Weekend blues

It's Saturday in Japan and I am sitting here alone in our apartment while Joe travels to the next city over for a job interview.

The past few weekends, I've been dealing with something I call the weekend blues. The weekend blues consists of loneliness, sadness and homesickness. In St. Louis, Joe and I always had fun weekend plans, whether it was going to the farmer's market, walking around the Botanical Gardens, going out to dinner or, especially in the summer, finding a fun festival or event to go to. We're struggling in Japan to find fun things to do, as well as with not having friends to do things with. For me, this manifests most on the weekend, because during the week I am busy with work and don't usually get home until 6-7 at night anyway. Also, I really do love my job so far, and that continues to make me happy and fulfilled during the week.

It's hard, guys. It's hard to sit and think about all of the things I could be doing if I were back home (fear of missing out/FOMO), it's hard to feel like I'm in a rut but also not know any way of getting out of it: I don't speak Japanese. I don't know the area and what there is to do in it for fun. I don't where to meet new people.

I'm not writing all of this in order to complain or whine. I'm just want to be honest about the fact that, although there are many moments during the week when I feel extremely blessed and happy here and I share many of those on social media, there are many moments like now when I sit, wishing for something to just be easy and familiar - to know how to get around, what there is to do, and to be able to do it.

Last weekend, we made plans to go camping at Sensuijima, a gorgeous island nearby. We were both excited to have planned something that sounded so fun. Unfortunately, it didn't work out due to rain. We had a pretty fun day, still, spending a couple of hours in the fishing town nearby, but it was difficult for me, more difficult than it should have been, to come back to our apartment with cancelled plans and thoughts of another bleak weekend with nothing to do. We  did find ways to keep ourselves occupied and ended up having a good weekend anyway, but as this weekend approached, it was difficult again to fend off the weekend blues.

Please pray for us as we continue to adjust. We have many things we are thankful for here, and some things gets easier every day (like grocery shopping or figuring out how to travel around the city without a car), but some things are getting more difficult with time, like not having our friends and family nearby or our familiar hangout spots. We know those things will come with time.

My prayers are to live in the present and embrace this season, to figure out my purpose in being here and to trust God and his plan above all else. I know that I have not been seeking God in everything as much as I could be. I know that God can, and will, provide peace and joy if I put my trust in Him. I just need to lean on Him to get me through this season of adjustment.