Hiroshima

Guess what?! Crazy me, I went to visit the old jr.high/high school that once used to be hell for me. The night before, I was so anxious of visiting that darn place that I could hardly sleep. My nephew had been asking me to visit him there for about a year, so I finally decided to go, since my friend Yoko who came back from the States was also there.
The day me and my friend went, it happened to be the school's summer festival, so boy, it was as if all the campus folk had come...I must've bumped into at least 10 teachers who used to teach me. Talk about a major time warp! It felt so strange.

I was totally taken aback by the fact that the place had changed SO much! They had secular pop music playing on the school PA system, they danced at the end of the festival, elementary, jr. high, and high school students all participated in the festival, the students were allowed to have cameras, they could have cell phones, you name it, there was so much more freedom!

In my days, only classical music or hymns, forget dancing, elementary, jr. high and high school students didn't do stuff together, if you had a camera it got confiscated, cell phones? what cell phones!, and so much more that was allowed. Having come straight from the States, no wonder this place felt like hell to me! Well actually, it was more the mental stress that made the whole experience so traumatic for me.
Yoko, my nephew, my friend, and I went 40 minutes off-campus to eat Hiroshima Okonomiyaki. Mmm, mmm, mmm! It was SOOOO good. Yoko zipped down the mountain so fast that 10 seconds after we'd started our engines, I already lost sight of her. I had to call her and ask her to slow down.
You know what? I'm glad I made this trip, although it was difficult at first. For the first time since I escaped that place 15 years ago, I was able to take a step back, look around, and realize that the pain I experienced back then is in the past and not in the present. I don't have to carry that pain with me anymore. I can finally leave it behind. It sure took me a long long time to get to that point, but I'm glad I finally got there. Now I can move forward and start healing from it.