"At Least Two Years"

I have been living in Japan for exactly two years, three months, and ten days. I just started my third year working on JET, but it doesn’t look quite the same. In all honesty, while I’ve never consistently posted on this blog, it really got pushed to the back of my mind in the past year. But I’m here now!

Two Years

When I started my JET journey, I told anyone who would listen that I want to stay in Japan for two years. I felt that one year simply wasn’t enough time, and I’d be lying if I said that staying the full five years wasn’t on my brain. However, I played it safe and settled on two years at least. If I really hated my life in Japan, I’d push through one year. If I loved it, I’d think about staying longer.

After I arrived in Bungo-Ono, I was actually a little disappointed that the board of education I worked for had a limit of three years for JETs. I hadn’t even started anything here, but the five years I envisioned as a possibility seemed very short squished into three years. But my plan quickly changed and I decided that if I decided to do a second year, I might as well stay the third. I enjoyed my job, I liked my town, my life in Canada wouldn’t be wrecked if I stayed an extra year (since all I wanted to do was get my teaching degree and work).

But of course, life never goes as planned. In Canada, I worked in education, and I was lucky to have worked with a lot of teachers who had experience teaching abroad to some degree. When I said I was definitely moving to Japan, I got so many jokes about how they knew of people who got into relationships right away or met their spouses abroad and now they live there or they moved back home with their spouse. I was adamant this would not be me. There would be no way that I meet a boyfriend the second I stepped off the plane. And I didn’t.

…I met him three months later.

It’s gonna be more than two years, isn’t it?

I had found myself not only in a new country, but in a new relationship. At that time, my boyfriend and I lived in different cities, separated by about an hour and a half long train ride. Our relationship consisted of phone calls, weekend trips, and using whatever vacation we could take to see each other. It wasn’t long before our relationship grew more serious and the distance became more frustrating. Especially when he had to move for work and our travel time doubled.

By the time I was about to start my second year in Bungo-Ono, I had already considered asking for a transfer a few times. My boyfriend and I had discussed the topic to some degree, but it wasn’t until about July that I cemented that it’s what I would do. So, before summer break, I confided in an English teacher I was close to, told her what I was hoping for, and asked her if she’d help translate the letter I was busy drafting to present to the board of education. Thankfully, she was happy to help.

In August, I met with the English teacher and my supervisor, and finally, I officially asked my board of education for permission to transfer. Before anything moved on, my supervisor gave me all the bureaucratic details that I had already looked into, and told me about the process of the transfer if my board of education were to grant it. I would have until November to gather documents, and the decision would have to be granted through about three levels. Only then could JET reach out to the new location, and if there was a placement willing to accept me, I could transfer.

I didn’t hear about the transfer at all. I had scoured the Internet for any information on when word would come, but unfortunately, I didn’t find much. When January rolled around, my supervisor let me know that I had to go to the BOE to sign some documents. Lo and behold, I was staring at my new contract. The transfer had passed through all the levels, and I was officially finishing my time in Bungo-Ono.

How long will I stay?

From two years, to more than two years, to…?

I want to say that this is the main reason I’m posting all this. Once again, I’d never been super consistent with writing here, and I think there’s a multitude of reasons why, but recently I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I probably won’t be going back to Canada anytime soon. Japan has become my daily life. Not necessarily in the mundane, everyday is the same way, but more where I’m basing key points of my life in Japan. Whenever I think about where I’d like to get married, have children, settle down, it’s all in Japan.

I’ve been making peace with a future here. My time in Japan was supposed to be a fun, two-year experience where I could learn about a new culture and grow my independence. But very quickly, it shifted into something much bigger. The idea that I can just “stick it out” if I don’t enjoy it has vanished. I have to somehow cope with all my frustrations that sadly won’t disappear once I hit my five-years in Japan anniversary. Of course, Canada will always be there. I think I’ll always have the possibility of moving back to Canada in my mind, but it is far, far back from reality.

So, to end things off, I think with all these changes, this blog is bound to shift a little with me. I tried at one point to write more personal posts, but it always kind of fell through (for reasons that I’ll probably share at some point). As much as I enjoy the wonders of Japan, I’ve kind of lost that little sparkle of “this is a once in a lifetime experience”, simply because Japan has become my lifetime experience.

I was under the impression that because I’ve created this blog to be about Japan, I shouldn’t try to change gears. Then I saw how an ALT I knew from Oita, Mesha (@mesha.speaks), had grown her social media presence. She had switched her content from being centered on Japan, and instead started centering her life and experiences with Japan as a backdrop. It was a bit of a confidence boost for me, seeing how proudly and openly she shares herself online.

I want to be a bit more like that. I want to make this blog something I’m happy with, and something that doesn’t need to be exceptional and perfect. So here’s to a fresh start.