Farewells and Bygones

It is now the middle of the night after the bulk of my major farewell events with my junior high school and the board of education. There was the farewell speech with all of the junior high kids, in which I was one of two teachers leaving. (The justifiably beloved Uchiyama-sensei is also leaving, as she has fulfilled her time as replacement for the music teacher who was busy with her baby for the last 20 months.) Then, after the event in school, I joined my supervisor, boss, their coworkers, and a pair of principals and vice-principals for an enkai in Oita Prefecture's Taketa City. I gave my longest speech in Japanese at the beginning of that dinner; it was the speech in which I tried to contextualize my year for my audience. I talked about the surprise of being placed in a tiny village in the middle of Kyushu, I also emphasized how American small towns would be envious of the quality and depth of the education system in this village.

The junior high kids had their time to formally say goodbye during the ceremony. Their representation (for me) came mostly in the form of Kudou Kentarou-kun's speech in both Japanese and English. He was the kid who had showed up to every movie that I screened during English Club (including the entire old Star Wars Trilogy, for which he was the only student to come for the bulk of those weeks). What a great kid. He may not be the biggest in his grade, but he sure may have one of the biggest hearts.After the ceremony I was chatting online with my pal Mike Gechter, who lives in Southern California. I was trying to cope with the fact that I left the kids, and myself, off easy: I personally avoided crying, and in so doing, helped the kids to get out of feeling too sad to see me go. I guess in the end it's probably best; I am teaching them to take goodbyes in a different way - to feel as though a goodbye can be a positive action - to let someone happily go on while acknowledging that they made a positive impact on your life. We'll certainly remember each other; the absence of tears could not really disintegrate the memories of our interactions.

And perhaps for me it was just as hard to formally part with my superiors; they are a hearty bunch of respectable educators who took me in as one of their own, for the most part. Tonight they made it known that they had noticed, long ago, that I was a "tender, nice" ALT, someone they would've like to have for three years in their town and in their schools. I was wanting to tell them that I wish I could live multiple lives so that I could stay in Ubuyama and also pursue my separate life back in my home country. Of course, saying that wouldn't have changed the reality of my leaving, but it was a feeling I had nonetheless wished to express.

It is a fact of nature that we can't really live out all the lives offered to us during our time here on earth. It is a fact that makes me more than sentimental; I will never forget how this town opened its arms to me, and I will probably also never forget that I could've been here a lot longer. But other lives beckon, and during my farewells I have felt strongly that I am making the decision that is right for my place in life. One can only trust his or her intuition on these matters, for there is no one correct path. So we do our best.