Am I becoming a little stir crazy? This thought rolled around in my head at work Tuesday. I have been in Japan for a year now. I have not had a good dose of American culture in a long time. I have already dealt with the feelings of detachment, but now I am starting to feel like a rat trapped in a cage.I mean, there are days when I feel like life has been sucked out of me. I get these little tight headaches which dive me crazy to no end. I find myself with a strong taste for beer the closer it gets to the end of my work for the day. I am not eating as much recently. In fact over the past year I have lost 10.o kg. My weight lose will start to really trouble me if I lose too much. In the mornings I am a smoking and coffee drinking manic. Hell, by the time I get to work I have had at least four cups or cans of coffee. Dammit, I have even got up to smoking a whole pack of cigs a day!
Maybe I have just been pushing myself too hard over the past several months. Although, I might be having a delayed reaction to living in a different culture. I have been going hardcore, without looking back, from the moment I set foot in Japan a year ago. I have only spent a little amount of time to stop and check myself. It is as if I left America hell bent on diving into a journey on the other side of the earth. My life went into overdrive the moment I started living in Tokyo. Everything shifted to a higher gear very suddenly. I guess I just started to react without taking much time to stop and smell the roses.
So, am I going a little stir crazy? Well, it is not as if Japan has gotten the best of me. I actually enjoy living in Japan. It is not so much the people because, after all, we are all just humans. The daily grind is tough but I make it though each day without too much of a problem. I think it is a combination of things which are making me feel a little stir crazy. I know I will be fine after a while. I just got to keep pushing forward with my head held high. One thing I really need to do though is remember not to let little thing get to me so much. All I really end up doing is putting useless stress on myself. It will be a big help to not care so much about everything. I will not go completely nuts in the land of the raising sun.
