Nov 22, 2016
By Jessica Tsuzuki
Letting Go of the Past in Unseen Japan
My first year in Japan was tough. Living on my own without family or roommates to check up on me, distract me or keep me company was challenging, but it was also my first year without a pet. For six years, I had lived in the company of my ferret, Quazar, who was being care for by my mother until I returned from my Japanese adventure. It would be more costly than any of us realized.
In the six months it took me to come home for a visit, the spirit of my pet had deteriorated. His swift transition from a gleefully chubby carpet shark to a sad, fur-covered old man broke my heart. He didn’t play anymore. He didn’t run. He only hobbled to and fro, physically normal though obviously troubled.
I should have said goodbye when I left for the airport, but part of me brushed the act off as a bad omen; a symbol of final departure. He would still be there waiting when I was ready to return so long as I didn’t say goodbye, because to do so would be to perform the last rites of our pet-owner bond. That was what I told myself, and the belief lasted a whole three months.
When my mother called to inform me of his passing, which occurred quietly in her arms during a morning nap, I felt something even bigger give way inside of me. In addition to the initial pangs of shock, grief and regret, I could sense one of the strongest tethers to my homeland snapping in two. The need to call my life in Japan to a halt within a few short years suddenly vanished. A small voice in the back of mind whispered, a little too coldly, “Well, there’s one less reason to go home.”
Months flew by as I dealt with the death of my pet while battling culture shock, and it took years for me to forgive myself for abandoning my ferret to pursue my own dreams. As this time passed though, other tethers snapped too. The more I grew and developed as a person, the less I had in common with people back home. As more of my experiences abroad took shape, my sense of normal and weird shifted.
Electric toilet seats became normal, and when I traveled home, I loathed the chill of the ordinary bathroom fixtures. Being surrounded by English speakers became strange, exhausting and chaotic, my introverted brain struggling to remember who I was talking to or what I was doing in the context of so much I could easily understand. The tether of “American” and “normal” being synonymous in my mind had come apart. Even in my home town, sometimes I felt more foreign than ever.
Meanwhile in Japan, my life still felt like it was just beginning. Quazar’s death came just as things were starting to get more serious with a boyfriend I had only been seeing for a few months. I had been looking forward to bringing my Japanese beau home for the “ferret test”, in which Quazar’s interest in one of my potential mates likely spelled bliss or doom for the relationship. I realized sadly that this had been the final test. There was a new love in my life, a real one and a good one. No further ferret tests would be required.
As events unfolded that could have resulted in my departure– from the sudden demise of the company I was working for to a series of major natural disasters– I came to realize that every single broken tether that once connected me to my home country had been recycled, strengthening my bond to my chosen home.
Freedom, as I have enjoyed it, is not having nothing left to lose, as the Janis Joplin song would have us believe. It is instead having a choice and the ability to make it in our own interest with regards to our own benefit.
For some, that’s an endless highway on a hot summer night. For others, it’s the next plane ticket to somewhere new. For me, it’s the ability to continue exploring a place I want to call home.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence 2016 Travel Writing Award and tell your story.
About the Author
Jessica Tsuzuki
Jessica Tsuzuki, teacher, writer, and toddler-wrangler, is a working American mom living in northern Japan. Winner of the summer 2015 WSGT writing contest and writer of many an unpublished novel, Jessica spends her days honing her craft and exploring her small, seaside town.