Moving totally sucks. Moving your entire life in boxes is downright painful. But moving just your person, and a life's worth in two suitcases to the other side of the world is goddamn
masochistic. With the exception of a stack of t-shirts, my PS3, and a few pairs of shoes, I came to Japan literally, with nothing. 'Nothing', save for the the clothes on my back, the aforementioned shirts, and the prerequisite "heart full of confident dreams."
Well, four months later, the dreams have unhappily shaken hands with my pal Reality, and the suitcase--now less of a suitcase, and more of a makeshift dresser on the floor of my barren apartment. And now that I think of it, starting with nothing in a foreign country is a lot like playing the old SNES classic Super Metroid. Just as you can't get the hyper beam without first having gotten the morph ball, you can't get the Ferarri without first having purchased coat hangers.
See, Super Metroid is a game of patient exploration. Previously inaccessible areas open up with the acquisition of new items, so backtracking is a common gameplay element. Most interesting about the game's structure, is that while the final boss room is only a few map clicks from your initial starting point, the player is not allowed access without having first completed certain key tasks (eg. destruction of a group of space pirate bosses)--tasks that can only be completed with the acquisition of certain items (eg. the varia suit)--items that can only be acquired by first acquiring other items (eg. the ice beam)--other items that can only be acquired through the purchasing and powering on of Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo; and so on, and so forth, ad nauseam.
Which brings me back to my current irritating apartment situation. I am not a patient
bounty hunter man. I have a salary, and an empty apartment, and I want to fill it with fifty shades of awesome. I want the varia suit, and I want it today. I want the the grappling hook, the screw attack, and the plasma beam, but all I've got right now is this lame morph ball. Or rather, a schoolteacher's paltry salary with a closet full of coat hangers and a shitty soap dispenser from the 100 yen store. Square freakin' one. Brinstar Landing, 1st save.
Just as I wouldn't want to skip through all of Metroid to get to Mother Brain, I don't wish to skip the entire alphabet in going from 'A' (coat hangers) to 'Z' (personal helicopter pad on the roof of my apartment). Rather, I'm just looking for a way to circumvent the priorities of some of the more mundane physical need purchases (curtains, rugs, lamps, etc.), to get to the more rewarding crap, like cycling gear, PSPs, stereo wattage in triple digits, HDD Handycams, Bravia LCD televisions, and Gundam bunk that transforms into a couch.
Moving abroad and starting over has not so much taught me how to be a more patient person, as it has taught me that old-fashioned virtues like patience still exist, if only to annoy me. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that I only get paid once per month, as opposed to a more optimal situation where my bank account would swell for each
melon pan I ate. Which, as of late, would be several times per day. Yes, patience has not been learned in Okayama; I have only learned priority. Priorities justified by need. For example, sleeping on the floor is irritating, but less irritating than an empty stomach, thus; a rice maker is only slightly less important than a refrigerator, but more important than a proper desk or bed, wherein a clean floor will temporarily suffice. I've since worked past the most basic of the aforementioned furniture essentials, and have moved into the boorish realm of maintenance and care of my living space. A broom for the crumbs on the floor, toilet cleaner for back-to-back nights at the izakaiya, and so on. In establishing priorities, once the essential needs have been exhausted by the passing of time, we are granted access to the next level of exploration, or rather, the next tier of priorities--namely, priorities in
1080p.
In conclusion, Samus may have defeated Mother Brain with the almighty hyper beam, but she could not have without first rolling around on the ground with the lowly morph ball. So I will learn to be happy in delaying financing for the construction on my helipad, and settle instead for buying curtains and curtain rods. Furnished apartments be damned, I realized that "Happy Town" is only called so because of the 'apparently' visible ass picnic I host every morning at about 7:50.
So I am still annoyed, and I am still impatient. "You can't have it all at once" has become a mantra for the ages. But at least I understand that just because we can't have our hyper beams now, doesn't mean we won't be able to acquire them later. Patience, glasshopper.
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