too much fun

i am writing this from my phone as i wait for my train to take me back to my island-what a long strange trip this journey into saturday has been...
the friday started with a somewhat surprisingly emotional goodbye to a school. the first of many i am sure. i knew it was going to be the hardest for me because it is the school i have felt happiest and most welcome at--the school i actually loved. but i didn't think it would be as difficult as it was to say goodbye. it can't surprise many of you readers that i really haven't been very happy here. i have been disappointed with myself, with others, with life at large more often than not. i have felt lonely and lost. i have been, in a word, depressed and therefore depressing to be around. i am shocked that i have made any friends here since i have been such a shadow of all the things i used to like about myself. despite everyone's kindness, despite the good job, the free rent; despite all the niceties of my situation it never really managed to touch the seemingly infinite amount of sadness i swim through everyday here. i get up in the morning and brush my teeth with sadness. comb my hair with sadness. dress in sadness. roll on my sadness deodorant to prevent my sadsweat. i can't tell you why i am so unhappy here exactly. all i know is i want to go home and have for a very long time.
i almost feel i should apologize to the people i met and worked with this year...
but i did well at the same time. i was a great teacher. i can say this unequivocally. i was good at my job.
this is a long digression. but this is a long train ride.
anyway, with this background, you can see why i was skeptical at charlene and anna's passionately worded exchanges about the agony of leaving japan behind with particularly regard to their students/schools. as char talks about how teary she gets at her schools, i sit across from her with eyebrows raised and say nothing.
and yet... and yet!
yesterday, i was fine getting up, dressing, getting together my last materials. fine teaching my last class. fine listening to the children and teachers practice their goodbye speeches to me next door as i practice my own farewell speech. i am fine as i listen to each class tell me about their favorite memories with me but...somewhere around when all the kids were singing a song for me about being brave back in seattle i. lost. it.
i started bawling.
now, i cry sometimes-i am not going to lie- and it is always about something emotional. the physical pain doesn't really faze me, as most of you who have seen me fall down a flight of stairs, come back from running with new scars or have gone to the hospital with me for stitches may know. but this feeling. this feeling when i saw them all, when i ran under their arms, when the third graders all made me sign their baseball caps and a shy fifth grade boy gave me a friendship bracelet he had made...this feeling...this pain can only be alleviated by crying and trying not to look at their faces as we say "see you" and walk away.

and then i had to go to a meeting in the city.

afterwards there was a party for the departing jets and i got waaaay too drunk and i acted like a nut and said ridiculously embarrassing and excruciating things to friends and strangers alike. i even managed to email my ex from my phone. i also sang terribly, loud and off key. i gave a girl a backrub after eating a bag of chips at her behest. it was all awkward and embarrassing and this morning i am equal parts rueful and bemused at the havoc i wrought. i need a nap and a shower and this, my friends, is my stop so it is yours as well.
something in me yesterday changed. for better or worse i made a life here, and now i have to leave it and the enormity of that just became clear to me. さようなら日本のケイト- i loved you too.