Destination: Fukuoka

We’ve finally received the location assignment for my new job, and it’s in a city we recently visited for the first time. Is it possibly the Houston of Japan?

When we’re in a new place, Mike and I start comparing it to the places we have lived and have been. When we landed in Tokyo, it felt like Paris, New York, and London, but also unlike any of those places. In many parts of the city, the towers weren’t very tall, which took me back to DC. There are some old buildings, but there are mostly new post-war or very modern buildings. When we dropped into Kyoto, it was a small city on a river. It didn’t compare to much back home… if I’m digging, Little Rock or Washington, DC. Osaka felt like its own place, but parts of it felt like New York City. But it was when we visited the first time that it was hot and humid, just like Houston. Fishing villages on the coast of Japan remind me of Juneau, AK.

And now, my mind is trying to find something familiar the our next home: Fukuoka.

Mike and I visited Fukuoka earlier this month because we just had a feeling that we might end up there. It immediately reminded me of Bilbao, Spain - a city on the coast with rivers flowing through it. Industrial and artistic. But… doesn’t that sound an awful lot like Houston? Large expressways crisscross the city on top of their public transportation system. The food scene is big and diverse. Fukuoka is known as Japan’s gateway to Asia and gets most of its tourists from neighboring countries like Korea and China. Large cruise ships come in and out of the docks. You can see shipyards building mammoth steel ships. It’s green! There are parks and beaches with islands dotting the coast. The weather is temperate, but the typhoon season is pretty long, and the summers are long, hot, and humid. A lot of these things overlap with our current home in Houston.

I’m excited for this change! Training for my new job starts June 16, and we’re aiming to get to Japan about a week early to get adjusted. There are a lot of interesting challenges coming our way. We’re moving Lincoln with us to Japan. I have a work Visa which we will use to qualify Mike for a dependent Visa – more paperwork! We have to find an apartment that is both friendly to foreigners and in Lincoln. Packing will be interesting, and we will likely just travel with a couple of suitcases. I’ll be working a pretty structured job from noon to 8 pm, five days a week, no vacation days for the first six months, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve never had a normal job, so this will be a rude awakening! I think I will enjoy the work - meeting people, chatting, and teaching. There is a lot of structure from the company, so the amount of prep work I’ll have to do is limited, and I won’t be taking work home with me. Big changes are coming our way in so many ways!

A smattering if images from the rest of our trip to Japan. We went to the world expo, caught the flu, missed Star Wars celebration, and hung out in Tokyo.

I’m back with some goals for the week ahead. It’s been a while since I’ve done this with you, but it’s nice! As we start getting into the actual minutiae of our move, I think there will be some really concrete tasks I could use the accountability to complete. Since coming home from Japan, I’ve checked off some big things: submitted Visa paperwork and contacted my neurologist. But there are always more things to do!

Goals:

1. Make an official list of tasks and a timeline for our move.

2. Buy a book my therapist recommended to help me learn to be less critical of myself: Good Morning, I Love You

3. Be gentle with myself as my jet lag resolves.

4. Find ways to nourish my mind and soul every day.

5. Plan a visit to see the Rothko Chapel

I met with my therapist yesterday for the first time since February. It was great to have an outside perspective, and we spent time working on a hard memory from Han’s death. It was my last Accelerated Resolution Therapy appointment, and we spent some time doing some talk therapy. All these big life changes are building up pressure inside me. I’ve also kept saying that I wanted to do some work on my inner critic for months, but I honestly didn’t know where to start, and I didn’t even know it. She gave me some recommendations on resources to study that might help me with this work.

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Wow. I have missed Han so much. The time that has passed has changed the missing and even how I see the time in my life with Han. My grief is changing constantly, but I feel something hard to put my finger on. I shared this well after April 19, but wrote it via voice note while sick in Japan. Can’t say it’s my best work but it was a significant day worth reflecting on!