Transitionary periods and fear triggers

We had our JET interviews a couple of weeks ago, an experience that by all accounts should have been so traumatic that I did not write about it for two subsequent weeks, but instead seemed to go surprisingly well to the point that I don’t care to think about the whole thing for fear I will jinx it solely with the power of my mind.

I will not find out if I am moving to Japan until some day between April 3rd and April 10th, a timespan so far away that they’d have been as accurate to tell me I’d find out "when the fuck ever."  The entire process has been something equivalent to what I have heard people refer to as a Living Hell, not physically but psychologically at least, and I struggle daily with the fact that for all intents and purposes, my future literally depends on an e-mail (as so many things do these days).

I am a shambles of a man, and that’s why I’m not thinking about it!  Instead I am preoccupying myself with a video game called Final Fantasy Eleven.  It is played solely online and is the most complicated game I have ever played (it is likely I have played more of them than you even are aware exist; not proud of it, just saying).  It destroys chunks of time Most Efficiently, which happens to be precisely what I’m looking for at this time in my life!  This time of year has also brought me Street Fighter Four, which is another iteration of the game I have been playing since 1992, updated to look nice on new televisions, and connected to the Internet so I can kick total strangers in the crotch.  More video games: a "flash card" for my Nintendo DS that allows me to copy games to an 8GB MicroSDHC card for maximum travel convenience.  I have all kinds of modern tools to distract myself!

Not that I’m under the ignorant impression it’s actually working.  I’ve gone from total enthusiastic confidence to abject despair thirty dozen times since the interview.  Every time I see a photograph of anything Japanese I now instinctively reel, scramble to shut it out like it is child pornography and Johnny Five-o is standing behind me.  I cannot entertain the idea that I might live in Japan for fear that it might not happen, and I cannot entertain the idea that it might not happen for fear that it might.  All paths lead to terror, bundles of nerves, worries.  I’m not even good enough at substance abuse to get ahold of any substances to abuse lately, which is perhaps for the best.

Sometimes in the shower I think about what it will be like to say goodbye, as used to it as I am.  Japan is a little further from Iowa than Pittsburgh is, though strangely Pittsburgh is further from Japan than Iowa is.  Part of me hopes that as with so much else this life just ebbs away.  I do not think my friends and accomplices will allow that to happen.  I think perhaps now moreso than what I am used to I am explicitly aware that some element of my life is about to get a little difficult, regardless of whether I succeed or fail at getting to Japan.  It’s pretty exciting, but only because I am familiar with the sounds of the lobby door to my apartment building, and the way my lock feels when I turn the key.