I'm leaving

It's weird to finally accept those words, with my love-hate relationship with Japan the love is what I am feeling recently. While it's weird I know it's the right thing for me, but as I come back today from a night at waraku where I saw half of the town drinking and enjoying life I started to think about my successor and how she will have these experiences soon enough. It didn't make me sad, but it put things in perspective, the fact that I am only one in a possibly long line of ALTs, where the benefit really is to Japan and the chance in gets to meet different types of people from different backgrounds. I returned home and realized that my house will be occupied by somebody else, and how that new person will have a slew of experiences which will be so different from mine and will make Agematsu seem like a different town to her. I am sure we will have similar experiences and things to share, but at the same time it will be different and unique. Life certainly did seem beautiful tonight, we are only here on this earth for so many years and there's only so many things we can experience, but it's amazing all the different things we can see. I'm not too sad to be leaving, if I was that sad I would have chose to stay, but wow, the places I've been, the relationships I have formed, this is definitely one of the coolest things I've done. I don't think I can remain stationary in the future. I want to spend some time in India next and if the writing thing doesn't work out I want to get into international development, which means being international. The world is not international yet, cross cultural communication is still really tough and Agematsu is still a little hamlet in the Japanese countryside, but I do foresee it being that way and glad that I have had these experiences to make me forward-thinking and a bit more open-minded. Well, I still hold stereotypes and might even be racist in some circumstances, but I'm definitely more open-minded. Man, I know I will return and my relationship with Japan is just starting, but man, I am going to miss the coolest thing I have ever done.