Courage blanket
Tonight, I have two options: walk all the way home by myself for 40 minutes, or take the crowded train for 10 minutes. I chose the latter. A week after arriving in Tokyo, the discomfort finally kicks in.
Before taking the train, I stopped by this food place. To be honest, I don't know what that is. I only know it serves Soba and Udon, and Tendon.. Tempura.. and they don't provide seats, so you'd stand and eat your delicious bowl of noodles. The last and only time I was there, I couldn't understand the old Japanese man, so he pointed at the Soba noodles, and I just nodded. It was delicious and cheap, so I decided to go there again. This time, I noticed the vending machine in the restaurant, hidden in a corner. Nothing was written in English. I picked the cheapest thing that I assumed wasn't going to turn out to be just a boiled egg. I brought my ticket to the same old Japanese man. He asked me something in Japanese, no mention of "soba" or "tendon", again completely incomprehensible. So I said, as I sometimes do in these situations, "Do you.. speak English?" He stared at me, then the two customers next to me followed suit. Annoyed, the old man turned back, and started preparing my bowl of noodles. Turns out I ordered cold soba noodles. "How exciting," I thought, "I never know what I'm ordering. It's like entering a lucky draw, but I always win.. unless I happen to choose the boiled egg." Amused by my own humor, I started smiling like an idiot, all while ignoring this sinking feeling in my heart.
I'm not sure if it's homesickness or loneliness or whatever feeling people go through when they move to a new place. I know how feelings can sometimes get in the way of things, so I tried to ignore it. My thoughts wandered though. First, it was my family. Ah.. how I miss them. They must be having a great meal right now, with lots of teasing and laughter, because they're a bunch of goofballs. Then, it was back in LA. Ah.. how I miss Ivy. And Soya. We still talk online, but I'm missing out on all the"blowing water" over Sul Lung Tang and shaved ice. Next, it was my love. Did I really think this Tokyo decision through? What if my life turns out to be like Mia's in "La La Land"? What if I lose the person I'm meant to be with, because I stupidly decided that at this stage of my life, career comes before love?
There have been a few instances where friends have said that I'm "brave" for deciding to move. They made me sound like I'm invincible or something, it's laughable. When I hear of "a brave person", it's funny how I would think of a warrior or someone who's outwardly brave (Ok the secret's out.. I think of Mulan in armor - still fangirling after all these years, no shame there).
In the past weeks, I believe I've come to a realization.. that courage isn't something you're born with. Rather, it's a muscle. The more you are forced to make difficult decisions, to be in difficult situations, the more comfortable you will be with fear and discomfort. It's like practicing survival skills. You do it so you can survive and thrive in any environment.. kind of like a cockroach, if you think about it. That's why they've been around for ever.
I think about Mr. Cockroach, and my idol Fa Mulan. I wonder if they feel brave when they decide not to let fear get in their way. If I have to guess, I'd say no. Mr. Cockroach probably feels nothing, just going on with his life, minding his own business. Ms. Fa, on the other hand, might feel a tinge of fear, or she might be scared shitless. In any case, she must have decided not to let fear stand in her way, and charged ahead in spite of it.
Maybe courage is silent. It doesn't scream at you, announcing its presence to you. And it certainly doesn't scream at the rest of the world for attention. Courage is made of difficult and unpleasant moments, one little brick at a time. It creeps up on you, and before you know it, you'd have accumulated millions of little courage bricks. With those courage bricks, you will conquer mountains, each one bigger than the last, until you get an enormous blanket of courage bricks.
Like many peers experiencing the quarter-life crisis, I reflect on the first half of my 20s, and wonder where I'll end up by 30. I find it discomforting to not know if this will be the best or worst decision of my life. However, I find it comforting to know that the revelation will not matter much in the future, because by then I'll have built a blanket strong enough to carry me through anything. Maybe the courage blanket is the most important goal for me to achieve in my 20s, and right now, I really just need to take life one uneasy moment at a time.
Before taking the train, I stopped by this food place. To be honest, I don't know what that is. I only know it serves Soba and Udon, and Tendon.. Tempura.. and they don't provide seats, so you'd stand and eat your delicious bowl of noodles. The last and only time I was there, I couldn't understand the old Japanese man, so he pointed at the Soba noodles, and I just nodded. It was delicious and cheap, so I decided to go there again. This time, I noticed the vending machine in the restaurant, hidden in a corner. Nothing was written in English. I picked the cheapest thing that I assumed wasn't going to turn out to be just a boiled egg. I brought my ticket to the same old Japanese man. He asked me something in Japanese, no mention of "soba" or "tendon", again completely incomprehensible. So I said, as I sometimes do in these situations, "Do you.. speak English?" He stared at me, then the two customers next to me followed suit. Annoyed, the old man turned back, and started preparing my bowl of noodles. Turns out I ordered cold soba noodles. "How exciting," I thought, "I never know what I'm ordering. It's like entering a lucky draw, but I always win.. unless I happen to choose the boiled egg." Amused by my own humor, I started smiling like an idiot, all while ignoring this sinking feeling in my heart.
I'm not sure if it's homesickness or loneliness or whatever feeling people go through when they move to a new place. I know how feelings can sometimes get in the way of things, so I tried to ignore it. My thoughts wandered though. First, it was my family. Ah.. how I miss them. They must be having a great meal right now, with lots of teasing and laughter, because they're a bunch of goofballs. Then, it was back in LA. Ah.. how I miss Ivy. And Soya. We still talk online, but I'm missing out on all the"blowing water" over Sul Lung Tang and shaved ice. Next, it was my love. Did I really think this Tokyo decision through? What if my life turns out to be like Mia's in "La La Land"? What if I lose the person I'm meant to be with, because I stupidly decided that at this stage of my life, career comes before love?
There have been a few instances where friends have said that I'm "brave" for deciding to move. They made me sound like I'm invincible or something, it's laughable. When I hear of "a brave person", it's funny how I would think of a warrior or someone who's outwardly brave (Ok the secret's out.. I think of Mulan in armor - still fangirling after all these years, no shame there).
In the past weeks, I believe I've come to a realization.. that courage isn't something you're born with. Rather, it's a muscle. The more you are forced to make difficult decisions, to be in difficult situations, the more comfortable you will be with fear and discomfort. It's like practicing survival skills. You do it so you can survive and thrive in any environment.. kind of like a cockroach, if you think about it. That's why they've been around for ever.
I think about Mr. Cockroach, and my idol Fa Mulan. I wonder if they feel brave when they decide not to let fear get in their way. If I have to guess, I'd say no. Mr. Cockroach probably feels nothing, just going on with his life, minding his own business. Ms. Fa, on the other hand, might feel a tinge of fear, or she might be scared shitless. In any case, she must have decided not to let fear stand in her way, and charged ahead in spite of it.
Maybe courage is silent. It doesn't scream at you, announcing its presence to you. And it certainly doesn't scream at the rest of the world for attention. Courage is made of difficult and unpleasant moments, one little brick at a time. It creeps up on you, and before you know it, you'd have accumulated millions of little courage bricks. With those courage bricks, you will conquer mountains, each one bigger than the last, until you get an enormous blanket of courage bricks.
Like many peers experiencing the quarter-life crisis, I reflect on the first half of my 20s, and wonder where I'll end up by 30. I find it discomforting to not know if this will be the best or worst decision of my life. However, I find it comforting to know that the revelation will not matter much in the future, because by then I'll have built a blanket strong enough to carry me through anything. Maybe the courage blanket is the most important goal for me to achieve in my 20s, and right now, I really just need to take life one uneasy moment at a time.
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