#TOTW1 The ideal place at my 20s

I woke up at 4:30PM in Amtrak passing through the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert, my first thought looking at the vast of the Marfa Plateau was that I got lost in the first day of my life in the United States.

I grew up in Tokyo and time is a tool to be efficient to live. My travel itinerary said the travel duration between El Paso to Alpine is 3.5 hours, and I quickly learned the time is a tool to be reasonable in this country. I was already exhausted from 24 hours travel from Tokyo to El Paso, and a 3.5 hours train ride was somewhat comfortable. However, I slept 4+ hours….Staring at the view stretching out to the edge of the horizon in the Chuhuahuan Desert, what a magnificent view… Tokyo has no horizon but you see cherry blossom trees standing the concrete jungles, did simply scare me. I barely understood English but the lady sitting next to me realized my worrisome facial expression and asked me “where are you heading?”. I told her “Alpine”. And she told me that “Don’t worry, next station”. What a release moment…She is a kind lady…bought me a sandwich and cranberry juice. It was 14 years ago.

Started living in a small town with 2,000 people + students was a different life style from Tokyo with 9 million people. Long story short, I made a tremendous number of friends there, I thought that city life gives me more opportunities to make friends but I felt alone. Probably because of my age too, it was easier for me to feel loneliness. Living in a small town discriminated my activities, I felt my life became much simpler and was able to focus on my doings, especially study. The focus gravitated many people. The focus gave me more opportunities to talk and work with different types of people. Tokyo gave me opportunities to learn many things culturally but I don’t think I was able to practically apply my learning to output. I was just satisfied with my input but did not realize that output attracts people much more. Now, I am much better to connect people. I really appreciate that my 7 years in Alpine taught me this. I miss people there and loved the nature.