지나가더군요

When I say I miss Japan, I confess that I don’t mean that all my missing is limited to the country itself; a good part of it is that I miss backpacking. I miss hopping cities, not being in one place longer than I want/need, clocking long hours on trains, reading, writing, napping, thinking.  I miss basically limiting my current worldly possessions to what can be carried in a backpack, and I miss the constant readjusting to a new city, a new place, a new corner of the world.  It’s incredibly liberating, I felt, and my brain spun in ways it didn’t before, in ways it hasn’t since then.

It sounds so nauseatingly romantic when put into words, but it’s true.  I learned a lot about myself whilst backpacking through Japan, and I’m so glad I did it and that I did it alone.  And I’d do it again in a heartbeat — will do it again, let’s say instead because there’s more determination in that.

Japan feels like a lifetime ago, though, and, sometimes, I wonder to myself if I really did it, if I really took off with a backpack and moseyed around a foreign country alone, because it feels so long ago.  I know I keep sighing over it, but, goddamn, I miss Japan, and I miss being rootless and in constant motion, and, goddamn, I hate the waiting game because it all feels so passive, because there isn’t much more I can do right now except wait for my manuscripts to make it through the submission process and work on the next manuscript to send out and try not to let the anxiety continue to sneak up on me at the most unexpected/inconvenient times (i.e. in lecture) and niggle away at me!

(I’m really not one to be anxiety-/stress-prone.  Honestly.  It’s been a source of concern for my parents since I was an undergrad, but this means more to me than anything else, so, well, the anxiety was going to be part of it.)