Every time I notice more white hair on my dog’s face, everytime my great grandmother’s dementia worsens, everytime a new baby is born into the family — each moment feels like a testament to the life I’m missing out on. Precious moments slipping away one by one, forever irreversible as I live oceans away from the people I love.
I’ve spent half of my life in Japan and the other half in America. It sometimes feels like I live in a parallel world, where these two realities co-exist; there’s the real me, living a high school life in America, but another me inside, continuing my previous life in Japan. Whichever country I reside in, I feel both out of place and at home.
I always have two scenarios playing in my head. When I mess up a presentation in English, I imagine myself nailing it in Japanese. When I am overwhelmed by the busy corridors of Japanese train stations, I imagine the wide highway roads in California. That’s just how my brain works; there are always two worlds, pulling me in different directions.
I hated myself for thinking this way, constantly comparing everything. I believed I was using this habit as an escape — a way to justify my inabilities and create dissatisfaction.
The stark contrast between the cultures often confused me. My English skills are praised in Japan, but that’s normal here. I’ve spent more years studying in the United States but I’m not as fluent as native English speakers. I am a native Japanese speaker but I’m too behind on general education. I felt so incomplete in either culture; what exactly am I good at?
Everytime I moved between America and Japan, I spent years reconstructing my identity. I tried to forget either my American or Japanese identity, in a sense ready to suppress one and fit into the new place I was expected to call home. When I moved back to San Diego five years ago, I attempted to completely neglect my heritage. I was embarrassed by my traditional bento box. I created an English name. I constructed this whole new identity, feeling a tug of guilt but unable to overcome my desires to belong.
When mentally my Japanese identity was starting to fade, I visited Japan and it saved me, reminding me of the most important thing in my life: my family. Trying to neglect my roots means trying to forget them.
Last summer, I went back to Japan for the first time in two years. We visited my great grandmother in the hospital, and her health seemed drastically worse than I had remembered. I remember my sister crying that day. “Everyone changes so much while we’re gone,” she said. We were shattered by missing so many important moments and by the realization that this would continue.
For years, I have subconsciously been preoccupied with the fear of loss — losing my friends, family, heritage and identity. The first time I truly felt it was when my grandparent’s dog passed away when I was about 6. I kept thinking about how much I would have loved to stroke his soft fur as he struggled in pain during his last moments. Since then, I have scrambled to hold on to what remained, while other events followed: a new family moving into our old home, my little cousin being born and my dog’s eyes getting cloudier in the photos I received.
Two months ago, I lost my great grandmother. I hadn’t seen her for months and couldn’t even attend her funeral. This really hit me hard, truly reminding me of how many more days I could have spent with her if it weren’t for the distance.
Even so, however much I would give to live close to the people I love, I know I can’t give up on my life here, either. I want to go to college and make my dreams of being involved in international development come true. Japan is my roots; America is where my future lies. I’ve been asked many times, “Do you like America or Japan better?” But how am I supposed to choose one home over another? I will always be in the middle, loving both and never able to favor one over the other.
The emptiness in my heart, living away from home, will always linger, and it may never be fulfilled. Life just continues to unfold in the places we left. But it’s a way for me to keep both worlds, both homes, engraved and alive deep inside — not fragmenting each other, but establishing who I am today and who I will become.
