I’m something of a contradiction in many ways. Growing up I was pretty independent and did my own thing. I didn’t cling to my parents or go with the crowd. And yet, at the same time, I have been accused of erring on the side of the familiar. I could be considered someone who resists routine and structure and yet, at the same time, I seem to crave stability and hate being uprooted.

This week has been the single longest week of my working life. On Tuesday I found out, by accident, that I would not be returning to 3 of my 4 schools next year. 2 of those schools I have been at for all 3 years I have lived and worked here in Ena. It was never my intention to stay here forever but I had hoped to do my planned 4 or 5 years here in mostly the same schools. Especially the junior high school and its elementary school. But the junior high is being switched out of my contract from April, it seems, and I’m beyond gutted! Teaching at both the junior high and elementary in a small rural community in Japan basically means you know every kid in the area from 6 to 15. And after you’ve been there for 3 years, as I have, that grows to include former students up to 17 or 18 and, through being relatively active in extra-curricular activities, you become pretty well-known in the town at large.

All this turmoil has also made me extra concerned for my position beyond which schools I go to. The ALT World is cut-throat: we are often hired on annual contracts which come up for review this time every year. Within weeks of the start of the next school year you can potentially find yourself dropped and replaced! It’s a nerve-wracking period and, when you love your position as I do, it drives you crazy with worry. To be honest outside of the unwelcome news of schools being reshuffled nothing is proceeding out of the ordinary. It’s not been any different any other year. But I happened to see my position being advertised by another agency on GaijinPot shortly after I received the news about my schools. I later spoke to my supervisor who assured me this was not unusual: companies often employ this rather deceitful method of “jumping the gun” on contracts they have yet to secure so they can rope in candidates and offer them up to the boards of education. After all trying to win a contract minus a person to do the job is kinda difficult! But, in my temper-heightened state, this made me think my time here was up. 3 years, secure and happy and generally thought to be good at my job, gone. A week ago I’d thought I was good for another year at least. I’d been given every indication I was, even told as much. Then, in just 2 days, it all came crashing down and I was faced with the heart-breaking prospect of not only losing the schools I had honestly come to love but my entire life here too.

I myself may have emotionally jumped the gun. The jury is still out on my contract but that is no different to any other year at this juncture in time. If I am re-contracted I am almost certainly losing the schools I was told I was losing… and that sucks beyond expression for me. But I’ve put it in perspective some. I will still get to go to the elementary, maintaining ties with the area and allowing me to still see my old students there. And, perhaps the disconnect is for the best. I never intended to stay here forever and, whilst I would still prefer to see my time out with another year or 2, ending things on a positive as opposed to a rather abrupt and emotionally-stunned exit in 3 weeks, maybe a year where I’m at something of a distance to the kids and school I unintentionally fell in love with will be better for me. Regardless of schools I had been planning to start job-hunting again this coming fiscal year. Other stuff in Japan outside of ALTing. Jobs back home in the UK. Stuff in Australia, even. There are silver linings to this cloud. I would still prefer a clear sky, though.

But, as is always the case when I go through something emotionally trying, it’s pushed me into a lot of introspection. Almost 11 years ago now I fell into a deep depression that had me almost fade from existence for 3 years. I was due to head for university to start my Japanese studies in earnest. I would either be heading to Oxford Brookes or UCLan and I was pretty nervous, but also excited. Then, one night, May 20th 2000 to be exact, I was heading to the cinema to see ‘Gladiator’ with 2 of my closest friends and something hit me. A wave of sorrow and anxiety I’d never really felt before. I realised I would be leaving this life and it… did something to me. Something I fought against but couldn’t recover from. I couldn’t vocalise it or explain it. Anyone I told just said I was nervous about going to uni but it wasn’t just that. These feelings didn’t rise and fall either. They stayed with me from that point on. Whatever it was seemed to have caused a severe existential crisis of sorts. I’ve heard it said that depression occurs when 2 different parts of your ego, your innate personality, come into conflict. Since recovering from that depression and putting things back on track by re-enrolling at UCLan, seeing it through, via NUFS, and getting my degree bringing me to Japan again and where I am now, I’ve learnt to identify my depressive tendencies and take steps to deal with them. But they are part of me and, through this recent emotional upheaval, I’ve identified the root of what causes me such anxiety. The source of my pain, if you will.

Loyalty. Strange that may sound but the common factor has always been loyalty. I seem to possess an unreasonable sense of loyalty, one that extends beyond the bounds of regular social norms. It was my sense of loyalty to my close-knit friendship group that caused me to feel so much angst back in 2000. It was my fierce attachment and love for what we had at NUFS that caused me to be torn apart by leaving. And it is my love, my sense of loyalty and commitment to my schools and kids here that makes the idea of losing them so painful. To many I may appear somewhat aloof and passive in my relationships, that is because I tend to resist allowing myself to become attached to people as I know I will inevitably come to need them far more than they do me. Because my sense of loyalty is beyond reason. These feelings of attachment can strike utterly unexpectedly. Loyalty to my friends. Loyalty to my students and schools. I am aware of how destructive this side of me can be as most reasonable people don’t hold to such excessive standards of loyalty. Nor do I hold them to such standards, unless I have been given every reason to believe they too believe in them. But I know that most people will never share my admittedly idealised and romantic sense of loyalty and I try to deal with that. I know my students, as much as they may like me, will know many teachers in their lives and I will not necessarily stand out. I know my school has had, and will have, other ALTs and my role will not necessarily be distinct. But whatever other people feel about loyalty is not as important as what I feel about it. I cannot help but live to my own standards. I have become far more open with forming relationships, I try to temper myself and my extreme attachments, but I still prefer to keep my close friendships to a minimum, so as to avoid conflicting loyalties. I wanted to remain at my current schools so I wouldn’t have my loyalties torn; diluting the memory of my junior high by leaving it to go to another. I hate the idea of my affections and loyalties being changeable. I want to feel the profoundness of my experiences, the power of my feelings when I do feel that connect, and never have it replaced or usurped by another. In a nutshell I feel loyalty for any powerful bonds I forge the way most people reserve for their romantic partner.

I fall in love with everything.