Letters from Higo 📮🇯🇵

August 2, 2025

35,000 feet above the Pacific

Dear Moon,

As I’m sitting here on the plane to Tokyo – not tired enough to sleep, not alert enough to do anything productive – it finally sinks in:

This is truly happening.

I’m flying to a country I’ve never visited, on a continent I’ve never stepped foot on.

And I don’t even know what to expect.

Today has been long – full of new names, new group chats, new everything.

But now we’re all here, suspended together in the dark, flying across the world to teach English. To live in a culture we’ve admired from afar, but never had the chance to truly be immersed in.

Most people around me have been to Japan before.

They speak Japanese – some of them very well.

Their voices are calm, practiced.

And quietly, I wonder:

Did I prepare enough?

Am I behind?

Is this the wrong choice?

But the thought doesn’t linger.

Because as I sit here sipping my drink, the cabin humming low around me, I realize this is a moment on the edge of something.

Something new.

Something that’s been building for months.

And no, I couldn’t have prepared for it completely.

That was never the point.

I don’t feel scared. Or even excited, really.

Just calm.

Like I’ve already said yes.

This choice – it’s mine. And it’s good.

It may not be easy. But it’s right.

For growth, for change, for becoming – it’s worth it.

—

crossing oceans,

Ari

written August 2nd but posted August 3rd