よろしく: yoroshiku
I'm sitting at the airport following the first security checkpoint, and uncontrollably as I so often do, I'm thinking. (The security agents are terribly nice, by the way, and they say that the attitude of the passenger really changes the day. It's rather incredible, how much power one can have in that way, don't you think?) I had plenty of assumptions going into this whole ordeal, not the least of which being that this would never, not in a thousand years, happen. This sort of thing doesn't happen to people like me, you know? Ordinary people. Below-ordinary people-- rather, the person who is specifically me. I expected people to think me crazy or irresponsible. I was sure everyone would be trying to talk me out of it. Perhaps I did, and was projecting-- that's the only thing Freud has on me, I promise! But since the beginning, everyone, every single person I've talked to and even those I haven't really, has been so positive and excited. I was genuinely so, so surprised. Not because of the trip, I suppose, but because people believe in me. You take time out of your terribly important and miraculous life to think of me, to be proud of me? I cannot fathom it. I truly cannot. Today, I am not afraid because I feel bold, I feel protected and though no one sits on either side of me now, as I wait in the terminal between murmurs of travelers and hums of blocked-off vending machines, I am not alone. I have the precious tokens you have sent with me tucked away in my bag, glowing with the strength of the distant you. I have the memories warm in my chest of last smiles, hugs farewell. I have the words more precious to me than anything where I can turn them over and over again in my fingers. I realize this may just be a small thing, at once an ordinary thing swallowed in the din of the universe, but this is momentous to me. So, thank you for believing in me. This feeling I have now, I have not felt in many years. I promise I will travel with your warm wishes and thoughts, and when I return, I will give them back a thousand-fold. You all deserve everything in the world. I promise I will become someone who reflects the precious markings of each and every one of you. There's a phrase in Japanese that is common but difficult to translate: よろしく-yoroshiku - which is a sentiment like, "please keep watching over me kindly", or "let's take care of one another from now on". That's how I feel. I want you to know that. Thank you.
