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feeling: optomistic
listening to: Animal Planet
Wow, my blog has passed its third year anniversary. Time flies. And I don't usually do this because everyone else does and they get very tedious to read after a while, but... so much has happened this year, and to me it's worth recounting. On January 1, 2004, I was alone but for two friends, and any happiness I'd ever known before was long gone, leaving a body of emptiness with a shell covered in bruises and scars. And now, as of December 31, 2004, the scars and bruises are no more than fading memories, and the emptiness is replaced by happiness and peace more fulfilling than anything I'd ever experienced before.
2003 did not end well for me, so 2004 didn't start out very promising. In fact, I rang in the new year with one of the three true friends left in my life angry at me because I refused to put myself in a situation where I didn't fit in and would be useless and alone all night while everyone else had a great time.
Then on January 24, at Ohayocon 4, the directionless, empty mess that was my life stopped in its tracks and turned to face in a new direction. That was the day I found an indies J-rock band from Osaka, one whose musical aim was to express extremes of emotion, including anger, passion, and pain. And with lyrics like "My stumbling footsteps/Are buried in black darkness/I will not escape from this place", "I had embraced the pain rusting the wound carved into my heart/I'm falling off the edge of despair into my resting place", and of course "You play with me as if I were crippled/am I your toy?/...but that's all right... but that's all right, I cry out", that band called BLOOD found a new, eternally devoted fan.
I spent the next few months listening to BLOOD and discovering several other amazing J-rock artists at any spare moments I could get during the hectic era that was my senior year at Ohio State. I studied and worked and researched and stressed and planned and repeated it all hundreds of times, all the while fighting off an ulcer and posting messages to BLOOD and their fans on the band's BBS in some of my spare moments. Then, on April 26, my life, already facing poised in its new direction, took its first hesitant steps forward. I awoke that morning to an email from Kiwamu of BLOOD, asking me if I would help him by translating the weekly section of the band's site when his regular translator was unable. I was thrilled to grant the favor, and was given the chance to do it a few more times over the following couple of months. I was on a regular emailing basis with the leader of my favorite band, and I was actually helping him spread the band's international influence.
Now we're up to May. And in the interval between January and May, my life experienced a few more trying turns as two of the dearest people my heart had ever known attempted to take their own lives. For some time I was struck by the helplessness and despair of being apart from them and unable to help them through their trials. Fortunately, one of those people came through the ordeal safely and willing to let me aid in her broken soul's recovery. For the other I had to accept that there was nothing I could do, no helpful role I could play.
When the last weekend in May came around, I still carried plenty of concern for that friend, but having accepted my own helplessness and being fairly wrapped up in my new occasional role as a J-rock translator, I met two other BLOOD fans in an airport in Dayton, and I was off to California for the first time to attend Fanime and see BLOOD and two other very worthy J-rock bands in concert. The best few days of my life came and went, in which I met and became good friends with a handful of other BLOOD fans, and grew even more devoted to and familiar with those boys from Osaka that had already done so much to change my life. After Fanime, nothing would be the same again. I had made new, true friends, a feat I hadn't been able to accomplish in several years, and my role in the world of BLOOD grew and grew as I submitted more and more translations and increased my collections of merchandise, exchanged emails with Kiwamu, and memories to last a lifetime.
After Fanime my focus returned to college, and despite the protests of a briefly dormant ulcer, I survived my final, most difficult quarter at OSU and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's in Japanese on June 13. I went home, not ready to find a job yet as I didn't really have much idea of what I wanted to do... but not much relaxing was done for a while, as my duties to BLOOD increased and I joined forces with yet another fan and new friend in an effort to save the band's professional reputation after some difficulties at recent overseas appearances. It's hard to say how successful we were... but by the time the ordeal was over, I and the friend I worked with had formed an unbreakable bond, one that hasn't stopped growing since the day we first talked. Also, Kiwamu's trust in me seemed to strengthen throughout those weeks, and I found myself sending him more and more translations.
Early June also brought my brother and his then 2 year old son to stay with my parents and me while they awaited my brother's second divorce. Well, the nephew was only here a few days a week, sometimes 4 or 5 days at a time... not all the time... but my nephew's unexplained adoration of me did not fade this year, so those were busy times until my brother was finally able to move out again. Early July brought more fun as I met Calla, the friend I'd spent the past month working on BLOOD matters with, in person for the first time... and more trials as that stupid ulcer came roaring back. But as the matters of BLOOD business and my brother's divorce settled down, I finally found time to enjoy memories of Fanime and indulge myself in the fun side of the fandom - while still doing more and more regular translations. In fact, in mid-July, Kiwamu asked me to start sending him the weekly site translations every week just in case, as his regular translator was growing less and less... regular. And shortly thereafter, the original translator was all but gone, and the job, so to speak, was mine. I was translating not only the weekly members' corners, but also newsletters, press releases, text for other sections of the site, story-type texts that were printed on flyers and other releases to accompany the band's new concept, even lyrics to print in as-of-then-unmade CDs, and other random things - all at Kiwamu's request. I was an official BLOOD Agent, or in other words, a member of my favorite band's international staff. Kiwamu even dubbed me his "English teacher." For the first time in possibly my whole life, I had a direction, and a purpose. Or at least something that made me useful... that I could both enjoy and use to keep my college degree from going to waste... and to be of help to this band that had spent the past 7 months changing my life.
September and October brought more new positive experiences, not the least of which being pride, as I helped my dear friend and cousin create and lead her high school's anime club. I watched her find new friends and a leadership role in a school activity she could actually enjoy and relate to... enjoyment she truly deserves during her final year in high school. We also found some new random around-town activities to amuse ourselves with on occasion... >.> <.<
Somewhere around that time, I also realized that the pain I had carried for so long up to the beginning of 2004 had disappeared. All of it. It had primarily stemmed from two separate but equally cruel chapters in my past, both of which saw me find happiness and companionship like nothing I'd ever known before, only to lose it and have it replaced by heartbreak like nothing I'd ever known before. But by late 2004, I realized that those chapters were behind me for good. There was no reason to hold on to the memories any longer, even the good ones, because everything that they had taken from me was given back and then some. In their place was not only a new friend and... ahem, accomplice :P... but a soulmate. A bond for life that has healed so many wounds in my soul and given me reason to believe I matter. Not to mention a circle of other new friends and people who depend on me, amounting to a total number that's probably higher than it ever was at any one given time in my life before.
On January 1, I was alone in my own darkness, scarred, empty, and of no real use to anyone. By now, December 31, I am loved, needed, trusted, surrounded by people I can trust, and fulfilling purposes and achieving dreams that I never even knew I had. Also, I now own a digital camera and a mobile phone, two things almost everyone else in this world seemed to have that I never thought I would. :P
So to those who stood by me no matter what, even through my less than stellar entrance into 2004, the Dumplin' and the Adion - and to those who came to my side and gave me friendship, support, and purpose throughout the past year, including but probably not limited to Kiwamu, Kaede, Takeshi, Taichi, Fu-ki, Suzanne, Kristin, the other Kristin (might not have gone to Fanime if not for her), Connie, she who is dubbed Kisaki, and of course Calla - my most sincere gratitude to all of you for making this year the most memorable and fulfilling one I've ever known. I can only hope the differences I make in your lives can come close to matching the ones you've made in mine. Not that any more than three of you will ever read this, but hey... :P;;
That's another thing I can blame all of you for. Just LOOK at this 1800-word pile of corn mush. XD
So, the very best to all of you in the coming year. You guys looking forward to it as much as I am?
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 12/31/2004 02:20:00 AM
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