A Love Letter to Hard Times
warning: old, grainy photos ahead
Dear Hard Times,
I walk out this hallway every day on the way out of work. Just a random, unimportant hallway, but usually fully-lit and bustling with people. On Friday, I walked out this hallway for the last time in I'm not sure how long.
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We start fully teleworking tomorrow, and for the first time in a while in my life, I'm facing some significant uncertainties. How long is this going to last? Is it going to get worse? What if we get sick? What should I do?
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And then I remembered the last time I was faced with you. About 8 years ago, with an 18-month-old, never having lived outside my home state, I was "granted" the opportunity to move to the other side of the globe - Japan.
My husband, Eddie, is a Marine Veteran and upon re-enlistment, the Marine Corps gave him the option of choosing one of two bases in Japan for his next duty station, or to be stationed in Korea for a year without me and our daughter, Zoe.
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We chose Japan because it was the more family-friendly option. Three years, in a foreign country, with no familial support whatsoever. We weren't sure when we would get to see our parents' faces on Skype, let alone in person. We weren't sure when we'd be able to go on a date. We weren't sure how the locals would feel about us in a country that was highly homogeneous at the time.
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We had to adapt. We shopped at the grocery store differently, we communicated with our parents differently, we learned different customs. We relied on the support of our tight-knit community to get through the hard times.
We also endured some of our most difficult marital struggles while we were there. Our second daughter (Abby) was born there and had her first birthday there, and my parents couldn't be there for either event. They met her when she was fifteen months old. We fumbled around in town because Japanese is a beautifully simple and yet complex language to learn.
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Then there were the positives. I met my best friend there. She fell in love with her husband there. We had a friggin baby in a foreign country (which is a story for another day)! We had some of the best sushi ever, not to mention ramen, yakiniku, okonomiyaki, and culinary delights too amazing to list. We visited Peace Park in Hiroshima, which remains one of the most humbling and beautiful experiences in my life TO THIS DAY.
Then we came back to America, to San Diego, the place I had missed so much for my family and the amazing Mexican food, and people who spoke my language and sold shoes big enough to fit my "giant" feet. It was a mess of emotions and jet lag. But I survived.
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And even more than that, I thrived. I was scared shitless to move to Japan (at pretty much the drop of a dime), but I came out of it stronger and happier than ever. I miss it.
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So, hard times, for all the people you’re trying to mess with right now, we got your number. We will survive. We will get through the tough shit, and thrive. We will get through the cabin fever and we will (hopefully) see our loved ones in person again. And if tragedy strikes, we will get through that, too. There will probably be yelling. There will be times when we think we’re going crazy. There will be times when we cry our eyes out because of the stress.
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And then. Then, there will be times where we laugh so hard our ribs hurt. And we will beam with pride at our babies’ first steps, or our daughters asking how they can volunteer to help in this time of crisis. And we will well up with happy tears when we step outside for just a second all by ourselves to process all of it.
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We will do our grocery shopping differently, we will communicate with our loved ones differently, and we will rely on our community for help getting through it all. And you, hard times. We’ll thank you for being there to help us appreciate what we have, and to be kinder and more aware, and to be positive examples for our children. We’ll thank you for making us better.
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Much Love,
