The day Ellie died.

One year ago I began living with my Japanese roommate. I love her! From the first time I met her I thought she was such a cool girl, beautiful inside and out. She would hang out with me, talk to me and cheer me up when I was down. One year later little by little there started to be a chill in the air. Her attitude towards me became cold and brass. I thought maybe something was wrong that she couldn't talk to me about. We hadn't been in a fight or anything and I couldn't understand why suddenly there was this friction between us. 

Then... she exploded.

Things that had been bothering her about me, how I live, how I act, things I said all came up and she said the words that would mark the end of any relationship from an American standpoint, "I want you to give me some space!"

I was devastated, but I wasn't about to just let our friendship fall apart.

I had to step back, but it was a good thing. 

Now I really began to see the differences between our cultures. 

Let me go back a bit, before things started to get tense. 

The longer we lived together, the more happy I was. I was so grateful for her friendship. As a foreigner living alone in Japan my friends are my family and she is such a dear and important person to me. Her dream, though, is to get married and start her own family and business. This means that inevitably be moving out someday, probably soon. So, at some point I decided that as long as we were living together I wanted it to be the best time for her; that she would be comfortable and happy and have only good memories of living with me.

I started to bend my living habits to match hers, she likes things to be really clean so I put in more effort to be neat. Me doing things with my feet, like closing doors or blocking the rabbit from bouncing around where she doesn't belong, really bothered her, so I tried my best not to do it. I even started trying to fold the toilet paper into a little triangle after going to the bathroom... AND closing the lid. 

It's a good thing that I really started practicing these habits before hand because it was these kinds of things that had been bothering her. 

Her culture, Japanese culture; the emphasis is on the whole, not the individual. Keeping things super neat and clean, using things only in the way they were designed for, using a different towel for every kind of surface, asking permission every time, even when you know the answer is yes... all of these things and more are done out of consideration for others health, ease and well-being. Neglecting these small details is like saying you don't care about people. 

Now I am trying very hard to learn and practice Japanese manners and habits out of consideration to my still dear friend.

I truly love my room mate in the purest sense. But that was the other problem...