Reflecting and looking forward
It is the start of the new year, and it has been 6 months since I moved to my homeland. I am so grateful that I get to be here and experience this land, and want to share my reflections on living here so far. It’s been healing in so many ways.
I love living around people that look like me. I have never been around so many people that look like me for such a long period of time, and I love it! Daily I am surrounded by people that have a similar skin tones, hair color, height, and body structure. I was always the short Asian, but here I am not. It feels so incredible and normalizing to my brain, and I find myself relaxing as I continue to blend in.
I had to learn to work with my hair in a new way. My wavy hair gets even bigger and unmanageable in the humidity and salty air, lol. Leave-in conditioner is my new best friend.
Who knew that I’d have to change my makeup habits? The humidity absolutely melts the foundation off my face, and smears mascara all over my eyes, lol. I’ve learned from locals to embrace tinted moisturizer and waterproof mascara.
I have to keep grounding to adjust to the lack of season changes. After experiencing 4 distinct seasons my whole life, my physical body is totally confused. My bare arms and legs have been expecting jeans, warm sweaters, and boots. My nose and lungs have been anticipating cold, dry air. My eyes and internal rhythm expect darkness at 4 pm. I am frequently telling myself what day it is in order to keep myself present and grounded.
I have to figure out how to keep my energy present. I recently became aware of how much of my energy was always living here in Hilo. I never truly fully occupied my space and energy field in Seattle. I was always fantasizing, dreaming about being here — half in, half out of my energy space and field. Being here physically has been a challenge because my energy isn’t searching and fantasizing. I am in the process of reprogramming my physical and energy body to connect the energy that had always left me to search to be here with me in each moment. More to come on this, when I have more figured out!
I am surrounded by my comfort food! There is Japanese food everywhere, which I love because a bowl of white sticky rice eaten with chopsticks is the peak of all comfort food for me.
I am being fed by my birth land. Speaking of food, I love eating food from the land that I first ate from in utero. I have a favorite farmers market stand downtown ($2 for 3 papayas, $5 for 5 passionfruit, $2 for 2 limes, $5 for red dragon fruit), and am having fun discovering what produce shows up with the change of the season.
People say my name correctly! It is comforting to hear my name pronounced correctly. After my entire lifetime of people mispronouncing my name, it is so comforting. When someone asks for my name and I say it the way I say it on the mainland, locals don’t understand me. When I say it with a Japanese accent, then they understand. This makes me feel seen, heard, and held in the most healing way.
These 6 months have felt like an accelerated learning curve of internal healing work, external mirroring, and a journey of learning to practice gratitude for everything that has come my way. I didn’t have any expectations when I moved here. I knew I had to do it for my healing and personal growth.
I am looking forward to what the road brings.
Here is to a fabulous, fun, and growth-filled 2023 for us all. Happy New Year!