I would not consider myself a “brave person.”

 

When I think of bravery, I think of superheroes or my mom; not an average twenty-two year old who doesn’t really know what they’re doing in life. When I was growing up, I struggled with intense social anxiety. I suffered from panic attacks almost every single day on my way to school from grades 5 through 12, and I couldn’t even walk into a store on my own without feeling like I would throw up or collapse from the nerves. I was incredibly insecure and had no idea who I was or why I mattered. I didn’t think it would ever get any better.

What I did know, though, was that I was passionate. The only things I ever vocalized seemed to be my passions. From the age of eleven, I fell in love with the Japanese language and culture, and everything that came with it including music, art, history, and books. I found myself learning about something that no one else in my immediate life knew anything about. Japanese as a language fascinated me - every time I heard it being spoken, I felt like the speakers were part of a gigantic secret and the only way I could get in on that secret was to learn the language.

 

So, I did.

 

Before I started learning Japanese at Bellevue College through the Running Start program, I was fearful, anxiety-ridden, insecure, and had no interest in straying far from home. However, my passion for the Japanese language and culture inspired a bravery in me that I never knew could be there. In the summer before my senior year of high school, I flew to Japan on my own and met my Japanese exchange student friend, whom I had met at my high school in America, and her parents at the airport. That was my first taste of being abroad. In that trip, I went to a Japanese high school, alone, for two weeks, then traveled around the country for another two weeks with just my friend and myself. Those who knew me told me I was being “so brave,” but I loved it so much that it didn’t feel like that to me - I was just pursuing something I cared immensely about.

But when I returned home, I realized that I had grown. Not only was I much more confident in everyday life, but because of being around so many new, interesting people every day in Japan for over a month and traveling to places I had never been, things like going to the store alone or just asking a stranger a question in my hometown had become a little less frightening.

 

I knew I wanted to go back, and this time for a much longer period. I needed to test this new found courage. So, in my sophomore year at Western, I studied at an international language school, smack dab in the middle of Tokyo. I was there for nine months, the single longest period of time I had ever been or lived away from home. Three of those months were spent living with a host family; the other six, on my own in an apartment. School was not easy - it was an intensive language school that, in one quarter, would teach students a year’s worth of American college level Japanese. I was with other international students from all over Asia who did not speak English, so our only way of communicating was through the Japanese we were learning on the daily. It was frustrating and lonely at times, but again, because the passion was there, I felt like I could achieve anything if I tried hard enough.

 

Needless to say, I grew exponentially throughout this nine month period. I found my confidence; I gained a second language ability that will stay with me for the rest of my life; I discovered myself, and learned that it’s okay to speak up when you care about something. I learned to ask questions when I didn’t understand. I learned to be understanding and empathetic toward people who do not speak my native language because I now know how hard it is to learn another one. I learned that just because another culture does something in a way that is different from your own, it doesn’t make it bad or weird - it just makes it new and eye-opening. Everything was a learning and growing experience and it made me who I am today. After returning home from Japan, I struggled a lot with adapting back into the old life I had lived, with people who would never quite understand the impact my studying abroad experience had left on me. But then I realized: if I share my story of fear that turned into bravery, maybe others who are like my old self can achieve the same outcome I did. Not only that, but can become hopeful that things can and will get better, if you just find and pursue the things you are passionate about.