a little fish in the big city

i've been added to a blogroll here. thanks wry!!

she wondered out loud what it is about ohio that makes people want to leave. hopefully my blog title doesn't lend people to believe that i just wanted to escape ohio. in fact, i love ohio. i will always be a rural ohio girl at heart.

(jumping overboard came from a brainstorming conversation with a fellow foreigner here in japan. we are so often fish out of water here, but i always jump in feet first and am trying to make my way in this big ocean.)

i grew up in a rural ohio town and, as a child, i thought it was a boring town with nothing to do, where everyone knows everyone else's business. while the latter probably still remains to be true, i realize now that it was a great place to grow up. it was safe and we managed to make our own fun.

i have yet to clearly articulate how i feel about staying in ohio forever. of course for some, it's not a choice. and i recognize that i am beyond blessed to have had the chances and experiences i've had. but regardless, having been an exchange student right after high school, having studied abroad in college and now living abroad, i have a hard time understanding how people can be satisfied growing up and living in the same small town their whole lives. there is so much out there to see, to smell, to taste, to do, to experience.

i love living in tokyo. people back home often ask me what i love about living in tokyo, and while i've never lived in new york city, i imagine i would love it there too. of course it's japan, which adds another whole level to it, but on a fundamental level, i love living in tokyo for it's big city-ness.

there are (and probably always will be) days when i'm tired of living in a concrete world with no backyard or vegetable gardens or skylines that go on forever. and there will be days when i'm frustrated by japan and japanese and the ways of a country that on the surface seems so superficial, but hides a completely different world under the surface.

but here i am, jumping in feet first.