Tokyo: My Silver Linings Playbook
A thank you to a city that taught me so much
When you take someone out of all they know and drop them into a city where they look like they might belong—but the city knows they don’t—you learn about silence first. I spent weeks not moving from the corner of my couch. My LA routine dissolved. So did proximity to my friends. One‑hour phone calls turned into staggered time zones: I’d wake up to their replies, they’d wake up to mine. Everyone already had their circles. I flew home twice and overstayed. Paid rent I barely used and called it the cost of happiness.
Then I started pushing back. The loneliness of fewer conversations. The quiet of domestic objects. Buying flowers to prove beautiful things can exist without purpose. Asking what actually fulfills me. Part of this move was to stop sprinting through airport terminals toward a future I never paused to celebrate. If I was going to be here, I wanted to learn how to stay—how to be with myself without trying to outrun her.
So I practiced the advice I used to give as a counselor. I tested my own advice against real days, not perfect ones. This is the playbook I wrote while I was here.
My Silver Linings Playbook
1) I walked home.
I’ve always loved walking, but instead of clocking miles in place on a treadmill, I let Tokyo carry me. One hour turned to three. By the end, five miles felt like turning the world down and my inner volume up. It reminded me of Austen’s women—how walking is their quiet subversion, a way to think freely when rooms have rules. Elizabeth Bennet’s muddy trek to Netherfield reads like a footnote in female autonomy: independence, beginning on foot. There were weeks I spent cooped up in my apartment, afraid to leave because I was too afraid to put myself out there, while allowing my homesickness to cripple me. So I grew even more fond of walking because it gave me the courage to leave my apartment.
2) I found a childhood I never got to have.
People say one gift of parenthood is remembering the childlike wonder through raising your own; I wasn’t parenting, but I started noticing like a child. The moon over the towers. The lobby decorations changing with each season. Convenience‑store puddings I once dismissed. Gashapon capsules I kept on the windowsill. I let little things be enough: socks warm from the rack, citrus peels by the sink, the way the city’s vending machines felt like reliable friends at 3 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep.
3) I learned seasons.
Los Angeles is beautiful, but it’s a soft blur. Here, the year has edges. Plum blossoms that ask you to believe again. Tsuyu rain that teaches patience. Cicadas that make you listen. Ginkgo gold that makes you walk slower on purpose. Winter that invites soups and sweaters and earlier goodnights. Weather became a metronome; I finally matched its tempo.
4) I named the depression and still made the bed.
Depression in your thirties is quieter. You don’t get to collapse, you negotiate. You know your privileges, yet you still fight your shadows. Some mornings felt like autopilot with a seatbelt. The silver lining was remembering I’ve survived harder things and that showing up counts even when no one claps. I learned how strong I can be.
5) I let go of performance.
Knowing this chapter was temporary, shopping lost its thrill. I forgot what I left behind each time I flew home. Material things shrank in value, and eventually that clarity touched everything—especially the way I dressed. Growing up in LA comes with a subconscious aesthetic obligation. Add a mother who modeled professionally and an Instagram presence without a niche, and you learn quickly how to curate your body as content. You also quickly forget how to value yourself beyond physical appearances.
Eventually, I asked myself what any of it was for.
I stopped dressing to be legible. I started wearing what I'd always wanted: oversized sweaters that hid the shape of my body and pants that let me breathe. I let myself enjoy foods I used to resist…so much so that my body, conditioned by years of restriction, initially flinched at something as simple as soy sauce. By August, I stopped wearing makeup. Not because I’d given up, but because my bare face started to feel more like me. By October, I stopped going to the nail salon. Not because I didn’t care, but because I loved the feeling of touching the world with hands that weren’t performing. Of being able to feel texture again. Of not being worried about breaking a nail or seeing my real nailbed appear like an hourglass. It was one less thing I had to spend money and time on because time became more valuable.
6) I actually started to like myself.
Not because I finally “glowed up.” Not because of compliments. But because my values started to match my behavior. I realized beauty has very little to do with symmetry or styling…it’s the quiet confidence that comes from congruence. I used to measure desirability by attention. But the less I tried, the more I was noticed. Not for the shape of my body, or the angle of my face but for the way I moved. My energy felt truer when it wasn’t calculated. The way I carried myself changed. I walked with my head held higher. My pace steadier. Being complimented while wearing no makeup and a sweatshirt three sizes too big made me feel seen, not as a product, but as a person. There was no arrogance in it. Just relief.
7) I learned to respect craft and culture.
Here, every craft whispers legacy. The Japanese concept of monozukuri—the spirit of making things with pride, skill, and heart—became visible in shops where wood meets lacquer, where every cut and finish mattered. And the love for family. I saw parents biking through alleys with children in the backseat, children jumping in puddles with their dads after rain. It wasn’t for the photo, it wasn’t for the feed. It was devotion in motion. The carp streamers of Children’s Day—koinobori—flying above homes remind you that children are celebrated, feared, honored. I grew fond of how the city treasures slow craft and curious kids not because they’ll make money, but because they’ll make meaning.
8) Presence became policy.
Missing home made me gentler with time. Phone face‑down at dinners. Boundaries that sounded like kindness: “I need a quiet morning,” “I can meet after,” “I’ll deliver this by Tuesday.” With my bosses, with friends, with myself. I stopped treating rest like a reward and started treating it like infrastructure. You can’t pour from a cup you keep apologizing for filling.
9) Detachment, not disinterest.
I kept my Raya bio at “friends only.” I met someone good—fresh from divorce, communicative, thoughtful. He checked boxes, but our timelines didn’t match. I didn’t need to own him to value the encounter. Detachment didn’t mean I didn’t feel. It meant I chose discernment over projection. Love doesn’t have to be pursued to be honored. Purity doesn’t need possession.
10) Humility, the kind you earn.
Tokyo doesn’t reward effort publicly. It assumes excellence. I asked for help in a second language. I got lost. I made mistakes. I showed up late and bowed. I had to soften to navigate. And in doing so, I carried less ego. Not less confidence but less need to be right. Less urgency to be praised. I remembered how to be a beginner. It made me kinder, smarter, freer.
11) Being alone gave me back my voice.
Writing was my first method of communication. Even still, if I could choose, I would prefer to write it rather than speak it. Because I had so much time alone, I was able to focus on my own narratives finally. That also meant cutting the ones that have held me back in life, in love, in myself. Writing was and still is my way of coping, and it carried me through some of the most challenging moments this year. If this year had not happened, I don’t think I would have taken the time to write as much as I have. The more I wrote, the better I wrote. And as an extension of that, the better I eventually spoke.
12) Home returned to its original shape.
It’s not an apartment or an aesthetic. It’s my mom coming home from work, flipping through Netflix with her mindlessly on a Sunday, eating take‑out on a random Tuesday. Even our small arguments meant something; proof that we’re still choosing to stay. The kitchen light. Her nagging voice. Our quiet. Our laughter. Being away from home taught me that this was the most valuable thing I have.
I’m leaving Tokyo soon. The city kept some of my photos, and I’m fine with that. Some memories are private on purpose. The streets outside my apartment knew. I have a feeling this won’t be the last time I stay here for an extended period. After all, I am not the type to leave a chapter that doesn’t feel finished.