In the summer of 2008, I moved to Tokyo, Japan with my husband at the time and our three kids (number four wasn't born yet!). It was thrilling and terrifying all at once. I expressed to my husband years before I did not want to move to Japan. Of all the Air Force bases that were options for us, Yokota Air Base was my last choice. I had nothing against Japan except that it was the furthest away from our family and life in Japan would be radically different from what we were accustomed to.
It's funny how the universe works. Sometimes the very thing that we fear is the catalyst to our biggest growth.
I had to sell my horses, re-home my dog and my cat, choose only a small number of personal items to take with me, and say goodbye to my family and friends not knowing when I would see them again. If it sounds traumatic, it's because it was. Saying goodbye to everyone and everything that was familiar to me was scary and heartbreaking.
I think I cried almost everyday the first year we were there. My heart longed for my family. I missed my pets. I missed wide open spaces. I missed fitting in.
As a blonde hair, blued eyed woman with three blond hair, blue eyed children, I was hyper aware that we were far, far away from home. In a sea of petite, dark haired, dark eyed people, my family and I stuck out like LaBron James in a jockey's locker room. On top of looking different, we did not speak the language nor could I read the Japanese characters. The Japanese language has three types of characters: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Learning to identify the different characters was very difficult in the beginning and I would get the most paralyzing anxiety every time I had to venture out on my own with my three babies in tow. I got on the wrong train more times than I can count and got off at the wrong stop just as many times. I felt as if my wings had been clipped. The anxiety of getting lost and not being able to find my way back home, as unrealistic as that was, was a black cloud that hung over me and I fell deeper and deeper into depression.
Within a year of moving to Japan, Mark was deployed for four months to Afghanistan. I found myself alone with thousands of miles between myself and the comfort of family and everything that was familiar to me.I yearned to go home but our oldest daughter was enrolled in school and uprooting her was out of the question. I began to experience panic attacks. I felt trapped and, in a way, I was. I was physically trapped because I was living on an island and getting in the car to visit my family was out of the question. Plane tickets for the four of us to fly home to Texas cost a small fortune, not to mention the near 24 hour travel day that flying from Tokyo to Austin entailed. Mentally, I was a prisoner of my own fear. I was too afraid to venture far from the military base we called home, so my life became very small.
A few weeks after Mark left, a friend mentioned a photography class being offered on base. I was desperate for a creative outlet so I signed up and ordered my first DSLR.
Within the first five minutes of class, we were told we were not allowed to use any of the camera's auto settings; we would operate our cameras in manual mode. Learning to balance my shutter speed, with my aperture and ISO took every ounce of concentration I had. It took several weeks of daily practice before my fingers and my brain could find their way to the correct dials. Our instructor gave us homework every week and we had to come to class with images that demonstrated the concepts we were learning. In addition to controlling everything manually in camera, we were taught about framing, leading lines, the rule of thirds, and different types of lighting. I fell in love and, just like anyone in love, all I could think about was my new found passion that was photography. Suddenly, my eyes were open to all the beauty that surrounded me. It had been there all along but I was so caught up in what I didn't have that I was blind to it before photography came into my life.
Something inside of me shifted and it all began with that photography class. I began to venture off base in search of new things to photograph. I slowly began to embrace Japanese life and I felt free once again. The anxiety of traveling through Japan never left me entirely but I was able to push through it and, as a result, my kids and I experienced some pretty amazing things!
I discovered so much about myself. The lessons I learned during my time in Japan have carried over into every area of my life. I no longer fear change. Change is still uncomfortable for me but I now welcome it because I have experienced the growth, beauty, and transformation on the other side.
Such a wonderful story detailing your past! Thank you so much for sharing this!