俺の声（言葉）を伝えたら、一人じゃない証拠だ。

実は今まで日記に書いたものを順番に貼っていない。最初から何も書いていなくてすみません。
今日書いていた事を心の底からすごく感じているから、貼ろうと思った。

夏休み　３日目　後４２日間

この３日間よく時間を使っていた。本当に日本語は俺の世界すべてである。日本語は俺のものだ。日本人だけ使えるものように英語は外国人だけ使えるものではない。毎日朝起きて２００例文書いたり言ったりしている。それに漢字は５１字書いて意味も読む。そうして小説、音楽、テレビなど味わっている。考える時日本だけ使うことにした。これは英語を使わないって言うゲームだ。俺の能力が上達することを感じている。これは大喜びなのだ。

だけど、この３日間、気分は上がったり下がったりしている。すごく嬉しい時があったら、一瞬間すごく落ち込むようになる。最近は不思議な時間に暮らしている。今までこの「気持ち」を感じていないからだ。その一所懸命目指すところへ進む気持ちなんだ。そうだ。ずっと前決めたんだ。一人で戦って他の外国人から離れて決めた。確かに今は「辛い」って言う時点であろう。しかし、過去のことを思い出したら、色々な「辛い」時間も遭った。

学校でいじめられて
両親の離婚
学校の勉強
日本に住むこと
２年間日本で付き合った彼女と別れ
好きな親戚が亡くなった
毎日酒を飲むこと
などなど

次々の「辛い」ことに遭った後、その前より自分自身強くなっている。うん、事実だ。俺は自分に厳しい。それは嘘ではない。だけど、そうしないといけない。少しさえ甘くすれば、絶対に何もしない人になるであろう。　進まない。

去年朝日新聞の天声人語に載った記事でいい言葉を習った。その言葉は「不撓不屈」である。強い意志でどんな大きい問題があっても、挫けない意味だ。この一年間忘れていたけど、疲れてストレスが多い俺はこの言葉を思い出してきた。それでこの言葉を俺の心に刻むことにした。俺の夢を叶う。誰でも邪魔させない。

ところでそれぞれの日記に書いたものは打つ前に紙に書いているんだ。俺はなんかすごいことをしていると思った。２・３年前だったら日本語で書くなんて思わない。漢字を書く練習の結果が表れてきたね。もっと書きたい。実は書くのが好きだ。俺の経験。俺の物語を書くことが好きだ。話すのは苦手だから書けば、簡単に気持ちを伝える。人は俺の日記を読んでくれたら、もっと好きなことも書きたい。

俺の声（言葉）を伝えたら、一人じゃない証拠だ。

それじゃ。

ぼーっとして不満不平のこと考え込んだ

信じられない。うまくいったんだ。自分から人に声かけたら会話を作ることが出来る。挨拶ーー＞　第２挨拶は完璧だ。僕はうまく出来たら、誰でもできるはずじゃん。

週末Ｎ1(日本語能力試験１級）向け聴解の教科書を買ってつけたＣＤを聞いた時、「あれ？なんかわかりやすい。仕事で先生たちの喋り方の方が早い。」と思った。

土曜日に他のＡＬＴ（外国から英語を教える先生）と新しい先生のためにパーティーがあった。楽しかったけど、なんか違和感も感じた。普段他の外国の先生に会う日は毎週水曜日でその日には英語研修会みたいな会議がある。色々な英語を教える方法を話し合う。それだけでいいと思う。仕事だから、でもこのパーティーに行ってこの人たちと絆を結んでいない気が付いた。言っていることを相手が関心を持っていなくて私が相手のことも関心を持っていなかった。

ま、それにしても楽しかった。みんなは酔ったし、僕は考えすぎるかな。　でも、パーティーの流れはちょっと分かりにくかったけどな。パーティーの時間が終わって二次会に進むと思った。３０分か一時間を経ってから、「なんでカラオケとか行かないかな。」と　結局パーティーから去った。つまらなくなったからだ。まだよく酔った僕は電車に乗って近くの都会みたいなところに行った。　そこに着いて一人でカラオケしたり、居酒屋でもっと飲んだりした。独り言ばかり言いながら、居酒屋の窓から外の歩いている人を見ていた。 ぼーっとして不満不平のこと考え込んだ。その時に新しいＡＬＴの顔を見た。ちょっと自分で笑って「へー嘘つきじゃないか。」　実はこの人は「ああ、あたしは疲れているわ。帰ります。じゃね。」と理由でパーティーから先に帰った。

帰りの電車に乗った時、やぱっり彼女もいたんだ。僕は気づいてないふりして寝た。電車から降りる前起きながら彼女は日本人二人話しているところだった。僕は手を振って近くに座った。話している日本人は学生だそうだ。彼女は大人生徒だけ教えているらしい。日本人は僕の方に見て英語ですらすら喋り始めた。まあ、僕のポリシーは日本人だったらそして授業の外にいたら僕は日本語だけで話す。無料な英語を教えたくないからだ。まだ酔っていたから、僕は喧嘩を売ってみた。「なんで日本人は閉鎖的だとか聞いた。二人質問を無視してアメリカについて質問を変わってた。ちょっと怒っていた。でも、何も言ってなかった。

最近、僕の日本語能力を認めてきたから（つまり、自信持っている）、ちょっと安心できる。と言ってもまだたくさん言えないことがある。もっと日本語で気持ちを伝えたり相手に関心を持っていたりする人になりたい。

目指したい何かを

週末すっごくだめだった。たくさん酒を飲んで悪いことをふけていた。意識を失った。それで日曜日に悲しみのあまりで父と電話で話した。僕の問題を聞いてくれた。

今日は二つクラスがあった。奇跡みたいだった。いつも５つか６つある。ときどき空き時間もないんだ。しかし、それは僕の責任だ。休みを取らないからだ。これから、休みを取ることにした。先生たちは気にされていないから、僕だけ助けるしかない。

最近、元気じゃないが普通だ。悪くない感じだけど、１００パーセントじゃない。昔の自分に戻りたいこともある。それはオタクのことだ。またオタクになるとしても金をかかるし、アニメにあんまり興味がないしなあ。どうすればいい。昔の僕に戻らない。今の僕は誰？ 今まで来たアイデンティティは変わってきた。
ただ何かをまた夢中したい。毎日酒を飲んで何もしていない事実なのだ。

目指したい何かを。

No level of anything

I’m not sure what I’m looking for.
No level of love.
No level of achievement.
No amount of friendships.
No amount of alcohol.
No matter how many times I masturbate.
It cannot shake the feelings I have.

Am I just an introvert? Just doomed to be alone?
I feel as if I’ve been committing sin after sin. I want to be forgiven by someone or something.
Is this why people turn towards a higher power?
Humans want something bigger than themselves.

Last night I just felt so out of it. Laying alone on my futon. Thinking about nothing in particular.
Sleeping and being awake.
I slept for about 12 hours.
I wonder if I’m going crazy as I spiral more and more into this darkness?
I had a strange dream where I met my grandmother who passed away in November.
Only to wake up from that to find it was a dream. I was talking with my mother about meeting grandmom.
Only to wake up again to find those both were dreams.

I always remember my dreams with great accuracy.
But it always makes me question what is reality?
Sometimes I’ll have dreams where it makes me question reality.

My weekend?

Do you honestly know what it’s like to not even mutter a word over the weekend? Only to speak that Monday morning at work.
“I have a voice?” I thought with surprise to myself.

I hate being home.
I want to do anything that gets me out of my apartment.
My cage.

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I’ve been busy lately but I want to take the time to write down the things that have been on my mind.

I feel like things have on the whole have returned to normal. Normal as in I don’t feel depressed. I’m not abusing anything. Getting things done on a daily basis. Just trying to live life. Things are balanced more or less. There are some things that I want to do more of. There are some things I want to do less of. But I’m not stressing over them too much. I’m changing for the better even if it is slightly each day.

My job has picked up. Well, it’s still the same grind every day, but I’m just tired of the dullness of everything. So, I try to be more random with students. Saying odd things to them that might put them off guard. For example, instead of saying good morning or hello when I see them. I might say good night or goodbye. In high school, I had a teacher like this actually. Doing this has helped in a few ways. Social conversation. Maybe it’s my imagination but it just seems like I am using Japanese more and fluently. Or at least trying to. Either due to my recent no care attitude or reading more books or maybe a mix of the two.

I feel even more confident about doing my job too. When I first started out teaching English, I was so inexperienced. I was afraid to talk in front of students. I was afraid to do almost anything by myself. Now, I just go in and do it. Especially when I teach my business classes. They are absolutely easy since I have a textbook and a teacher’s guide. All I have to do is just follow the guide for the most part. But it’s all just so easy. I don’t even know where I go during that time. It’s like my mind just goes white and then it’s over. I know how the lesson is going to go. I have it set out in my hand and I just do that. I would love to do more business classes if they had them available. But at this time of the year, they probably have them all filled.

At home I’ve stopped abusing beer, but now I drink whiskey. I’ve grown to like the stuff. My only experiences with whiskey was drinking some cheap Japanese whiskey when I was a college student here. Of course at that time we drank together to rant and vent our feelings regarding Japan. We drank to get drunk. But last weekend, I bought some Jack Daniel’s on a whim and just casually drank it with ice. I enjoyed it. So lately I’ve been drinking Japanese whiskey. But nothing that ever gets me all that drunk. I don’t even feel any sort of hangover. It’s strange. But it’s probably doing something to my sleep patterns. My face looks like hell. But anything is better than my side hurting, and having digestion problems because of beer.

Overall life is getting balanced. Working through my shit each day. I don’t need a relationship right now. I don’t even know if I ever want one. At any rate what’s most important is myself.

I’m going too far

My relationship with alcohol has always been a rocky one. My drinking patterns getting worse as I’ve aged and gained independence. Lately my relationship with it is starting to scare me. I’ve always been one who knows their limits. I’ve never blacked out or puked. I have puked maybe a totally of 3 or 4 times but it was privately and never at a social setting. But because of my high tolerance, frequency and habits, I am starting to worry about myself.

On Saturday, I drank a little too much and when I stood up I fell in front of me. All on the cans near me. My nose is a little sore, and I have a bruise on my upper lip, and a little cut near my right eye. Then when I thought I learned my lesson. I drank again on Monday. Too much too fast. I have a problem. If I’m treating alcohol like water where it just goes down so easily. I’m going to get burned. I was up most of the night just from the effects of drinking too much once again. I had shivers. I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to.

Things are getting out of hand. I really need to quit. Or stop for a while. I drink mostly out of loneliness. I’m here living in a foreign country. In the backwaters of no where. No one to talk to. No one to share things with. I need people. People I can talk to and share myself with them. I think I need that, but I need to take responsibility too. Just saying it out of loneliness is an excuse. That’s the trigger so now I need to find alternatives to fill in that time.

When I am drinking sometimes I might think to myself, “I don’t care if I die. I don’t care what happens to me.” But just how can I say those things to myself? I don’t feel like myself anymore. Even when I buy alcohol sometimes I feel like my own stomach is crying out. It knows what it will be going through again. I’m tired of being in my own skin. I want to change. I know I’m gradually killing myself. I want to break this habit.

I need to keep with this desire.

Everyday. Every hour. Every minute. Every second.

Hardly an adult

It’s funny how time just repeats itself. In the big picture and in the smaller picture of our own every day lives. It kind of makes one think, do we have any free will at all? Are we ever in control of anything? I sit here in the same type of position I was in last year and the year before that. Alone and having to pay a large fee for something. This time it’s towards a car accident. I wasn’t paying attention and crashed into the curb. At least no one else was involved.

I’m also wondering just what I want to do with myself. The years before this wasn’t such a big deal. I wasn’t feeling like how I feel now. I’m bored. I want something different to do. Something more. Some people want material things. Some people want money. Status. For me it’s self satisfaction. Achievement. I’m not achieving anything. I need to find goals to achieve in my every day life. Little things that will make me feel satisfied each day. I used to do this, but stopped keeping track because it just became like a daily routine.

I don’t want to be in this cold apartment after work anymore either. I’ve asked my company for extra work but haven’t heard anything back yet. I mean, if I’m not doing anything in particular. I might as well be making money instead. In the mean time, I usually go to the library close to where I work. I read or study Japanese. Anything is better than being home.

I’ve gotten so sick of the silence in my apartment. So I just keep the TV on as background noise lately. Some how it has given a slight warmth, and filled the void.

I really have no idea what I want for my future. I’ve pretty much given up on dating. Just tired of the effort. No one wants to meet me since I’m far away from the city. All the people signed up are in their 30s and 40s. I’m not interested. When I was still with my ex, she said that I am a herbivore man. Instead of going after women, I show no real interest in sex and would much rather just stick to friendships. (Although, unknown to her I was much more interested in wanting to meet more women when I was with her.) I’m more concerned about my own things and working on my own self development. I don’t like this label very much. Although, it is true I do show a strong lack of interest in sex. I like masturbation, but the thought of sex was never something that interested me growing up. It was either different kinds of fetishes or things that would lead up to sex that turned me on. But the physical act I could do without for some reason. It is something that doesn’t cross my mind.

Today was a holiday in Japan celebrating coming of age. I wonder if I will ever come of age? I am turning 28 in about 3 months, and I hardly feel like any sort of adult.

I don’t know where I am going with this. I think I’m going to go out and jog for a while to clear my head.

A new year awaits…

I have so many things on my mind with the start of this new year. The last 6 months of 2014 was a tough time emotionally, and many of the remnants of that still remain in my mind. Where am I going with myself? As I turn 28 this year, just what is my goal for life? I’m getting older. I don’t want to see any more of the people I love die. Do I ever want to get married? I’m alone. I don’t want to be alone. I want to move, but money and my job restrict me currently. I’ve gained all the weight that I spent so hard losing. I am treating myself like a garbage bin.

I feel like shit.

I am not a fan of new years resolutions because they never work. Instead, I prefer to write up a sort of mission statement for the year. An overall guide for what I am looking to accomplish. I pick one word that will sum up the overall theme as well. This year’s word I am thinking something along the lines of move. Move on emotionally. Move on into looking for a better place to live. Move on into a new job.

Many of my feelings come from the frustration of living in Japan. This country is lonely. Living in the rural countryside where only elderly people live is a pain in the ass. I hate it because I just want to be accepted and looked at as human being and NOT this foreign entity. I have so many issues with this country of late. I could write a book about it. I decided to just close my Facebook account because of it. All I was doing was complaining about it, and complaining, while beneficial, only spawns more hard feelings.

As this new year rolls out. I question if I really want to continue living here. Do I even want to get married at some point? I feel like marriage would never be something for me. My parents divorced while I was in elementary school. Many of my relatives marriages never lasted very long either. I grew up never feeling attracted to other females. Rather falling for game and anime female characters instead. I like companionship, but sex has never been something I ever desired.

I prefer my freedom, but then I also would like to have someone close by to call on for support. Japanese women have told me in the past that this makes me very selfish. Maybe this is a cultural thing? I feel many young people are living that kind of life in Western societies. Instead of marriage they just live together and support each other. Sharing in their hobbies and interests together. That is the kind of relationship I would grow to enjoy. I feel like I could never find someone that would tolerate my hobbies though. Japan is a very strange country where people just want to get married and paired off as soon as they can. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to fall into that trap even if some people pressure me hurry up and get married.

If there is one thing I want to work on starting this new year is getting this chip off my shoulder. While hard feelings are fine at times. Getting a little sad and frustrated is fine. But drinking to ignore these feelings. Thinking about death isn’t helping either. Everything begins with how I think about myself. My thoughts effect my world and myself. I’m trying to grab onto shadows. I am looking for objects outside myself to fill the gap in my heart. Objects. People. Food. Drink. They are all temporary fixes. The true path to happiness stems from inside. Change yourself then you can change the world around you.

I apologize for the here and there writing of this entry. Like I said, I have a lot of things on my mind. This year I really should write more. There is something therapeutic about it.

Just tired of Japanese people lately

I am so tired of Japanese people, and how they are. Tired of being asked can you eat this or being looked down upon as if I can’t even begin to understand things. Being treated like a child even though I am 27. This is my fourth year in Japan and it is becoming closer to becoming my last for awhile.

Recently I had to let my school know about how I’m stressed out and how people have passed away in my family back home. It was unavoidable since I have been taking off and leaving work early. Among other things.

When I was talking to the English teacher she felt sympathy and then was like, “Are you going back to see them?” and I’m like, “No, I can’t really afford it for such a short amount of time.” And the teacher reacts with this expression, “No way! But you’re rich, you know! うそ、お金持ちでしょう！”

That stung. This English teacher is rich thinking just needs to fucking die.

Also I further explained that I broke up with my girlfriend of two years so that added to the stressed feelings. Then she is like, “Oh, well we all knew that. I mean you hadn’t talked about her.” She then laughed about it. You know, I really respect this co-worker. But seriously? And everyone knew? I really like how people just assumed. I just wonder what other shit Japanese are assuming about me just because I don’t like to talk about myself much.

Now that I think about it most Japanese are always interested in finding out about what I do in my own free time but they never really like to open up about their own.

I need a vacation.

These things have been building up lately. But this was just a recent thing that has been mauling me over, and I just had to write it out.

Tired

Tired of living here.
Tired of being ignored.
Tired of being some kind of English pet.
Tired of being looked down on.

I want to get out of here.