Tag: friends

A letter from my past self

The following is the transcription of a letter I found this week.  (Yes, it was in one of the boxes of papers and folders and such.)  I wish I had found it months ago, when I’d first returned from Japan.  However, it still did me loads of good when I read it the other day.  While I missed out on some bits it mentions, I actually did a really good job of fulfilling most of the tasks prescribed in it… a version of them, anyway.

Anyway, it is a letter I wrote to myself when I was still on my college campus, about to leave to study abroad in Germany and Austria.  As per standards of our school’s study abroad program, we all had to write our future selves a letter, which would be mailed to us upon our return from our study abroad programs.  I fully acknowledge that mine is full of grammatical errors, but that was part of why I was going abroad anyway – to improve my language skills.  Also, the whole letter is written in cursive, because I do that.  The third sentence actually caused me to tear up, and the fourth had me crying.  It’s amazing how right I was, and I really didn’t know that I ever would be in the current situation in which I find myself.

……………………

10. April 2012
Dienstag

Hannah Leigh, chèrie,

Ich weiss nicht, was muss ich dir sagen.  Ich kenne dich nicht, weil du so viel gechanged hast.  Welcome home – may it still feel that way to you.  You are forever welcome here, so remember that – you might need it some day.  Okay, here’s what I want you to do:

1) Go record it.  Get on your computer, write up any questions
you would love for others to ask, & then record yourself
answering them.  Then you can do what you want with
it all, but you will have that satisfaction, that completeness,
wholeness of having shared what you needed, desired, wanted
to share.

2) Talk to people.  Make a quick list of what specifically you already
have wanted to share with whom.  Call each person & set up when
& where you will share what you have to share.  Share with them.

3) Talk to Opa.  No matter where he is, go visit him & talk with
him completely in German.

4) Find someone local with whom you can be open, close, & frank, & speak
only German (or completely German) together with ease.

5) Remember that it’s all right not to “know” who you are.  Knowing
makes no difference, anyway, so no good reason to bother with it.
Look yourself in the mirror & see all that has passed, & be open to
all that will come.

6) You are woman & you create the universe with your being.  Your
power is endless, & it is selfless love that feels it.  Love your
mother & your Mother.  Love your self wholly, & your next
step will become available and visible to you.

7) Be at peace.  Even if it was &/or is hard, it is all relative.
Take it for the beneficial experience that it is, & enjoy every
bit you have gotten & will get from it all.

8) Now & every time you see that it just might possibly help,
take a deep breath & close your eyes, letting your thoughts
run around & then calm naturally as you breathe deeply.

I love you & I wish you all the best.  I am here with you always, though I will now be transformed from the time I wrote this letter.  My understanding & my love have only increased & expanded, I promise.  You are wonderful.  You are beautiful.  You are mine.

I love you.  Love me, too.
❤ Peace       Hannah Leigh

 

P.S. Pretend I pressed a flower in here to give you a wholesome smile & kiss.  🙂 oxox

…………………………………………………..

Post-a-day 2018

Like kids in the sandbox

Today, near the end of the gather which I had been nervous about attending, I had a wonderful bit of conversation.  The following is a rough transcription of it.  Keep in mind that it was all in a state of slightly hysterical laughter.

There is a pause, and we both glance at one another, as I grab my phone off the standing table.
(I’m this one) H: Do you wanna be friends?

(The other girl, who got engaged last night) K: Yes!  I was just thinking about how to ask that!

We laugh all around, and she quickly pulls out her phone.

H: … I know that it’s a rather commonplace and normal thing for people often not to say what they mean.  But I do my best to say what I mean, right?  And so, recently, I said to someone, ‘Hey, you said you find yourself in Houston sometimes.  Do you wanna try out being friends?’  And I meant it.  But, when we first met up to hang out and do something, it apparently was a date.  And I didn’t know, because I had meant what I’d said about trying out being friends.  So, I’m a little hesitant about using that phrase now, because of that just recently.

K: Well, don’t worry.  I won’t ask you out.

And then, as we were partially keeling over in laughter at our own conversation, her fiancé adds: I feel like this is little kindergarten kids in the sandbox.  ‘Hey!  Wanna be Best Friends?!’

Within 30 seconds, as the Facebook Friend request was approved, K declares quickly:  Okay, we’re friends now.

😀

 

It was a good conversation.  Now for the follow-up, because today was a very good beginning for a genuine friendship.  😀

Post-a-day 2018

A found letter from Japan

I found this today.  It is from last August….  I suppose I sent it out in an e-mail to people… but I might have just considered sending it out, and never actually did it.  I have edited only the name of the town… just ’cause… you know, Japan.  😛

…………………………………………………..

My dearest family (and my friends who are like family),
I write to you from my new home in T—, Japan.  It is a small suburb of Tokyo, with a whopping (supposedly, anyway) 100,000 people.  I am tasked with assisting English language teachers at two different high schools in the town, one of them an art school, with specialties in painting/drawing/arts of that sort and music, and the other school a sort of engineering-for-mechanics-esque school.  My vagueness is purely due to the fact that no one seems to be able to explain to me about the schools.  On that note, no one seems to be able to explain anything to me clearly.  Guess that’s why I’m here in the first place – to help them with English, and to learn Japanese.
Going along with the lack of understanding point, I literally have no idea what’s going on around me a good amount of the time.  I was sort of trapped in my apartment the night I moved into it – I had purchased a futon (Japanese version of  a mattress – not too sure if I’m fond of it yet, ‘cause I miss my bed, but I think I can handle the futon alright) and toilet paper and towels, but that’s it.  No one could give me a map of the area (and didn’t think of it except for when I specifically asked for one); I didn’t have a copy of my address; and I don’t speak Japanese to be able to ask people for directions to get home if I went out and got lost.  Oh, and I had no phone or internet to look up where on earth to go without a paper map.
And, the best part: My predecessor told me that she had a lot of things she was giving me, so I wouldn’t need to buy most things like a fridge, storage, dishes, “that kind of stuff,” she said.  Way-to-be vague… 😛  So I had to eat food from 7/11 until she delivered her stuff to me… three days later.  No way to cook anything, because she has the electric burner for me to use.  No way to keep anything cold, so I couldn’t have fresh food of any kind for lunch at work (slash at all, since 7/11 isn’t entirely in the category of ‘fresh food’).  No way to feel like I’m not just possibly going to die (Yes, I realize the drama here.).
On top of it all, I was super stressed that I kept asking about going at least to get me a phone number, so that I could use the internet to function (map, translation, where to buy what, etc.), and they, unconcerned, mentioned that someone could take me some time next week “probably”, but I had to know exactly what plan I wanted and from which company.  Thanks, dude.  And how exactly do you propose I figure out that information with no internet, no map of the town, and no Japanese skills?
How did I solve the problem?  I went to meet another ALT (Assistant Language Teacher (Terminology for my program)) in Tokyo.  We’d become friends during the brief orientation in Tokyo earlier in the week, and she was up for helping my get a phone, so I didn’t have to stand in the 7/11 parking lot for super slow, choppy internet anymore (which I’d only discovered the night before).  Plus, I just needed some love.(1)
So I spent the day in Tokyo.  After two hours in the phone store, and using a translator (real person) on the phone, I had a new phone and a decent phone plan for the next two years.  We then went to Starbucks for a break and free wifi (for my friend to use), and we each caught up on all of our e-mails, messages, etc. from a million different people.
We then walked around a bit, and visited the Tokyo Tower area.  I had this realization as we passed one part of a temple there, that still hasn’t fully hit me.  Back home (USA), we have houses, etc., designed to look like traditional Japanese architecture, yes?  When I was looking at the temple building, my background, passive thought was the same as when I see such styles back home… and then I realized that this building is not made to ‘look like those buildings in Japan.’  This building IS ‘those buildings in Japan.’  It’s still sinking in.
(1) I can note here that I’d actually gone down to Tokyo that Friday night, just after discovering that I had internet in the 7/11 parking lot, which is down the street from my apartment (so I was able to find it without getting lost or anything – FYI streets don’t exactly have names here).  I was absolutely ready to cry from the stress of sitting around, waiting for people to take forever to accomplish tasks – unfortunately, my supervisor has never done this sort of thing before, so she had to have everything explained to her multiple times – and not knowing how I was even going to get dinner (I only found the 7/11 that night).
A friend who already had a phone (because he speaks Japanese, and so figured it out while we’d all been at orientation), happened to be in Tokyo for a festival with a coworker and the coworker’s friend, and invited me to come down for the evening.  So, I managed to access train schedules (just barely with the internet connection there), screen shotted them, and set up a rescue plan, should things not work out (i.e. I knew 7/11 had internet, so I’d go find any 7/11, and the friend would come find me there), before rushing off to Tokyo.
I walked right into my friend when I arrived in Tokyo, and was given a nice, big hug.  Hugs are really one of the best medicines.  We watched the tail end of the festival (very cool with dancing performances and drums and bells all along this long street), and then all went to dinner.  Turns out I only live a town over from the coworker’s friend, and she and I decided to be friends.  (We’ve been in touch ever since.)
………………………………………………..
Post-a-day 2018

Pastries

It wasn’t until I had lived in France for a few months that I found out about the secret bags of pastries.

You see, normally, I would have one to three pastries a week.  That was all that I could afford reasonably, really.  And fresh pastries in France are kind of the bomb dot com.  Period.  Sometimes, during the morning break in class, my classmates and I would walk to the bakery the next street over, and all have a pastry and coffee together.  It was fun and always delicious.  And, compared to the US, the prices were fabulous.  However, there was still a limit – we couldn’t really do it every day on our college student budgets.

But, my life was somewhat transformed when one of the girls in my program told me how she always got her pastries.  D- found a way to try them all on a budget.  She said, ‘Yeah, you just look for these bags up on top of the counter, in a basket, and they’re filled with whatever didn’t sell yesterday.  So, it’s different every day.’

After several days, if not even a couple weeks, of psyching myself up, I finally went to the bakery she’d mentioned, to find these secret bags.  And there they were, crammed full of various pastries, and they were only a few euros.  I think it was that very first time that, even though I totally knew what the bag up on top of the pastry case was, I asked casually to the pastry chef what it was.  He explained it all to me, and how they didn’t want to waste anything, so they bagged it up and sold it cheap the next morning.  I semi-feigned surprise at what he told me, but I was also genuinely surprised that D- had been right and it really was a real thing.  For the price of one or two fresh pastries, I could get a whole bag of ones made only yesterday, and of all different types.  No, if you grow up on fresh French pastries, they aren’t nearly too delicious.  However, we didn’t grow up on fresh French pastries – we delighted in even the day-old pastries like it was some of the best stuff we’d ever eaten.  (And it totally was.)

Plus, if someone had given me a bag of pastries anyway, I probably wouldn’t have eaten them all at once.  It would have taken me most of the day to get through them comfortably, and I’d probably even save something for breakfast the next day.  So, for a huge fraction of the price, we got to do just that.

Usually, I’d share a bag with others, so we all got to try the different pastries.  But I got my own a few times, for sure.

So anyway, if you go to France for vacation or whatever, ask the bakeries in the morning if they have bags of yesterday’s leftovers.  I think there’s even a specific term for it, but my brain is not producing it right now, if there is one… I totally used it, whatever it was, though, word or phrase or whatever… I loved trying out all the different pastries.  However, despite trying so many different pastries, I still almost exclusively get a chocolatine (pain au chocolat everywhere but the southwest), a croissant, and/or a baguette (though those guys aren’t pastries, they are still one of my favorite foods ever).  But whatever.  I got to test out all the stuff and see that I enjoyed it all, as well as discover that I really just love the simple stuff best.  (It’s like a cliché about life or something, but it’s just how I feel about French pastries.)

Post-a-day 2018

 

::Sigh…

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t just be better to get a high-paying job in an office, and start saving up.  Then, after a couple or few years, start the process for adoption.  The only work so far that I have loved doing, without almost any question ever, is doing things with other people’s kids (nannying).  Maybe having a somewhat terrible corporate job in suits is worth it for having a kid…

I just don’t see myself happy each morning and each bedtime in a job like that, and that means bad sleep each night and a tough start to the day each morning.

I don’t know… sometimes I get depressive, and then desperate, and start calculating what ‘makes sense’ for life, as opposed to ‘listening to my heart’.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve even asked my heart what I/it want/wants to do with my life and time…

Now is as good a time as ever, I suppose.  🙂

 

P.S.  I’ve noticed that, whenever I get upset in the depressed, my life is going nowhere experience, I have an almost panicked desire to move to Europe, and it is most often France.  It’s not like I have any idea whatsoever what I would do there, or how that would solve any of my current issues.  Plus, it would create the issue of being away from almost everyone I know and love and who loves me, since most of them are in the US.  However, there’s just this feeling that arises that living in Europe somehow would just make everything okay, and in a good way (not just tolerable okay, but good okay).  Anyway, just something I noticed tonight.

Post-a-day 2018

that 1%…

Have you ever had strongly disagreeing viewpoints with someone close to you, on a topic of great importance?  I have, and I currently still do…

You see, someone rather close to me – let’s call her Carol – has a completely different view on money than I have, and in a way that we disagree on how to go about certain things.  To her, people with money almost have a responsibility to give money to people who don’t have money.  Now, I don’t mean in the sense of homeless people, or people who do nothing with their lives.  She believes that people who work hard and who are smart just kind of deserve money, no matter what careers or jobs they have.  For me, for example, I’m kind of a high school teacher.  That maxes out my salary at around, say, $60,000 per year for a lifetime in the career.  Most of my acquaintances began their first jobs post-college making at least $50,000, and have gone up from there – they will surpass my lifetime maximum within ten years at most in their jobs.

These are the situations in which Carol believes that the money-making acquaintances have an almost-obligation to give money to people like me, – or at least to do things that cost money for people like me – since we have no chance of ever affording it ourselves, through no direct fault of our own, per se.

And this is a point on which we disagree entirely.  While I certainly appreciate when people do things like that for me, – and I know that I would do things like that for people, if I had the money (for I already do with the little money I do have) – I do not believe that they have any obligation to me.  I regularly feel as though I am being encouraged to take inappropriate advantage of friends, family members, and acquaintances, because we so much disagree on this.  For me, it is not seizing the opportunity, but strangling out every penny someone could possibly give to me.

I did, to a certain degree, select this work.  (I avoided it for a while, because I hated the idea of the salary, I really did.  And yet, here I am, anyway, teaching.  Nothing else has ever piqued my interest.  Though, I’ve had lost no experience in anything else real, really.)  But Carol believes that people need to give me their money, give me their airline miles and hotel points and all the other benefits – not so much that they themselves suffer the loss, of course, but just so that I get to benefit alongside them – that their high-salary jobs afford them.

And, while I would love to find a partner in life who’ll provide loads and loads of money for our lives, – let’s be real: I’ll probably give most of my share away – that is the only person I would expect to provide me with money or benefits of any kind.  And not because I’m lazy, but because there is something valuable for me to do, that we both see as valuable, but that is not up there on the high-salary scale.  No one else even comes close to being expected to share anything but a little time with me.  That’s why I have the friends, anyway, is to spend time together.  Not to take their money.

 

I feel like I’m not saying any of this very well, and that I definitely am not making a worthwhile point… I’m just exhausted tonight.  Today has been unique and somewhat terrible, as some days do turn out in life… I look forward to the balancing of the scale for today soon.

Post-a-day 2018

A different kind of Christmas gift-giving, I suppose

I’m not sure when or exactly how I stopped the regular giving of Christmas presents, but it feels like it has been a long and slow progression from standard present-giving to no present-giving at all.  This is not to say that I do not give love to my loved ones – I certainly do.  It is just that I give my love in the form of concern, interest, and time.  I plan out things for us to do together, and I get us to go do them together.  I find a way to get myself halfway across the country to be with the family members who have been on their own in recent years, missing the family.  And I make things like this seem like they are only natural, and why would anyone not do such a thing.  Not as a way to show off or anything, of course, but because they are just so easy to me.  Kind of like the ends justifying the effort, and therefore making the effort almost no strain at all.

And so far as giving physical presents are concerned, I do still give those from time to time in life.  However, I give them, because there I something I want to give to someone, there is something I want to do for someone.  It usually is not tied to any particular holiday or day.  It is tied merely to the fact that I care about the person, and there is something I want to give to him/her.  I re-made an acquaintance a few years ago, and, after only two meet-ups and discussions, I left a present at the person’s front door in secret.  It was a book I felt sure this person would love, and that I wanted this person to be able to experience, after our discussions together.  (Turns out that it was a total hit.) I’m not sure we ever saw one another again, due to various circumstances, but that was okay.  That is life sometimes.  The point was that I gave the present freely and genuinely, and expected and wished for nothing in return.  My only hope was that the book be enjoyed, and it was.

For me, that kind of thing is normal.  I give, because I want to give, and there usually is a something specific that I want to give.  At Christmas, I used to feel a need to give to everyone I know.  And I would be almost frustrated at being unable to do such a thing.  I guess this is how that situation has evolved over recent years, with last year, alone in Japan and with very little income, being a rather large factor in how Christmas looks this year for me.  When I accepted that it really wouldn’t work to do most anything physical for people, I suddenly noticed how I didn’t really like the whole situation in the first place.

It’s like how I made strong efforts to figure out what kind of scarf a friend of mine would use, and made one for him for Christmas.  And he gave me some socks from home, that were socks for a type of shoe that I never even wear, and were a color that I definitely don’t even own (and on purpose).  We definitely discussed this all after the fact, and even laughed about it.  We just had totally different attitudes toward the gift-giving.  I had thought about giving him a good scarf a long time before Christmas.  Due to my laziness mostly, I believe, I didn’t end up making it until the week before Christmas, using Christmas as my back-up plan for giving him the scarf (kind of a no later than this date thing for giving him the scarf, because i might never do it otherwise).  But I had found out material and color and style and everything that would be appropriate and most helpful for his scarf.  He, on the other hand, had wanted to give me a Christmas present, and so looked for something that would be suitable for a Christmas present between new friends.  His gift was totally appropriate for such standards.  Quite frankly, though, spending time together would have been much more valuable to and appreciated by me than a pair of socks that have nothing to do with me.  Plus, it’s a better way of life, being less wasteful with our resources.  😛

Anyway, this all just has to do with the fact that I don’t like doing the mandatory or obligatory presents for holidays, and might even dislike it.  Yes, I like that it gives a specific opportunity to consider something special to give to another.  No, I don’t like how often we give/receive things no one seems to want or to find useful in life in our society right now.  And so I have let go of participating in it.  I think my dad’s side of the family will struggle for at least a few more years with the idea, still wondering why they should give to me, if I am not giving to them – hint: I have told them that I do not need anything given to me for Christmas or my birthday, but, if they desperately want to give me something, they can give me a pony.  I think a pony is the only thing for which I have asked for my birthday since I was around 13 or 14.  Not that I expect one, by any means, but it would be spectacular to have a pony given to me for my birthday.  Otherwise, there’s nothing that comes to mind without feeling wasteful in the world.

It kind of takes away a bit of the feeling of Christmas, not exchanging presents with everyone.  However, I currently am happy without the presents – all I ever really want is time together with the ones I love.  The presents are almost upsetting to me, considering my background with stuff and feeling incredibly wasteful if I ever get rid of anything.  I usually prefer receiving nothing, so I don’t have to feel bad at either not using it or at wanting to give it away or throw it away, when its time has really come to an end.

Post-a-day 2017

Family times

Good family is like good friends… so far as I described good friends before, anyway.  I have good family.

When we are together, there can be silence, if so desired, but there is never want for something to discuss.  There are no awkward pauses.  The space is open for discussion of just about anything we’d want.  At the end of an evening together with my family, if someone were to ask what we discussed, my answer likely would be something to the effect of, ‘Uuh… I have no idea… all sorts of anything?’

Yes, my memory is quite functional, and I could sit down and figure out almost every topic discussed and most comments said throughout the evening.  However, that isn’t what someone would be wanting to have happen with such a question.  ‘Oh, we talked politics,’ or ‘The stock market and country clubs, mostly,’ are examples of family conversations I hear regarding the families of acquaintances.  Not my family.  We might have a brief chat on politics, but it is equally likely that we will discuss dog breeds, logical fallacies, and farts.  And it never will be just one, but many topics of discussion, and usually knowledgeable discussions, too.

Whenever I leave time with my good family, I feel very conversationally and informationally satisfied.  It is always a good, loving, and fulfilling social interaction.  Yes, I have good family.  And I am grateful for them all.

Post-a-day 2017

Asian-English teatime with the bff sister

This evening, by a wonderful unfolding of events, I ended up having tea with my best friend’s little sister.  As my best friend’s little sister, she holds a sweet spot in my heart.  What’s more, the fact that she’s the first person I’ve seen go from little kid, singing nursery-rhyme-type songs, to a mature young adult (and soon full-blown adult), makes that spot even sweeter.

As we sat in the tapioca teahouse, drinking our warm (Taiwanese style, I think – at least, that’s what a friend of mine saw constantly while in Taiwan, and which we haven’t seen much elsewhere) bubble tea, our attention somehow turned to the menu on the wall.  Naturally, we hadn’t thought anything special of it when we actually were looking at the menu to order earlier on, but it was suddenly relevant to our conversation, so our attention turned to it.  She is studying Mandarin this year (since August), and I’ve just moved here from Japan.  So, we have some common ground on understanding Chinese characters.  (For those who don’t know, Japanese kind of stole the characters from Chinese, and adapted them a bit, so loads of them look exactly or almost exactly the same and have the same or very similar meanings.)

We joyfully pointed out that “ice” was on the end of each name in the ‘Snowy Drink’ category, and that “little” was next to one other character on the “Snacks” sections – likely ‘little meal’ or ‘little food’.  Something like that.  And then we discussed how we were scouring the menu, picking out little pieces that we understood.  It was like a fun little puzzle that we were putting together, piece by piece… one that we know will take months, even years, but the timing of which doesn’t seem to bother us in the slightest.  We’re just excited that we’re able to make the little sense of it all that we already can.  And we aren’t even using the same language to do it, technically, making it simultaneously that much sillier and that much more awesome.

So, we got to enjoy one another’s company and be nerdy language-lovers together, while sipping warm asian versions of English tea (Earl Grey) on a cold, cold night (for Houston, anyway).  Blessings abound when open our minds and schedules to them, it seems.  And I am grateful for this one in particular.  🙂

Post-a-day 2017