my nineteen year old self experienced this first hand when i was left for nothing in sasebo, japan with fifteen hundred yen in my pocket by my self-righteous older sister in the most bitter january i could remember.
when someone says the word adventure there is always a positive, almost giddy connotation.
but in my case, when i was damn near abandoned by my own blood, standing in the spare room of a friend's friend's apartment whom i'd met only once, i did not feel any giddiness. only muted panic and the harsh sting of getting slapped in the face with the cold backhand of shock.
"this is real, you're not dreaming," i kept thinking to myself as i put my head between my knees, trying to stem the flow of anxiety that had begun leaking into my blank mind. i couldn't comprehend it - the enormity of my situation.
i was alone.
nobody should feel alone in a world with 7 billion other human beings.
but i did. i felt it in the deepest parts of my soul.
not once in my nineteen years had i ever had to 100% fend for myself. in fact, my dad had helped me with almost everything, financially to emotionally. i knew people from high school who were off in college on their own, like one of my best friends, people who had moved out of their parents' place and were out there doing "life". that wasn't me, i hadn't prepared myself for anything like this to happen. i had no backup plan and yet, here i was in fucking japan with my life stuffed into one oversized suitcase.
the spare room that i mentioned belonged to - my now good friend - tommy.
i'd met him while getting a tour of the USS bonhomme richard (BHR) by my friend nina in the first week of january. the BHR is a small naval aircraft carrier who's homeport is "commander fleet activities sasebo" as it says on the sign by the front gate. both of them worked on the flight deck together.
i fleetingly met everyone who'd been on duty with nina the day i got a tour, including tommy who i had a brief conversation with while standing on the flight deck. i got a friend request from tommy on facebook later that day. i accepted it, not thinking for a second that i'd ever come crawling to him with a seemingly insurmountable favor which i thought would be my most desperate hour while in japan.
i messaged him on facebook at the end of january (not even two weeks after initially meeting him) in pure desperation, swallowing my pride, the possibility of sleeping in the local park hanging over my head. i asked him if he knew of anyone with an apartment who'd would accept a roommate and payment for rent after i got paid from my job. at the time i had managed to snag a job at a shabby tex mex restaurant, which was mostly occupied by young sailors with a yearning for even a knock off taste of mexican-ish food.
tommy, with his never ending generosity, told me he had an extra room and not to worry about rent for the place was paid off for the next two and a half months as he had gotten new orders to go to washington in april. he told me to move in whenever and that he could meet me to show me the place.
nina was dying to help me out, but the BHR left for deployment in the middle of january and tommy - luckily for me - did not join them because he was set leave with his new orders before the ship returned to sasebo.
after an awkward and hurried send off by my brother in law, who dropped me off at the foot of a steep staircase which would lead me to my new home, i found myself in tommy's spare room. the room which became my safe place for the next four weeks.
dusty, long since inhabited or cleaned, empty except for a mattress on the floor, a nice wooden dresser, an oblong body length mirror, a fan and now
me.
i opened my suitcase and began throwing clothes on the dusty floor, wishing to find something to distract me, to stop me from overthinking the moment. i found a pair of headphones. my hands were shaking, i won't even lie. i was preparing myself to go into defcon 1, full panic mode.
they were shaking as i stepped out onto the small balcony to have a smoke. the bitter wind that came up the hill from the bay hit me relentlessly.
the looming panic seemed to ease as i took in my view; i could see all the way to the other mountain that enclosed most of sasebo in a little a half circle around the bay where the base was, i could see the little pinpricks of lights which were houses set on the mountains encircling the city, becoming more sparse and further apart the higher up the mountain they went. i could see the glow of base, the red and blue blinking lights out on the distant water, the flashing yellow sign of the love hotel on the eastern mountain, and car headlights like miniature fireflies flying in pairs going down the freeway.
the view from the porch. during the day, obviously
pictures couldn't quite capture the way it
transformed at nighttime
i felt even smaller standing on there, looking at the world from a poorly lit porch. i was imaging all the little lives going on inside each light burning on the mountain, remorsefully accepting the fact that no one else felt my pain, my fear of what the hell was going to happen, for i am not one who likes to do anything without a plan.
it was something i always prided myself with, being prepared, and if i wasn't i couldn't function and now i wasn't. i wasn't in the slightest. i was completely out of my comfort zone, lost in the sauce and not sure how to get out. wanting nothing more than to feel calm, ready.
and with those longing thoughts, came another... i think i realized there was no "getting out" only "getting through" and that is how i leveled with myself.
i wouldn't admit it then, but in retrospect, i secretly felt the most infinitesimal bit of hopeful excitement, that maybe this would all work out.
there was something about having music playing in my ears, smoking a cigarette, taking in a view like that, soaking in the events of the day, that made me think, "this should be a movie."
because, lets be honest, anything in life could be a movie if you just add a great soundtrack.
these are some songs that i chose for my first night on the porch:
don't dream it's over - crowded house
lies - the black keys
goodbye yellow brick road - elton john
between the bars - elliot smith
girl from the north country - johnny cash & bob dylan
stop this train - john mayer
i had an internal monologue going and everything haha no i didn't.
okay, yes i did.
maybe.
that night my life took a turn, a turn that i did not anticipate, a turn that changed me. for the better? i still don't know. how do you determine something like that?
all i know is that the prospect of waking up the next day, going to work, and hitting the bar after and having a beer, was what i held on to, and that, my friends, is the trick to surviving.
when today becomes too much, you hold out for tomorrow.
and when tomorrow becomes today, you do it all over again.
tomorrow
(noun)
a mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored
this is amazing, thank you
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