Did I fail?

I leave Tokyo today to go back up to Iwate.  I was given an extra day here which I spent mostly in the apartment I'm staying in (thanks to dear friends) doing nothing.  This is unusual for me--I never do nothing in Tokyo--but this time there was a reason.  I had one thing I wanted to do before I left Tokyo.  I wanted a meltdown.  Barring that, I would settle for a really good cry.  Neither had come as of yesterday so I stayed indoors and waited.

It didn't come.  I'm not sure what's going on.  I've certainly had teary moments.  I've certainly cried.  I've certainly choked up multiple times.  I have not cried, however, enough to feel like I let any of my pent-up emotions out in any real way. 

I tried my usual tricks.  I have several songs I listen to that always make me cry.  I listened to them, and sure enough, tears.  But then, they fizzled.  (Tears fizzle?)  I stopped crying.  Nothing else came.  I read several other documents I have stored for just such an occasion, of course, which also always make me cry.  More tears.  Which also eventually fizzle.  What's going on?  Where's all that emotion I needed to let out?  Why won't it come out?  Being verbally constipated is one thing.  (I'm having serious difficulty finding the words to describe what I see up in Iwate.  I blog about this in my other blog:  www.whereisgeorgeclooney.com.)  I'm now emotionally constipated, too?

Which also scares me a bit because while I don't know how much I have in me that I need to let out (how do I quantify emotions?) I know it's in there, in me.  One of my main goals was to release a lot of this stored-up emotional angst, these emotions I couldn't show openly until I was here in Tokyo.  My friends here would let me do this.  They would let me just sit and cry. 

My concern is I'm going to get back up there not having let this out to my satisfaction and there will be a point where I do lose it.  Crying here was meant to avoid that.  Maybe I'm still running on adrenaline?  Maybe I won't really feel like I completely let go until I'm back down for good?  Any last minute suggestions?  I have a little over four hours until I leave. 

Something personal

I'm a bit fried tonight.  I'm not exactly sure why but I'm beat.  Maybe it's the sleeping-on-concrete that's getting to me.  I'm not quite sure.

All this to say, I honestly don't have a story for you tonight from people I've spoken to recently but I do have a story from me.  It's not earth-shattering news or anything except to say I'm giving you a heads up. 

Tomorrow is my two week mark.  I've found I have a pattern in my moods and my tolerance for holding things in.  I have four days where I'm fine and then I follow that with a meltdown day.  Today is day four.  I'm scheduled for a meltdown tomorrow.

I've felt it coming on all day.  I've fought back tears multiple times and have been okay not breaking down in public.  I'm not sure I can do that tomorrow.  My heads up is essentially to say I probably won't be writing much tomorrow--I'll need another night where I walk around and cry--or I'll unload onto all of you in a way I can't predict quite yet.

I do have a story.  It's one of those moments I had to hold back and not breakdown.  There are three women from the community we've spoken to over the past several days who have offered to help with the cooking.  We will have 20 people staying in one of the new bases (which I'll move into tomorrow) and we need someone to help cook dinner.  This is meant to be a paid part-time position but these women said they would be willing to volunteer their time.  Their exact words were "we're volunteering so you can volunteer."  Hold back sob, hold back sob, hold back sob.

Then one of the women asks how we're going to bathe.  We say we aren't sure yet (buckets, probably?) as there's no shower facility in the building or hot water.  One of the women says she could offer her bath for us five nights a week.  I almost lose it.  Dirty, smelly volunteers, many of whom are foreign, walking in and out of a stranger's home five nights a week (in shifts, of course)?  This is quite an offer.  People are good.  I'm reminded of that everyday.

"You don't get to cry"

Evidently I'm human.  Evidently I can't go a whole week shutting out my emotions and being strictly professional.  Evidently, all this comes at a price.

If I may digress (already?) just for a moment.  The volunteers here are going to be split into two groups.  One will work in Ofunato and the other in Rikuzentakata.  At the risk of repeating myself, Rikuzentakata essentially doesn't exist anymore.  Ofunato still has vibrant business and residential districts that remain.  Both are port cities and Ofunato's port was destroyed. 

The teams will do different things in the towns.  As Rikuzentakata has so much more need the scale of the assignments will be larger.  The middle school and high school have been shut down there.  One of our proposals is to get into the high school to clean out the entire first floor so kids can go back to school.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So, we were at our new "base camp" (a campground) in Rikuzentakata yesterday talking things over with the city council member (whose house was destroyed so is now living at the campground which is also operating as a shelter) and the manager of the campground.  At the end of our discussion, the camp manager said he wanted to show us something.  We drove up to a perch, a lookout of sorts and got out.  He asked us a climb up a small hill to another overlook.  From here, we could see across the bay into Rikuzentakata.  Let me explain.  The campground is on a peninsula between Ofunato and Rikuzentakata.  Ofunato is north of Rikuzentakata and is a larger town.  The peninsula was cut off and made into an island when the tsunami hit Rikuzentakata but the Self Defense Forces built roads and a make-shift bridge to connect the peninsula (now an island) back onto the mainland.  It's from the highest point of this peninsula/island that we looked back across the bay into Rikuzentakata.

The manager said, "I stood here and watched the tsunami hit."  Just like that I felt the tears coming.  I did my "control, control" pep talk in my head but when he said, "when the water that was receding from the bay collided with the incoming tsunami, it created this wall of water that looked 50m high and I saw that crash into the town" I lost it.  I turned around and had to walk away.  I gave myself a few minutes to regain my composure and came back to repeat what he said.

As we're driving down the hill back down into the campground, the manager says, "I have a something to tell you."  The team leader asks what it is and the manager says, "you don't get to cry."  He then went onto to explain the people there don't have "room" to deal with their emotions and for us (he meant me, of course) to lose it is not okay.  Touche.  Note to self:  go back to "control, control" and this time make it stick.  I'm not exactly sure how that's going to work but I've been given a specific task, at least in front of those at this shelter.  No tears.  They watched a wave the size of a building wash out their town in six minutes.  They're still missing over 1,000 people and a tenth of their population is either dead or missing.  For their pain, I get to control my emotions.  My to do list just got longer.