This shirt actually has nothing to do with the topic of this post, but the graphic fits.
One of the hardest things about living in Japan was knowing that it was not and never could be my "home". Sure, I could have applied for Japanese citizenship or residency. I might even have been granted the latter, but Japanese culture is not one which accepts occidental faces as Japanese. It doesn't matter what passport you hold. I would never belong and I would never feel as if I was rooted because there would be a sense of not fitting in. It is said that "home is where the heart is," but my heart could never be seen as Japanese. Home is where you are always welcome and you feel that you belong. I couldn't say either of these of my time in Japan. Perhaps I would have felt differently had I been married to a Japanese person and integrated with a family on that level, but that just was not my particular destiny.
I was always the puzzle piece that did not fit with the others and therefore I knew I did not and could not ever belong. I won't miss the sense that I could never feel that Japan was truly my "home".
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