Addiction

I couldn't have imagined one week ago that I'd feel like I do today. To be able to discern whether my change is related to weather or work would be nice, but since they both changed simultaneously, the jury will not be back with a verdict. Every year, I get depressed in winter. Every year, it gets worse. This year was the worst yet by a significant margin, and it scares me. I wonder how deep the pool gets. But, as soon as the weather was warm, and by that I mean as soon as the second I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, literally everything in my view was improved. It was a "everything's going to be alright" feeling.

Yet, at the same this was occurring, I found myself with more to do, namely, work. I started last Monday as an elementary school teacher in five schools in Inazawa. I now have co-workers every day, probably three times the number of students, lessons to plan more than 30 minutes in advance and with so little structure for me to use that I feel in charge of guiding the course. My students are no longer in class with me once per month, but often once per week, and it's fun to play tag at recess with the little buggers (they're faster than you'd think (but sensei is still faster)), not to mention eat lunch and answer questions. Don't get me started on school lunches, as they are far better than I could have hoped, and far cheaper. I don't show up to work at a room, but rather, a complex. My classes are not 5 to 7 kids, but 36. In short, I feel I have a lot more responsibility, and as anyone who knows me well could have predicted, I react very well to this.

The above is not meant to hate on my previous job. But, it's nice to be awake with the morning air, and come home when it's still light. It's nice to feel less marginalized, even if I'm still that guy people avoid at the train station because I'm white. However, things in my life having improved, I still feel like much work has to be done before I will be satisfied. For a glimpse at the depression I was experiencing, I'll paste the following text in italics for comparison.

Nothing went right this morning. I awoke tired. Coffee didn't help. Those chopped tomatoes and avocado intended for breakfast ended up on the floor when my precariously-set cutting board tipped to the floor because my apartment literally has no kitchen counter. The cutting board landed on top of the mess, and the knife barely missed my bare foot. Everything I tried to pick up around my place got dropped or knocked something else over. I stepped outside to find it was cold. To my core, I am so emotionally sick of being cold. My spirits are so fragile, even a cold breeze is heartbreaking.

Depression turned to anger. I simply don't get angry when I'm depressed. This is new, but then again, I'm rarely depressed for this long. I stopped cleaning, and instead shoved everything out of my way; I thought maybe working out would help my mood, but I realized that I didn't have time for it. One more thing out of my control. For ten minutes, I sat on the cold floor, feeling pathetic and hopeless. Here and there I'd make remarks at the heater for being crap, and I wasn't quiet about it.

Mark sent me a message reminding me that we were meeting in Tsurumai Park for Hanami. Hanami is an annual spring event for getting a look at the cherry blossoms, eating food, singing (if inclined), and of course, drinking. Great. My mood hasn't been this bad in a very long time, and I'm supposed to spend the day in the cold with a bunch of soon-to-be drunks.

The day wasn't bad, and I was at points happy I went.

Now, I'm waiting for my train to depart back home. Lots of seats are taken, but the three around me are free. Yet, when people get on the train, they take every seat except one by the foreigner. And they make eye contact with me when they do. I am not stupid. One man even turned a seat around so that he could face away and in a crowded spot. The seats next to me were still open. I wonder if he understood me when I said, "Yea, fuck you, too." Racist bastards or unreasonably-paranoid pricks, but whichever, it's uncalled for.

If things don't start to improve, more drastic measures will be taken. I just don't care, and unlike other times when my mood could be attributed to being tired, I was this way when I woke up. Direction? Purpose? What are these? Friends? Who? Certainly these people are not within my physical reach. I may as well be soullessly awaiting my fate on a deserted island. In a way, I am.

In the midst of this most terrible funk, horribly articulated above for a lack of care, feeling hopeless and empty in profound and heart-pounding ways, I wrote the following note (also in italics).

I declare war.

Yesterday, I couldn't stop shivering. I'm convinced it wasn't entirely related to the cold weather on April 7th. I couldn't find my will to care about anything. I was convinced that I couldn't make it in Japan, that everyone was a shallow and hypocritical racist, that my move here was a mistake not worth the adventure, and that I was getting to be too old to be of interest to the opposite sex. Yet in the middle of it, I said aloud to myself, "This is one of your longest-running funks yet. You'd better dig out of it, and the sooner, the better."

I just got out of the shower. I'm tired, and have a lot of work to do in the next hour before I go to sleep. I don't know the best route to any of my schools, and many details about my job remain a mystery. I have no close friends here, and the tomatoes and avocado that slammed to the floor yesterday morning have yet to pick themselves up from when they fell amidst my carelessness.

Maybe my will is weak. Maybe I was right in my accusations and anger. Maybe I won't win, but lose miserably. Maybe I'll never find the right partner. Maybe my life is the most incoherent joke. Maybe. But, I must try.

Screw trying. I must do, for I will die. Think about that. Someday you'll be dead, too, and so you can approach it from two angles; either you're going to die, so why bother trying, or you're going to die, so you may as well kick it balls to the wall until that time.

You'd think I have addiction or something, and maybe I do. I think I'm addicted to Vitamin D.

QotD:
"Don't fight the problem, decide it."
-George C. Marshall

One of my two favorite quotes, today's quote sometimes confuses people. "Decide a problem? What the hell does that mean?" Well, first, I understand that I have a problem of some sort (small, large, whatever). It exists, and fighting it (denial, trying to make it go away, etc.) does not beget progress. However, accepting that there is a problem and then taking concrete action to deal with it, does indeed beget progress. The latter, therefore, is not fighting a problem, but deciding it.

HotD:
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