The Post I’ve Been Waiting to Write
Posted in: JET Journey
Photo by Sora Sagano
I got a call today.
I was waiting for an email. I refreshed my inbox approximately ten thousand times over the last two weeks. But it wasn’t an email. It was a call — from my consulate — and the moment my phone rang, I just knew. A sixth sense I’d been carrying around all morning, this quiet insistence that today was the day.
I answered.
They told me.
And the fastest yes I have ever said in my entire life came out of my mouth before they even finished the sentence.
The Hour Before I Had to Teach
Here’s the thing about getting life-changing news — it doesn’t wait for a convenient moment. I had exactly one hour before I had to walk into a classroom and teach.
I wanted to cry. I felt the tears right there, ready. But instead I smiled. The first real smile I’d felt in two weeks — the two weeks since alternate status had put me right back in purgatory, emptier and more uncertain than before. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been holding until I felt it release all at once.
I called my husband immediately.
“WAIT REALLY???” he said.
We were ecstatic. I ran downstairs and told my colleagues, who celebrated with me right there in the hallway. I called my family, who surprised me — no hesitation, no worry, just warmth and certainty. This is a chance and you’ve got to take it. Yes. Yes it is. Yes I do.
And then I walked into my classroom.
Teaching One Hour After Finding Out You’re Going to Japan
I felt awake for the first time in a while.
That’s the only way I can describe it. The alternate news had taken something out of me that I hadn’t fully admitted to myself — a kind of low-grade exhaustion that came from hoping hard while pretending to be fine. Walking into that classroom an hour after that phone call, I felt like myself again. Present. Alive. Ready.
I taught the whole class. I didn’t say a word about it until the very end.
And then I told them.
They clapped. They cheered. My students — my people — sat in that classroom and celebrated with me and I had to hold it together with everything I had because I was not going to cry in front of my class on the best day of my life.
I got home. I sat down.
And now the reality is hitting.
I’m Going to Japan.
Not someday. Not maybe. Not if the waitlist moves.
Japan. A Japanese classroom. A community I haven’t met yet. A language I’ve been chasing since an anime theme song woke me up in the middle of the night as a kid. A dream that started with an anime theme song and turned into a master’s degree, a JET application, an interview, an alternate status that broke my heart a little, and a phone call that put it back together.
I’m going.
I don’t know where yet. I don’t know what city, what school, what grade level, what my apartment will look like or what my commute will be or what I’ll eat for breakfast on my first morning there. I don’t know any of it yet and I am so wonderfully, completely, joyfully lost.
Lost in the best possible way. Again. Always.
This blog started as a way to document a journey I wasn’t sure would happen. Now it’s a record of everything that led to this moment — the waiting, the hoping, the alternate heartbreak, the sixth sense on a Tuesday morning, the fastest yes I’ve ever said.
If you’ve been following along, this one’s for you. And if you just found this blog today — hi, welcome, you picked a good day to show up.
Whatever comes next, I’ll be writing about it here.
We’re going to Japan—and I’m ready to be lost again.
— Katherine, somewhere in Arkansas, waiting for my placement 🌸
Lost in Translation 