marisa marisa marisa. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heartbeats) wrote2014-03-11 02:52 pm
heartbeats) wrote2014-03-11 02:52 pm
Entry tags:
a love story in six parts.
I don't know what there is to say that hasn't already been said, so instead I'll say this.
I always hope my story will improve over time, like how people's interactions with celebrity become closer with the retelling or how every time you retell the story of an argument you've had with someone you sound smarter. For me it's always the same.
I was in the Red Cross in Hiroo. I'd just had blood drawn and thought at first I was passing out. When I heard the words 大地震 - megaquake - I thought to myself, oh my god, the last message I'll ever send will have been a string of skull and needle emoticons. Two older women looking at me, saying, she's not used to it. Crying in the bathroom, fixing my makeup. Proceeding with my appointment. Rheumatoid factor down - slight change to my medicine. Walking home, glass in the street. Turning on the TV. Calling my parents - "I know it's three in the morning but tomorrow I may not be able to contact you." A friend seven months pregnant, unreachable in Sendai.
I remember watching episode after episode of Criminal Minds on my computer, watching horrible murders one after the other with the television playing footage in the background, everything getting worse and worse. I didn't understand how this could happen, I thought. I don't understand how there could have been nowhere to run.
-
In a few days a friend had come to stay with me - then she'd left the country. I hopped a shinkansen to Nagoya to stay with my host family. Lined my feet in Nagoya station where I had when I first arrived, rode the red line and then the purple line to Mizuho Undoujo Higashi - to home.
Yumi and the girls and Host Mom and Host Dad and eventually Tim; they were a family I'd met before, in 2007, during my first stay. I'd never thought I'd become this close to them. Tim saying, "someone is going to get rich from this," and Yumi and me pouring beer after beer after beer and talking late, late into the night. My Japanese has gotten pretty good, I thought, laying in my old room and staring at the ceiling, muttering like a mantra - the only thing still shaking is you.
-
They canceled my program and I went back to the US for three weeks. Visited George Washington; someone told me they'd heard Japan was sinking into the ocean. I missed the cherry blossoms and went to the DC cherry blossom festival instead. I remember thinking, this isn't what I wanted.
When I decided to go back I had a long conversation with my mom. I told her essentially, I want to go back. I've never been more scared in my life but I want to go back.
You know the day I was discharged from the hospital after having you,
she said,
they kept you but we went to the PX to get some diapers. You'd come a month early, of course, so we were totally unprepared. Standing there I thought suddenly something was terribly wrong, called out to your dad. The room was spinning. It was only when I saw the clerks holding on that I realized it was an earthquake.
Were you scared of the big one? I asked her.
Yeah, she said. Yeah, but I'd go back in a heartbeat.
Five days later I was on a plane. I want to say I had a huge epiphany on landing - instead all I can say is how glad I was to be back. Even with the aftershocks I felt like I was on more stable ground.
-
I lived that spring in the library and in the abandoned classrooms of IUC, studying for N1. I went on a date with someone who picked me up on the street - I was incredibly lonely, but I felt like if I could just pass N1, it would have been worth it. My sleep cycle reversed and my hands and feet got worse - in retrospect, I was probably depressed. I never regretted coming back, was so glad for my friends there. A few months later Jackie came. We spent the summer in what I can only describe as the longest extended period of play I've ever had - I still think back on how happy I was.
She told me over yakiniku she'd read 100 chapters of One Piece. We watched all of Kuragehime, all of Ore Imo, half of Fullmetal Alchemist. Eventually she walked me and my oversized kotatsu to the bus. I was too tired to cry as I drove away.
I still have dreams of that apartment, lying face down in the shag rug and listening to the city sounds filtering in through the night air.
-
Two years ago today, I sat down in this room, at this desk, in the midst of a panic attack that had been going on since the fourth when an earthquake hit the Hayward fault, and I typed, the only thing still shaking is me.
-
I'm going back to Tokyo this summer. I'll be there on June first. My friend - the missing one - her daughter is more a little girl than she is a baby. I've been in therapy for more than a year - it'll be two really soon now.
-
I always feel guilty starting or stopping this. What I went through is nothing compared to the people in Sendai, in Miyagi, in Fukushima. I am happy here, and I am healthier. My RA is under control and I have a committee. I'm going to ISA for the second year in a row in three weeks and I'm seeing Jackie in four days.
I was thinking today after I basically ruined myself carrying four pizzas three blocks, the worst part of disability is forgetting you're disabled and then being reminded. I think it's similar, at least for me. What I've learned in my time in therapy is that there isn't a "fix" for this - there's dealing with it, and there's coping, but there's no erasing and there's no curing. Like rheumatoid arthritis, I wake up every day hoping, secretly, desperately, to be over it, but I won't be. No matter what, it will have happened. I've come to realize that maybe this will be with me forever.
Over time, even though I wish it hadn't happened, even though I wish I wasn't like this, I think I can't think of a me without it.
My story doesn't change over time, but somehow I've changed in the retelling. I don't know if it's for better or for worse. I just know it is.
I don't have a pithy ending for this one.
no subject
I thought a good way to remember the day would be to watch some videos on youtube. Yeah. Nearly gave myself a panic attack. But every time I watch videos from the Tokyo area, I realize that even though the shindo there wasn't as high as here, it was still a legitimately terrifying earthquake. (Videos of the liquidification in Urayasu? I think I would have soiled my pants.)
no subject
I can't watch earthquake footage, I inevitably scare myself silly. Can't even talk about earthquakes to be honest. I've gotten a lot better during my twoish years in therapy, but it's still hard.
Hope you are doing well.