I have never come to so completely and totally adore a place so instantly.  The standard is about a year before my new blank white walls start to feel like home after I move--before that they are an enemy closing in on me, foreign and ominous.  I never thought that someone could actually get used to moving away.  I never thought something like this could become easy, but here I am, so completely in love with this era of my life despite the tugging on my heartstrings whenever I look at that Okinawan map hanging by my desk.  People have always said that growing up is a trap and it really sucks (which I get... the whole "bills" thing isn't exactly thrilling.)  I am still just basking in the joy of it, because I can feel myself getting stronger with every day that passes and every lesson I learn the hard way.  These are the walls we decorated ourselves, the tribal-patterned backdrop for this second act of our lives, and I find them absolutely enchanting.

She's always been my resolution, the lower light guiding me home, my vision of the finish line to keep from quitting the race.  I cannot even describe how surreal it is to finally hold everything you've ever missed in your arms again.  Each time I felt myself fighting off tears in security lines or I felt my face flushing red with anxiety as I navigated the labyrinth-esque airports, I would just picture this moment here after I got to the other side and my stomach would instead pang with excitement.  Before she left on her mission we would always say that this was the ultimate test--if we could hang onto our best friendship through those two years, then this was going to stick for life.  It felt far more like crossing the finishing line of a marathon than a security point as I walked out that door and saw her waiting there with my mom and brother.

Things never seem to set in for me at the right moment.  Of course I could not muster enough genuine feeling to cry as I said goodbye to everyone I had known on that island for so many years.  I couldn't give one final gesture to show that I really cared, that the time spent with them had an impact on me and it would be hard to leave them despite my excitement to start out on my own.  Instead my eyes were dry and I just smiled sadly as we parted ways, heart still oblivious to the profound changes which were about to occur.  It was on the drive to the airport with my brothers and my dad.  It was as we wove through winding roads and passed by the geometric sugar cane fields, through the Okinawan cityscape and past crowds and buses and villages that I realized I was leaving my own secret garden, my paradisiacal childhood haven which had been my wonderland in the most crucial years of my life.  I wondered if the kids who came to college from just a few states away felt like this.  I wondered if the pilgrims felt like this.
I pulled it together long enough to fumble with paperwork and security checks and eventually say goodbye to my family--but only for that long.
Mine was one of the ghetto terminals where I had to go down an escalator and the wifi could not reach down there while we waited for a bus to take us to the plane.  I snapped a photo of the nearly empty gate between choked sobs and tried to busy myself with instagram to keep from crying out in anguish in front of the scattered strangers.  I tried to busy myself with the playlist I had created the night before just for the trip and with the bag of kettle chips I just purchased.
That was the last time I allowed myself to cry.  Through the mazes of people and the long flights and shouting airport employees, I knew I wanted to start the first day of the rest of my life with head held high, shoulders back and teeth grit.

 We ate Cactus Bagels and adventured along the seawall and said goodbye.  Somehow there are things we can only talk about with each other, and I really treasure our conversations.  It was really sad except I know our adventures will continue once more... as soon as she comes to Utah.

It's not even just the ocean that I love.  Of course the salty waves are great and to be without them feels like I am trapped in a little box and the walls are closing in on me, but I feel it necessary to note how specifically fantastic the Okinawan seawalls are, and what a loss it feels like to move so far away from them.  I got curious and ended up looking through all of my photos just to see exactly how many memories I have at this place... there's a lot.

If anything I regret not taking more pictures there--why did we never get bear/lion suit shots there, Sarah??  The lighting always did such great things, especially on overcast days.  I loved just laying out on the cement jacks and getting my tan on, no need to worry about sand.  I loved swimming out to those giant poles in the middle of the water and nearly drowning every time, but always getting the courage to climb up those rusty barnacle-clad rungs and then jump off into the water.  I loved the constant herds of cats that would emerge from the oblivion as soon as we whipped out even a morsel of food.  I loved the herds of school girls and the old people doing their exercises and stretches as they walked.  If I could go on a trip back here and only be allowed to go to the seawall the entire time, I wouldn't even be disappointed.  It has been that much of my Okinawa experience.

Any time, any place, in any attire.  We make it look good.

Typed on the 1957 typewriter I received as an eighteenth birthday present from my father, this is it.  This is the list of everything I need to accomplish before I leave my home of six years.  Looking at the thing now I realize that I do not care about doing maybe half the things, and that there are countless more I failed to verbalize as I sat there at the dining room table in the middle of the night.  Still, it has become my mission to make sure that in the coming years when I run into the other people scattered across the globe who have lived on and loved Okinawa, I will be fluent in all of their favorite places so as not to appear as if I never left the base.

So all these years come down to a bucket-list.  Leaving this place is going to be the hardest goodbye yet--doing it right seems rather essential.