Japan, How Do I Count the Ways?

Jet Lag.

It's a crazy wild thing.

I left Tokyo on Monday, the 10th of December, at 1:30 PM, and arrived in Austin on Monday, the 10th of December at 11:40 AM. Yes, despite an 11 hour flight, I arrived two hours earlier than I left. I travelled back in time.

Huh.

I don't even have words to describe that.

This date, the 10th of December, 2007, for me at least, goes down in history as the day I lived twice.

So very strange.

It is good to be home. So so good to hug my kids, to smell American food, coming off the plane, to see signs in English and to hear airport announcements made in my native tongue.

At the same time though, I was wholly unprepared for how sorrowful I would be to leave that country, how deeply moved I would be by its people. I will miss, SO SO MUCH, our friends there. I will miss the sights, the kindness, the smells, the sounds, the lilting beauty of the language. I will MISS Japan.

As much as I would like to tell you every little thing, that seems a near impossible feat.

So instead, I think I will parcel it out over time, like a chocolate to melt on your tongue.

In the mean time, suffice it to say that I am safe, I am so. very. happy, to sit and breathe in my young men, and yet something in me will never be the same. I have left a part of my heart in Japan.