Reading charlie's journal

So I went home for the 4th of July. I saw my parents, the old hometown, slept in my own bed, had a few meals that didn't come from a can.

While I was having one of these meals, my father asked, "So, are you still thinking about doing that Japan thing?"

The last time I was home, I said that I had to go, or I would live the rest of my life wondering about what could have happened. I guess he forgot that I said that.

There is this underlying tone at home. It says, "Where did you learn to live like this? Why are you always leaving to go somewhere new? This is not how normal people live." I still don't know if that is the voice of my parents or my own voice.

But where do you think I learned to live like this? Who changed careers three times causing five moves during my childhood? Who was always working, always taking summer courses, always busy sleeping through supper from exhaustion?

I grew up thinking having parents who were always busy with something was normal. I'm okay with it. I expect it. What else were you expecting me to do?

Please contiune to vote AND post.

I just finished reading your short, but very, very to the point post.
Well, I would tend to call it observing the obvious.
The things we do as adults are often learned in childhood. I suspect that what you hear in your head is a mixture of what you've seen in other people's lives and finally looking at what you learned as normal and are now facing parents who can't seem to understand your only doing what they taught you by example was normal.

When I left my home town a few years back, my mother came unglued all over the place.
I know if my father had been alive he would have blasted me in a similar fashion.
This is what I learned from them, from my father: be an absent parent in the home. You work long hours to pay the bills and when you get home you have no time for your children. They are a nusence.
This is what I learned from my mother, work all the time, be angry all the time, but let it stew inside you, because no one is listening anyway. Feed your anger to your children along with every meal.

Why I left my home town was to find out who I was aside from what everyone around me said I should be.
What I have come to realize is that why they all wanted me to stay was because I was part of their scenery, their comfort zone.
They really didn't have any use for me other than that.

In reality your repeating what your father did, people do that at some point in their lives.
When my children were growing up I did what I learned.
And when I realized I was an absent parent in the home and spent alot of time seething inside because no one was listening even though so many people would ask me for advise on so many things, I made the choice to change somethings.

You have to sit down with yourself and ask your self what it is that you want.
You are an adult. It's not your job to keep your parents happy, or fulfill their expectations of what you should be doing. They are not living in your shoes, you are.
If going to Japan and teaching is what you truly want then go for it.
It would be lovely if all parents sat their children down at several times durring their growing up and told them how proud they were that their children were in their lives, and that what ever dreams were inside it is perfectly ok to follow those dreams, no matter how many times the dreams shifted and changed over the years.
It would be lovely if parents understood that in order to have well balanced children that become strong focused adults that part of the job of parenting is to give your children roots so that you can give them wings to fly and be who they were ment to be.

Unfortunately babies don't come with a manual, and parents do what they believe is best sometimes, and other times they really arn't thinking about doing anything but what they want, and children get to go along for the ride. And they learn by their parents example what is normal and what isn't according to the life they have or don't have with their parents.

So after having said all of that, I would tell you this, your father's opinion is just that. I'm sure he loves you in his own way.
I'm also very sure that the thought of you being so far away in a world like what we live in now scares him. For a lot of reasons.
All you can do at this point is do what you must do, and hope your parents realize how capable you are, and try to have faith in your ablity to use common sense in staying safe.
I know you need to go to Japan to teach, you know that you need to do that, and somewhere deep inside I'm sure your father knows but is having trouble accepting it.
And I suspect that he and your mother will have some sleepless nights worring about you while your there.
And that is a very normal thing for a parent to do.

I know in the end you will do what you need to do. And things will work out.
All the best to you.