stress – Page 125 – hannah ananas

City Surprises

Making my way through the nonsense that is the Shibuya Crossing on a holiday afternoon, I am feeling almost desperate to be on a train home. There are just so many people in my way, with no respect for my desire to be not here. Not that I actually expect them to know I want not to be here – I am merely noting their ignorance to the matter. I am almost to the station, when a small but clear opening appears right ahead of me in the shuffling crowd.

I hardly have to think – in fact, I think I know what it is without thinking – to recognize the colorful lettering on the page of that folded-open notebook being held just above people’s heads.

FREE HUGS

I hesitate a moment, verifying that the holder of the sign is respectable/huggable. Despite my being in Japan, I accept that this young Japanese guy is holding the sign, and trust that he knows what it means. Perhaps especially because I am in Japan, actually.

He’s young and Japanese, and he looks trustworthy. I throw open my arms, and instantly see his face light up, as he says an adorable “Sahn kyuu!” (How the average Japanese pronunciation goes for ‘Thank you.’) We embrace, and it is solid and long and wonderfully perfect. I return the verbal thanks, with emphasis on thanking him for the hug (as opposed to his thanking my willingness or whatever on my end), give a gloriously contended smile, and go on my merry way the last few yards to the station.

I savor the experience, and especially the loving hug, as I wander goofily through the crowds up to the tracks. Thank you, God. You gave me just what I needed in order to feel I was heading the right way just now. I am in the right place right now, and it is perfect. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2017

While everything is perfect

In this book I’m currently reading – okay, it’s an audiobook, and I’m listening to it, but you get the point – was a comment by the narrating character that rather struck me the other day. She was talking about some date she’d had (or something like a date, anyway), and, though it seemed there was potential for another activity of some sort next, she had decided to leave. She said, “I wanted to leave while everything was perfect.”

At first, I felt as though she was simply setting herself up for missing out by not going and for delusion by thinking that dates (or more of whatever it was) needed to be always perfect. And then I considered my immediate responses, and discovered that I disagreed with both of them.

When I really began to consider her comment, it gave way to what felt like brilliance. Yesterday, I was at a goodbye beach party. There had been an option to rsvp for an overnight stay after the official party, and I had initially declined this option. I wanted to sleep in my own bed, and several other factors helped me pick that easily. However, once at the party, I found that I didn’t want to leave so soon. I began exploring the logistics of staying the night, and found that there was possibility of enough space for my joining the party.

As I recalled my book’s character’s words, however, I began to think in a different manner. Yes, I am loving spending time with everyone right now. If I left now, I would be leaving while everything is perfect. If I stay the night, what will happen? And I instantly saw the probable, almost certain future of the situation. I would stay, thinking I’d have enough energy to manage the night, and then eventually would hit a wall, want to sleep, not be able to get to sleep because of the partying people, get annoyed at the overly drunk partiers, and have a miserable end to the party. Whom was I kidding here? I would rather leave while everything is perfect, than stay until I’m furiously agitated and starting to hate the people I was currently loving.

And so I left a short while later, had a wonderful time riding home-ish (same train, different stops) with the group of girls who were leaving at that time, chatting and joking and having an overall wonderful time together (as I already mentioned).

And the party as a whole ended perfectly for me. It was just plain cool to have had the party go so well.
Tonight, after another beach day with a different friend, we had planned to go to this awesome salsa party, with this Grammy-winning DJ and various salsa performances and live music for social dancing – it’s a big deal party celebrating the anniversary of some club, essentially. And it was only like 20 bucks to attend, which is way cheap for such a thing here in Tokyo.

When we arrived back to my friend’s place, and I had showered from the beach, I began to consider that line again. Could I “leave” while everything is perfect? Could I just go to bed now and not go, and be happy with that? The answer was a resounding “Yes.” I had been exhausted all day already, and am far behind on sleep for this past week – I want sleep. I love dancing, and I love cool opportunities like this, especially to attend with friends. And the risk was incredibly high that I would grow to exhausted, smoking would be too intense for me in the club, music would be too loud for my already existent headache, and I would be crying (possibly literally) to go home and drink a bunch of cool water and just go to sleep.

So, I stayed home, and it was perfect. Now, I am off to some much-needed and much-wanted sleep. Goodnight, World. I’ll see you when my head feels great again in the late AM.

Long story-ish short: I think it is a very valuable phrase, “I wanted to leave while everything was perfect.”

Post-a-day 2017

The Body Talks

Let’s talk about sex, baby.

Well, sort of… That’s what my body kept saying to me today.

Today was a day in which my body felt like it was in a state of panic. In a way, it was in a state of panic (or bordering on panic, anyway). To my body, this panic was expressed as a painful desire, né need to procreate.

“Hannah, I need to reproduce – it is what I am designed so well to do, and I’ve waited so long already… let me go!!”

Sigh.

Such was the sort of conversation my body and I had today. It complained and begged and reasoned, and I sighed and just accepted the complaints.

Now, the kicker to all of this is that I am almost entirely comfortable and at ease now (despite being quite sleepy). Why is that? The same reason (-ish) that my body has been panicky lately – I need physical contact in my life. Good, real, physical contact, corporal contact, person-to-person skin-to-skin touch is an absolute necessity for me.

And living in Japan has given me almost none of that. It has quite truly driven my body into a state of panic, in fact.

How did I go from freak-out to calm? I hung out with friends and went dancing with them. In this time, I leaned on them, they leaned on me, we rubbed backs, hugged (the real kind), held hands, stood with our arms draped on one another’s shoulders or around the waist or hips, touched this or that spot on someone to get his/her attention. In short, we had a nice amount of physical contact with one another. No, it was not anything compared to what I am accustomed to having back in the US, – we are So touchy-touchy in Texas, and especially at dance there – however it was tremendous when compared to my average day and week of zero physical contact here in Japan.

I went to a dance event in Korea just a couple weekends ago. I danced like crazy there, and I hugged people and had lots of physical contact with people who love me and whom I love. I think that going from a weekend jammed full of corporal contact and love, back to the solitude and non-touching life I have here right now, my body had a sort of shock. After having gone so many months with only a bit of physical contact here and there in a month, I was accustomed to it. But, after spending a weekend filled with physical contact, it has been difficult to go back to the zero-touching lifestyle.

And so my body cried for a while, until it at last had some loving physical contact this afternoon and tonight, at which point it is ready to take on this next week (until I head to the beach next weekend, at which point the physical contact occasions will resume).

So, instead of listening to the crybaby body make excuses about its evolution and its original design for existence, I just get myself some physical contact, some hugs and snuggles and such, and things work out beautifully.

Cheers to loving physical contact! ❤

Post-a-day 2017

my kind of friends

I miss having friends like myself. Life is just so much more exciting when they’re around.

Tonight, I found out that a friend was on his way home on the train. I knew his route, so far as trains were concerned, and his final station was a small one, with only one exit. So, even though we have plans to meet tomorrow evening, I thought I’d surprise him tonight. I got two different types of tea (green and milk), cold from the store, and headed to his station. Based on where he was when he had last mentioned to me that he was on his way home, I would be just in time to meet him, and I might possibly beat him by a good ten minutes to his station.

I was already on the first train he could have taken home, and he didn’t seem to be on that one. So, once I arrived to his station, I checked out the exit options – yes, there is only one – and then found a place to settle down and read on the platform.

Almost an hour later, I am on my way home, still carrying both teas. He didn’t show. I don’t know what happened, and I likely won’t ever know, because we don’t entirely speak the same language. And I think I really don’t mind so much that he didn’t show. It’s more just that the whole thing made me miss my especially close friends, the ones who would have known that I was waiting at the station for them, simply because I had asked where they were beforehand.

The thing is, I don’t do well with packing. I’m not sure what is in the way of it for me, but I almost always seem to resist packing. I so desperately want to get myself packed up, and like right now, right now. But I’ve been unsuccessful in doing that for the past three-ish weeks already.

The worst part of it this time is that it is stressing me out extremely, and I still can’t seem to get over whatever it is, and just pack. So instead, I get to be stressed and to think of all hear things I miss and of all the things that drive me nuts here.

That’s all I have to say about that right now.
Post-a-day 2017

A philosopher for the moment

Today, I did some fun things including showing up my friend at children’s games, but I don’t feel like sharing about that right now. I feel like being philosophical, ponderous… something like that. And yet, here I lie with almost no thoughts, no words in mind or even on their way. I am listening to the guitar upstairs, and what sounds like company sharing in the music for once (it is Saturday night, after all). I am somewhat worried about the next couple months, specifically regarding how they will unfold. I fear regrets, especially for after I have left this country, and am back living in my own. I fear my being wonderful and amazingly successful in my endeavors once I’m back there. I fear letting go of my endeavors in exchange for something safe. I fear not becoming myself, not being myself once I am back there in a seemingly unchanged world as an incredibly changed person. Someone told us to take a picture of ourselves before we begin this time in Japan. I had forgotten to do that before leaving home, but I took a picture in the elevator on my way down to our very first meeting on my first day of orientation here. I wonder what I will see different in my final photo as I say goodbye to this place. I know that the two people in the photos are similar, however, they are in no way the same. I loved and still do love who the former person was, and I do not want to become her again.

These are things that are sitting in my being right now. If you would have asked me before I wrote this, what I was thinking, I couldn’t have told you. But now, as I have written this, I can see clearly that this is what was resting in my mind, in my heart, in my bones and flesh and breath… in fact, somewhat restricting my breath…, and that that is why I do not care to share the joys of today, but feel myself to be of a philosophical persuasion at present. I could have lived with the greats right now.
Post-a-day 2017

Winter, Wait – Weight, Workout

Tonight, at the gym, I did a workout class that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. It was painfully hard, that class. And not necessarily because the workout is a difficult one. Yes, the workout was difficult and fast and rather nonstop. But the hardest part of it was how my usual self could have kept up with it.

Right now, I don’t even want to weigh myself, because I know I haven’t been gaining any muscles lately, and I have definitely gained a whole extra layer of fat throughout a good portion of my body. I have been through various weights, for sure, but I typically have a point which I never pass. I am almost certain that I am past that point now. I have never had the peeping of my belly be an issue before, because my belly has always looked nice. Even when it had extra weight to it, it was a nice, smooth, ladylike curve. It suggested a bit of plumpness to it, but still looked healthy. Today, when I raised my arms in a stretch at work, I was saddened by the sight. No longer do I have the cute belly peeping beneath the raised shirt. It isn’t terrible, of course, but cute and feminine are no longer ways to describe it.

So, in this workout class this evening, as I was in a tremendous physical and mental struggle, tears were brimming at one point. I initially thought to fight them off. But then I realized that that was exactly why I was here in the class – because this kind of thing is hard for me right now, and I want to deal with that. So, I let some tears have their say, and I put extra effort into what I was doing. I was lame and slow for a lot of it, I couldn’t even do one of the exercises (going to talk with the teacher about how it’s meant to be done, and see what stretching would help me best to do the exercise), and, by the end, my whole face was flushed and I could barely breathe or move. But I stuck it out. I even stayed for the relaxation yoga class afterward, even though I was exhausted (mentally, physically, and sleep-wise) and ready for bed.

I even talked with one of the girls afterward about my wanting to come more often to the gym, as well as my struggle to do so (being depressed really does suck). Today’s been a sort of up day for me, and I’m hoping to have a similar one tomorrow, so that I might start myself on a habit with going to the gym on days when I’m not already working just down the street from it.

Peace and Love, and Goodnight, folks. 😀

Post-a-day 2017

A dAy of Rest

Sometimes, it is really, really good to keep Sunday as a day of rest. I have often wondered how life might be if I truly stuck to the concept, but have never done it successfully. There was one stage during which I did a very good job at not doing any work on Sundays, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Sundays weren’t fully of activities and business and whatnot.

Today, however, I ended up having my Sunday as a true day of rest – I slept in, watched part of a movie when I finally woke up, and went back to sleep for a while, before finally getting up, getting just a bit of sun and fresh air, and then watching movies and crocheting and knitting off and on while watching them the rest of the day. And it somehow worked wonders for me. When life seemed beyond comprehension on the scale of stress last night and this morning, after today’s true rest, I am heading to bed at ease on so many levels.

I think I need to do this sort of Sunday more often for myself. Really. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Music creates life

You know, music really can make life feel worth living.

These past few weeks have been really odd for me, and this week, especially, has been quite filled (to partial explosion) with stress, and an odd kind at that. This afternoon, as I had still two hours to fill, after what had felt like a day’s worth of work and several hours of painful efforts to sleep, I put on my jacket and rushed out into the hallways to get myself moving around, and in hopes of finding something to help pass the time, preferably involving movement (thus my vague plan of aiming for the gymnasium).

The music students are currently preparing solos (with piano accompaniment), and so I came across one of my lovelies (the Bass player) rehearsing in the hallway/student entrance area (there’s a piano there) with her accompanist. They welcomed me joyfully, and so I watched and hopped around (it was filthy cold) with semi-frozen delight for a bit.

They finished after not quite ten minutes, and so I wandered on my way toward the gym again. As I was making the final turn, I was caught by a trumpet and a couple clarinets (which was fine by me). One of them had told me that she wants to play with me, but our scheduled time for today had to be canceled, because she had to go home after rehearsal. But she was here now, and practicing…, so she dragged me in and got me to play a bit (though not together, since we only had one trumpet).

Then, when I thought they were all leaving, they told me to come with them upstairs to what turned out to be a brief a capella singing rehearsal. They were sopranos, so I got to stand with them and learn the soprano part to a very pretty Japanese song. It was almost spooky how cool it sounded and felt to be in the group, making such beautiful music.

Afterward, we established that one girl is crazy, and I declared my similar mental state. She and I, and others off and on, proceeded to dance around to the music of others rehearsing… we high fived as I was about to leave, as a sign of joint craziness and joy, and I said my goodbyes to the room, with lots of love in reply. I truly felt myself at home with this goofy group of musicians.

As I rushed out the door, and put back on my shoes, a flautist was in the hallway, next to my shoes. He excused himself, and I said, “Play!” Instantly, and with a smile and an “Okay,” he played part of his solo piece for me. It was beautiful.

And it was standing there in that freeing hallway, listening to this boy play flute, that the thought crossed my mind, unbitten, “Music really can make life worth living.”

As I have struggled with life lately, – and no, I don’t mean in the sense of giving up on life as a whole, but just on giving up on this part of life, living here and doing this job and all of that – what has gotten me through every time has been music. Sometimes it has been live music from these kids at school, or from the guitar I got as an early Christmas present last week. Sometimes it has been from Spotify or my music collection. And sometimes even just a single song that a friend sent me from YouTube.

Whatever the case, the source of my survival, my strength, my belief that this life is worth continuing and working at, despite its near-overwhelming hardships, has been music. I finally understand a bit what a friend of mine meant, when she said she felt like she had died, when she lost her hearing and, thereby, music. When I don’t have the music, I just get used to the solemn melancholy, the deafening silence of a lifestyle I don’t love – I grow accustomed to not living, and I despise the existence (but that all just becomes the norm). And when I do have the music, I am excited for today, for right now, and for what tomorrow might bring – I feel the life inside me and all around me, and I yearn to spread myself around and live to the fullest.

Music really does give life and make life worth living, even when it feels like you have nothing else for you.

I'm part of Post A Day 2016

Stress made me write

Today was so stressful, I considered balling up on the floor of the shower, and not going back into real life… for a while, anyway. Instead, I cried for a minute, was struck by inspiration, and stood up and showered.

When I was all dried off, and had irrigated my ears, I sat down and started writing my book. 🙂 From one terrifying thing to the next!

Peace 😀

I'm part of Post A Day 2016