#kcstrifediary

I started watching Mary Poppins (1964) and it led me to watch My Fair Lady (1964), Roman Holiday (1953), and Gone With The Wind (1939).

Something about these movies was just timeless and peaceful. I truly enjoy watching them and the beauty it holds. The cinematography, the language, and the story. They're all so beautiful.

In a way, it reminds me of the time that I never got to live.

Or the time where my Grandma would watch the same classics. It connects me to her.

I feel like I can’t keep up with everything and my life keep increasing its pace. I feel like I'm seeing my life go pass by me, like someone put it on timelapse and I just need time to breath and take it all in.

I don't think I ever got to acknowledge or at least absorb everything that has been going on in my life.

A lot of times, I still can't believe that I am now married, have a pet shiba, lived in Japan, and now has immigrated in America.

If someone will tell me all of this will happen 5 years ago, I will absolutely laugh and would not believe any of this.

It's funny, it's wonderful, it's unbelievable but it truly is my reality.

And amidst all of this wonderful things, I still feel pressured. I want to earn more money so we'll never have to worry about it. For the kids we're planning to have. So I can spoil myself and my family and friends.

It's weird feeling accomplished but not just quite.

But I think that's also unfair. I should be celebrating small victories. That perhaps, despite not exactly feeling like it, I am where I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I was born in a city where roads can both be impressive and dreadful in construction. I was born where cruelty and greed prevails, but I’ve seen them here too. I saw people live a life that was strange in many ways, but also much the same as anywhere else.

While Japan will always, I think, feel foreign to me, places where I lived here like Misawa and Morioka have been my home. This is where I was able to freely construct my own identity and learn things on my own, things I like and don’t like not only about food, people, seasons, but most importantly, about myself. 

I thought to myself, there is truly a beauty in being surrounded by the foreign-seeing things from a new perspective, with new eyes. Things I used to watch in anime and J-dramas, phrases and music I used to hear from a screen but now get to live with every day.

It was a very ordinary day, the day I realized that I don't have to do anything but trust the process, trust my story and enjoy the journey. It doesn't really matter who I've become by the finish line, the important things are the changes from this morning to when I fall asleep again, and how they happened, and who they happened with. An hour watching the stars or two hours of a dumb movie; a coffee in the morning with someone beautiful and funny; deep and intelligent conversations at 5am while sharing the last cigar. Taking trains to nowhere, walking hand in hand through foreign cities with someone you love. Skylines and mountain view. Contrasts and similarities.   It was all very ordinary until I found my identity appeared. The day I saw the flowers and learned how to turn my daily struggles into the most extraordinary moments. Moments worth writing about. For so long I let my life slip through my fingers, like water. I'm holding on to it now, and I'm not letting go.

When I arrived in 2016 of October, I felt for the first time in years, a deep sadness of exile, knowing that I was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be able to participate.

My 4 years in Japan truly was an amazing experience. I could not be anymore proud of myself and I think I should just take the time to acknowledge that. It was not easy but it was fun and it was worth it. All the people I met, the lessons I learned. All the heartaches I felt. It was all worth it. Even more so when I met the love of my life.

There is one way to understand another culture. Living it. Move into it, ask many questions and to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language. At some point, understanding may come. It will always be wordless. The moment you grasp what is foreign, you will lose the urge to explain it. To explain a phenomenon is to distance yourself from it. When I start talking about Japan, to myself or to others, I again start to lose what has never been truly mine.

Kristine C | クリステ-ィン.クラロ

盛岡. Morioka 10/11/2016

I had no idea the year 2019 will bring so much change but then again, I think we generally do not have any idea where life takes us.

For a number of instance,

I came to Japan in Oct 2016 and planned on staying for a year to save up money for Germany. But that didn’t happen. Here I am, going on 3 years in the land of the rising sun and it has been so satisfying to see myself grow and look back on how far I’ve come.

I’ve always thought my wonderful grandmother, who basically raised us and became both our mother and father figure, will be around by the time I get married but sadly, she passed away August 2017. I don’t think I will get over it but I’ve learned to live with it. I wish I had more time to show and tell her how much I love her and how much I appreciate every little thing she did for us.

I finally met someone amazing, almost too good to be true, and proved to be just that. I value honesty more than anything and I think I will forever try to recover from being lied to no matter how happy I am. 

This year, I have experienced losing a job and feeling completely lost on where to go. 

I am honestly going on through a lot and I don’t think I’ve had an actual time to just not be stressed out on anything.

I actually thought that 2017 would be different. I thought we could all just move on from the years of abandonment. You finally came home after all. We welcomed you with opened arms, our hearts, our home. We welcomed you back.

I thought, This is all still messed up but it’s okay, at least he’s back. 

When you reached out to me last year, in the midst of graduation practice and requirements of my final year in the University, I still met up with you. I was ready to march up and graduate with an empty seat for my father because that’s what happened in high school but there you are. I thought it was pretty crazy. For as long as I remember, you’ve been away about the same time as my age- 21. Turning 22 on 17th of June. And it was only in high school when the truth slapped me on the face- how it is not normal not to see your Dad in the span of 3-5 years or how he doesn’t come home at all, not just because he has years of contract to work but because he chose not to. That was pretty painful. I was a mess and I believe I still am, will always be because of this. My teenage years and the rest of my years growing up until now as a young adult has been painful, a struggle. I don’t know if you or if anyone who choose to abandon their family know how it affects the people left behind.

You have no idea how it just changes them. For good. For the rest of their life.

And funny thing is when we did meet at that time after all those years, you confided in me. And I appreciate that you do and you were honest and all but I also still don’t know how you thought telling me, your daughter, all about your affair, antics, and how you asked me for a relationship advice is a logical thing to do. It felt like I was in a drama series but this time, it’s REAL. I am giving my estranged Dad relationship advice and listening to him with all the other fucked up situation. And you know what fucked me up even more is that you actually even admitted it, said it out right there, “The amount of money and time I should be spending with you and the family, were spent with....”. Do you even know heartbreaking that is? How it changes me, the moment you told me? How it will never go away? You scarred me, you scarred our family. For good.

How foolish of me to actually thought that photo in your wallet was my graduation picture but instead, it was..... crazy. Fucked up thing.

 And after all of those, I am still left with so many questions in mind. 

But really, I’m just so tired of dealing with this. Every. Fucking. Year.

I’m so tired of dealing with our family problem. It feels like it never ends.

Tired of replying the same damn thing when asked what’s wrong with me. Tired of how I keep on tracing it back to you on why I can’t deal with my emotions, how I keep finding a way to reason out my fucked up decisions in life, how I keep on having emotional breakdowns. Or how I treat other people, how I can’t trust them, how I keep on thinking everyone would leave me the way you do, how I don’t deserve happiness because you already took that away from me or even when I do actually feel happy for accomplished, there’s this little voice saying “your Dad didn’t love you enough to stay so you’ll never be truly happy.” So as crazy this sounds, this is the reality for me: My father is actually the first guy to ever make my heart break and I don’t think any guy or person could ever compete with that amount of pain so sorry if  I am fucked up. 

I’m tired of not being able to even call our house a home anymore, it doesn’t feel like one. I’m tired of this “daddy issues”. I’m tired of physically feeling my heart ache as Mom’s break, to watch her try not to fall apart in front of us or when she goes to sleep. And that I can’t do anything about it because only you can. We all know she will always love you and will always welcome you back no matter what.

To listen to my older brother on how he’s just so fed up and to try to control himself not to punch you in the face. Or to completely turn his back on you.

To watch my younger brother grow up not having any memories of you and him bonding and with a tinge of hatred for this world because of you.

And yet you see, we turned out pretty great even without you. Sure we have our own emotional and mental issues to deal with, but both my brother and I got our bachelor’s degree and have been working for some reputable company, my younger brother’s part of his school basketball team, more likely as a distraction from our fucked up life but that’s something. We’re something despite your absence.

But I think the saddest part is that you remain estranged to us no matter how we try to reach out to you, or when you did reach out, we don’t know how to keep you. But we should’t even be trying to keep you from leaving, you’re supposed to stay. You will always be our father no matter how you try to escape to that responsibility.

When people die, they stay gone. When people leave or decide not to be together, they stay out. When they decide to stay, they do or come back home. Why can’t you decide which one? This is years of constant state of turmoil and confusion and I want this to stop once and for all, for our family. I want this to be over. It’s either you’re in or out of our life, either you stay or you stay out. You can’t always keep on playing with our hearts just because you know you can. I don’t want to keep on dealing with this all my life. I don’t want to open my heart and find it left behind. I don’t want to keep on watching our family to fall apart, over and over again. 

Make your goddamn freakin mind because this is goddamn freakin fucked up and I want to be goddamn freakin done with it.

Here’s to my estranged father and how I wish he finally makes up his mind because if he doesn’t, soon enough we’ll be making it our own and I don’t think it would ever be the same or if anyone could ever open our hearts again.

Here’s to all the pain this has caused me and my family.