what I didn't want to remember; perhaps I would be going somewhere, eventually... perhaps we both would. Our relationship is subject to the same laws as my other friendships here...

Or is it? I don't know anymore... because the upshot of that conversation was that he whispered to me, somewhat fiercely, that he would not be letting me go without a struggle... and I liked it. It gave me the same rush of... something... that I get every time he says he loves me, an explosion in the pit of my stomach that almost makes me dizzy.

And then on Saturday night... well, it was eventful and meaningful in a couple of ways. First of all, I was at the Fujirock festival seeing my favourite band in the world, Mercury Rev (if you don't know them, Carraway, who recently saw them for the first time, aptly described them as the Flaming Lips crossed with Polyphonic Spree with a dash of radiohead and Placebo in there for good measure. They just happen to write music that speaks to me... and in a long, hypnotic outro to the song that I used to imagine to be my theme tune, "Goddess on a Hiway" (back when I was in my distance relationship phase and running away from one interstate boyfriend after another) the line 'it ain't gonna last' eventually became 'it's not supposed to last', and to quote another favourite band of mine, a thousand lights were going off in my head...

It's not supposed to last. I have such a tendency to cling to the things that I love, and I am happy now so I feel as though I don't want this time to end... but it is like water, the harder you try to hold on to it the more it is going to slip through your fingers. Instead of panicking and holding on tighter, I need to learn to let it wash over me and enjoy the sensations while it all lasts, and just have faith that there are more good times to be had, things I haven't even imagined yet... I mean, I never thought I would be doing this, did I? Even when I envisaged Japan, I imagined solitude... I never imagined myself surrounded by people.

And when we came home from the festival, so tired, I found myself paying a 3am visit to the Writer who was not in such a good way. Part of me seemed to believe that this only confirms my madness, he was drunk and melancholy... but I wanted to be there. I always do.

Whenever I look for words to describe him I find none. I feel happy, understood, comfortable, desired, trusted and loved... and these are all of the things I want him to feel. As I went to sleep in his arms on Saturday though I was thinking again about the line 'It's not supposed to last' and revised my opinion. Perhaps things will never be quite the same when we all go home, but I can't believe that my friendships will dissolve when we all leave... and perhaps this time is not supposed to last, but I refuse to believe right now that the Writer and I will not. I can't begin to imagine what the future will hold... but I won't be letting him go without a struggle either.

Before After

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