Epilogue

Now that it's months later and I still haven't finished writing up my stories, I've been bitten by the writing bug (that and I'm at work with nothing else to do). I should probably start by saying that I will now forever be one of those people who constantly refer to that time they lived abroad. I've noticed myself doing it a lot even all these months later. I complain about Chinese chopsticks not being as good as Japanese ones and I mention how good different foods were when I had them IN Japan. I'm not proud of this situation and I'll work to remedy it. At least I've recognized that I have a problem.

In my return home, I was again struck by something that happens every time I travel. I marveled at how many miles I had traveled only to end up right where I had started. Back home in Philadelphia, in my room. I traveled halfway around the world to end up in a place that not many people have been, somewhere that I feel completely secure and comfortable. I get this feeling every time I return home after a trip. It's compounded by the fact that travel can be done so fast now. You can cover thousands of miles in a mindbogglingly short amount of time, for relatively little money. (Now I realize it's not a trivial amount of money, but considering how much it costs in the grand scheme of things, air travel is a bargain.)

I think what hit me more this time than in past trips, was the fact that someone else would soon occupy my apartment and there would be another new face in the neighborhood. The cashiers at the Papasu Pharmacy would start seeing a new regular, the folks at Sakiya would have a new customer, basically life would proceed exactly the same in Komagome whether I was there or not. So while feeling that geographically the world has become very small, I simultaneously felt that I had been scaled down with the world and was now also very small. I'm accustomed to living in a world with my friends and classmates where I can go different places and run into people I know. But now I see that I had left a neighborhood I had lived in for 2 months and my departure didn't matter in the slightest. I'm not trying to imply that I had expected or should expect that my presence would fundamentally impact Tokyo, but that doesn't mean I can't feel small at realizing that I had no impact.

There's probably a lot more I could say about this, but I probably would make it all up to make myself sound smarter than I am or something. Japan is awesome and my appreciation for it has grown since I got back.