Hey peeps,
We have all been there. Life breaks us, a series of hardships comes to a cacophonous climax, events occur that have echoed throughout the rest of our lives. This week marks the first anniversary of that break for me. But, that break began some time before last September.
A little over two years ago, I came back from studying abroad in Japan. From that point forward until right around this time last year, things in my life felt like they were just blowing up in my face as I fought against my reverse culture shock and other life struggles. All I wanted to do was to be back in Japan, on my own, trying to stand on my two feet as an artist and as an individual, away from the stuff going on back at home. I wanted to be self-reliant and take on my own battles so I could learn to tackle life with God by my side and rely on Him without the constant strains from outside worries. Yet, I was struggling the wrong way and got to my breaking point last summer. I knew that one more loss would break me and I was afraid of what that break might look like. In fact, the fear from never having been in that darkest pit is what frightened me the most.
Flash forward to this past month and a half. In the back of my mind was the week of September 11. That date has held a lot of weight in my life since that tragic day in 2001, but has since become my mental mark for one of the toughest times I have had to get through to date. So, this new week has been something I have been dreading for about a month, month and a half.
Last year, just days after the anniversary of 9/11, I went to the first evening of my church's new round of Women's Bible studies. I knew I needed to draw closer to God and needed to be with the women of my church as fellow student while my mom facilitated the Wednesday night Women's Bible study. Yet, Thank the Lord He put that need on my heart, because I did not expect how greatly I would need that group of women until I got home that night.
Like usual, upon coming home to stay for the evening, I planted myself in front of my pc and checked Facebook...only...I found that one of my friends had messaged me several times regarding a mutual friend. I could feel the horror and panic in her messages regarding posts being made on our mutual friend's Facebook page, so I rushed over to that mutual friend's page and found post after post about a 'Celebration of Life' event being made in his honor. Right then, I knew that something had happened and didn't want to believe what I was seeing. I was able to get in contact with the person seemingly in charge of organizing the event and learned that this friend of mine had committed suicide over the weekend.
Suicide's one of those things that opens a hellish door of mental anguish and torture. It is like the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; it opens your eyes to death and human fragility and taunts you with it. Just like how Adam and Eve suddenly became aware of their nakedness after eating the fruit, suicide makes you aware of the simplicity of death. And this awareness horrified me and made me feel vulnerable all the way through my bone marrow.
Emotionally, I felt like an empty shell. My emotions were distant and the tears that poured down my cheeks were seemingly meaningless to me. Even though I knew that it was natural for me to be grieving, the sobbing felt false because I was so emotionally numb.
Sitting in class was a nightmare because I would start having panic attacks and wanted to just run out of the classroom and curl up somewhere safe, though very few places felt safe anymore. I would come home from class and collapse somewhere and sleep for hours without getting homework or studying down. Finally, within just a couple of weeks after my friend's death, I knew I needed to get help and made that long, daunting walk to the university mental health office.
By the Grace of God and my professors, I passed that semester despite falling behind and not being able to finish work. However, that was also the most healing semester. My friend's death forced me to confront my back-breaking anxiety and broke my knees in front of the Lord's Presence. Surviving that darkness has strengthened me beyond my wildest imagination and allowed me to seek after the series of events that led me back to Japan. And most of all, it allowed me to be filled once more with the hope that God would bring me back to Japan.
Of course, by no means is living by myself in Japan easy. I am sadly not as responsible as I would like to be and I am struggling to establish a daily schedule that would allow to work on my manga around my teaching position while exploring interests that I haven't been able to fully enjoy for years. Yet, going through the struggles of the past couple of years and their culmination last year surrounding my friend's death allowed me to learn a lot about myself, such as my signs of stress, in what environments I succeed or struggle, how to open up to people about my struggles, and, most importantly, how and why I can rely on God.
Yes, I have been dreading this week because this week will lead into the first anniversary of my friend's death coupled with the anniversary of 9/11, which is dear to my heart because I witnessed firsthand the grief it brought into the lives of many Americans through the crying friends of a victim's son who were bawling in my high school's parking lot that day. This week is also difficult because the time I had with this friend was spent in Japan as study abroad students. He was part of my study abroad and, like the rest of that group, was like family to me. Then there is the juxtaposition of the current me and the me from last year. The current me is boldly, though clumsily walking towards my dreams and living in the one place I want to be, while the me of last year had shut out all thoughts of living in Japan in order to not be engulfed with the overwhelming desire to be back and was struggling to just crawl forward towards graduation without the hope of being in Japan in the near future. Tack on the sudden loss of my friend and all my dreams of reuniting our whole study abroad group in Japan, there is a lot of weight that this week carries, especially since I have been living and working in Japan since graduation.
This week, I will allow myself to be tired in the evenings. I can be forgetful and klutzy, even absent-minded. I do not have to be doing my best because I probably will not be at my best and that's okay. The darkest shadows have come and gone, but the wounds from them are still healing. So, I will give myself permission to let those wounds heal some more.
Until then, later peeps.
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