At this point in my journey, I wonder if, when I told people around me that I’m moving to Japan, they really just thought “Well, obviously.”

I think about Japan all the time – I suppose I don’t talk about Japan all the time, but it’s present in everything I do. I wear fashion from Japan, I have all kinds of jewelry, accessories, and shoes. I listen to Japanese music and watch TV shows. I follow almost exclusively vloggers who live in or frequently visit Japan. I cook Japanese food. I’ve even imported small furniture or houseware items because that’s the style I like.

I don’t mean to say I only consume products or follow trends from Japan and nowhere else because that’s not true, but the ratio of Japanese to non-Japanese things has been steadily growing.

None of these things mean I want to be Japanese – I don’t wish my race was different or that I was born in Japan, or anything like that. I can enjoy and be interested in a different culture without rejecting my own. I do hope that someday my Japanese becomes good enough to make people wonder if I’ve lived there most of my life. The desire to sound native is a universal one for serious language learners worldwide, I feel.

There will probably always be a distance between me and most Japanese friends I make – our experiences growing up were very different – but that doesn’t mean we can’t get along or talk about shared experiences we’re having now.

My goal for living in Japan is to integrate.

My perspective will be different than those who grew up in the country, and I want to share that, but I don’t want to stay totally separate. I don’t like things from Japan because Japan is some mystical wonderland where everything is kawaii and perfect.

I like what I like because I like it.

I like Japan.

I’ve always known this, but I followed the most common sense logic I encountered everywhere: Japan is a great place to vacation, but a terribly difficult place to live. So of course I believed I also did not really want to live there, I just wanted more time to travel! Like, every year! Maybe multiple times a year if I could manage it. I’d shop online and have boxes delivered every month full of new wonderful things for myself and my apartment. It’s almost like living there.

So, why didn’t I want to move there, again?

What was I staying here for, again?

Something that I struggle with is doing or not doing something based on what people around me will bother me about. Not so much what they think, but what they will do and say. I actively avoided doing things that would invite uncomfortable conversations because I just did not want to have them, at any cost.

Telling people I was moving overseas was not a small task to ask of me.

I avoided it for 10 years.

I think now that I’m older, and I’ve experienced a lot of things that have shown me that the only person who will truly make my life great the way that I want is me… well, I almost can’t even be bothered to worry about it anymore.

This is my life and I’m going to live it the way I want. No more regrets, no more I could have or should have.

I want to recognize what’s important to me now, instead of finding it obvious in hindsight.