Living 19 years in Japan, how often I have been asked “Don’t you miss back home?”. It is one of the standard questions foreigners in Japan get asked, along with “do you like natto?”.
I haven’t been able to answer that question really honestly or deeply. “Sure of course”, has been one of the versions I have offered as an easy answer. It is true, but there is more to it than that.
It takes some time and distance, to truly understand the meaning of a home country. In fact I have lived more longer in a foreign country than in my own home town. It is only now that I understand what I truly felt about living in Finland.
To return back, feeling the atmosphere, smells and climate, it’s such a feeling that only those living permanently abroad can understand.
The smell of the wooden floor of Helsinki airport is what hits home first. That special sweet kind of smell, I am not quite sure what that is. The air even feels different here.
When I lived in Espoo, I used to spend a lot of time alone, just by myself. And I used to hang out in Helsinki Airport a lot. I listened Brian Eno in my iPod and looked at departing planes. And I was reading Banana Yoshimoto or edgy novels of Kenzaburo Oe. And I always dreamed of flying to Japan.
Dreams tend to come true. So not before long I found myself living in Japan permanently.
To me as of now, Finland to me feels as innocent as my dream was about living in Japan.
There was a time that I just felt I had to get away. I hurt my back in the compulsory Finnish Defense Forces training, and was released from service under special circumstances. My father did not take it well, seeing me as a somewhat challenged child.
I just had to go, no question about it. And now it feels like years have stretched longer than I thought.
Loving something or someone, that always is a very private feeling. When there is real love, there can never be one reason to it. We just either love or we don’t. Not being able to explain it is usually sign that the love is real.
Questioning one’s own identity, looking at places I have lived long time ago, is a powerful, purifying thing. It enables us to know ourselves more. I am still on that journey, maybe perhaps now more than ever.
Now at age of 46 I recognize how lucky I am to know these two worlds.
I feel like I have had chance to live two lifetimes.
We humans are not smart enough to understand time. And nostalgy is a mirror into ourselves.
I really recommend to experience living abroad. It is worth it, even if you decide to return.
