In early October this year, I turned 25 years old.
I’ve lived a quarter of a century, and am now turning the pages to a new chapter of my life.
Now on surveys, instead of selecting that I am 18-24 years old, I’ve leveled up to clicking that I am in the 25-34 years old age range.
Recently, my birthdays have been just another day. I acknowledge that my age has increased, I might go out to have a nice meal and a treat, and then the next day comes again as usual.
I thought my 25th birthday would be the same, but it ended up being a larger turning point than I expected.
A New Chapter
I’m four months into my big-girl job after finishing school. It finally hit me that I am no longer in a semester-based system. During my college years, the end goal was always to graduate and find a job.
Simple.
Now that I’ve graduated and found a job, I don’t know what to do next.
I understand that I’m still early in my career and there is so much room for growth and changes.
But I feel lost.
What kinds of goals am I supposed to have? When and how am I supposed to work on them? How do people balance having career goals and personal goals?
I feel stuck now, but I realize that this is the beginning of the next phase of my life. This is something I was never really told about. All through school professional development seminars focused on resumes, internships, and interviews to land that job. I don’t think any of them talked about what to really do once you get a job. Now it’s time for me to figure it out.
It feels daunting looking ahead at life. If I’m lucky, I’ll live for at least another 60 years.
I only know what it’s like to live 25. I can’t imagine what will happen in the coming years.
There will be joyful and exciting things, as well as devastating and horrible things. How much will I change throughout my life? What new things will I learn? What major events await me, if any? Will I have enough money saved up for retirement?
I hope to still have a long life ahead of me, but sometimes it’s difficult to conceptualize what that might look like.
Grief
The morning of my birthday, I received news that my grandmother had passed away. My dad had sent me the following text message.
We are wishing you a Happy Birthday!
(in Japanese) Happy birthday
(in Japanese) Today, your grandmother passed away (took her last breath)!
Pray for grand mother!
I am a second-generation Japanese American. Both my parents are Japanese immigrants, and I was born and grew up in the United States.
Hearing that my grandmother wasn’t doing so well several weeks back, my mom had gone to Japan and was there at the time of her passing. After hearing the news from my dad, I wanted to text my mom and ask her if she was alright, how she was doing, but it was 2:30 in the morning in Japan and I was hoping she was asleep.
I didn’t know how she was handling her grief, or what she was experiencing. I didn’t want to push her for details, to make myself another task for her in addition to the emotional and logistical work I’m sure she had to attend to following my grandmother’s death.
So I let her be and waited to hear the news from her.
What a strange day. To be oh so happy and hopeful receiving birthday wishes from family, friends, and people I haven’t heard from in years, while waiting for more details from my mother, waiting for her to be ready to share the news with me.
My maternal grandmother was my last living grandparent and the one I spent the most time with compared to my other three grandparents.
It’s difficult having family overseas in a different country.
I have minor memories and a few cherished photos with both of my grandfathers, both of whom passed away when I was very young.
My memories of my paternal grandmother are from a family trip to Hawaii when I was around eight years old. I didn’t get the chance to see her again after that trip before she passed away.
On the other hand, I visited my maternal grandmother nearly every time I went to Japan. I most often traveled with my mom, and we would stay at my grandmother’s house during our trip.
When we were younger, my grandmother would play badminton with me in the empty driveway next to her house (mostly me running around while she hit the birdie back to me when she could). We would go shopping and fruit picking, and at the end of the day, we would share snacks while watching TV. She taught me how to pray for my late grandfather and how to do things in her house the way she wanted.
I knew I wasn’t the favorite grandchild. I’m the odd one out—the one who lives far away in America. The one who didn’t know the language or customs very well. The one who can only come to visit every few years.
But she was always patient with me and happy to see me whenever I visited.
A few days after her passing, I finally heard from my mom. She said the funeral was over and that she was busy cleaning up her mom’s house and belongings.
My mom told me that funerals have become very small recently. Just among close friends and family, though since many of my grandmother’s friends have also passed away, it was basically just family.
Except for me and my dad.
And I couldn’t help but feel a little heartbroken that I didn’t get the chance to attend my grandmother’s funeral. I wish I could have been there to pay my respects to my grandmother and all the good memories she gave me. But I will have to wait until the next time I’m in Japan.
My entire life I felt so far away from my family, largely because we lived across the world from each other.
I’m glad my mom was in Japan when my grandmother passed. Not only was this the passing of my last grandparent, but it was the first time either of my parents were in the same country when their parents passed.
“The one who lives in America”
Every time I got to go to Japan meant I got to see my grandma.
Many people would say I was lucky that I got to travel internationally every now and then. And to see Japan, no less. A country many want to visit someday or enjoy visiting.
I would tell them they were lucky to live in the same country as the rest of their family.
I know people who live in the same city, even the same neighborhood, as their grandparents, and it’s an opportunity I never would have the chance to experience.
I still want to continue visiting Japan, but it’s going to be so different now without my grandma around. Yes, I have other family I can visit but they all have jobs and families and it won’t be the same as spending the entire trip with them.
Yes, I can visit various places and learn about the cultures and traditions there, but it’s different from hearing about them and doing them with my grandma.
I wish I had grown up closer to my family.
Sometimes I feel so lonely and isolated from them, always being the “one who lives in America.”
Always regarded as a foreigner, I was treated differently. Understandably so, as I wasn’t as familiar with the language and customs. But it often felt like we met up just because we were family by blood, and I had a hard time being more emotionally bonded with them.
I want to feel more connected to them, but it’s hard when you grow up away from them in a different country with its own culture and language.
There’s not much I can do to change how I grew up and there’s nothing I would change. But it does inspire and motivate me to learn more about my heritage to help me feel closer to my family’s roots, which is one of the biggest drivers behind this blog.
If you’ve read up to this point, thank you for taking the time to read my story. Here’s to turning 25—the start of a new chapter.
Have you ever struggled to feel connected with your family and/or heritage?
