Sometimes, things fall apart, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
Sometimes, things come together, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
And sometimes, the difference between the former and the latter is that action was desperate and limited in the former, but honest and free in the latter.
Life sure is beautiful, ain’t it? 😉
Post-a-day 2017
I’ve been thinking tonight about my Prince Charming, my personal one, my desired future. It all started with thinking about musical theater as I showered. As most shower stream-thoughts go, I ended up on a very loosely connected tangent. Do you know the song by Chris August called “Stranger”? It’s a beautiful song, and I fell in love with it several years ago. A lot happened related to that song, but let’s not go there now. While some specific lyrics rolled through my head over and over again, as song lyrics so often do, something struck me.
I dreamed you.
Now, I’ve found you.
Call off the search,
’cause I found my stranger.
Those were the specifically inspiring words tonight. Though I have listened to the song more times than I know, and I know every word still, despite having stopped listening to it years ago (for reasons I won’t mention just yet), I have never had the thought that followed those words as they repeated in my head tonight.
“I have never dreamt you.”
Though I have wished and wished, and even hoped and prayed and asked for my partner in life, I have never dreamed him up. I have begun ideas before, but I have never come up with what my partner in life actually is. You could ask me now, and I would have no idea what to tell you about the partner I want. Sure, there are plenty of things I know that I don’t want, but everything else seems to change with how I feel each day, each time someone asks me about it.
Now, I don’t exactly see this as a bad thing. I just happened to realize that I have never dreamed him up. So, I can never have Chris August’s song become a reality for me – I can’t find my stranger. I don’t even have a vision in my head of what it looks like being with someone. Every time I have dreams where there seems to be a sort of partnership, I always seem to be the one taking care of someone else – the traditionally male role. Or, perhaps it is the mother role I play. I already seem to do that all over the place in life. It’s the reason I have always wondered if I can ever find someone to take care of me. But I digress…
I realized in the shower that I have no image of a person. I don’t know if I’m looking for someone tall, dark, and handsome. I don’t know if he is foreign or domestic made. I don’t even know what kind of skin he has. Again, I don’t necessarily see this as bad. I am just noticing it. I also notice how so many others seem to have dreamed up their partners years before they even have begun dating others. I mean, they seem to know what they want. By having that idea of what they want, they are able to seek it out. Sometimes, when they find it, they realize they didn’t want it after all. And sometimes they find something better along the way. But they have something to pursue. I don’t even have an idea to seek out, a type of someone or something to pursue. Perhaps that is an issue with being so open to the world and to new ideas, and for knowing that what I see or think isn’t always the best that the universe has to offer.
Post-a-day 2017
My life is going somewhere. I know it is. I can feel it… just waiting for some little piece to tip over an edge, and suddenly the flood will come, the overflowing wealth of the beauty that sits poised to the side right now, waiting… for me?
I don’t know what it is, but something is waiting to happen. And I don’t know if it is up to me or to time alone, awaiting someone else to come into the picture… but it is coming, and soon. I have six weeks. I am grateful for this upcoming beauty and joy. Let’s do this.
Yes, let’s. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
The trouble with having freedom in my future is that freedom can sometimes means too many options to focus. Â Right now, I know what I am doing for the next six weeks. Â After that, I’m really not sure. Â My current job will be finished, and so my life is open to options from there on out. Â What will I do next? Â I have total freedom (within the bounds of financial abilities, of course). Â And with that freedom comes an uncountable number of possibilities for what I could end up doing.
It feels like I have a new path I am considering pursuing almost every day. Â One almost could ask me, “What’s today’s fancy, Hannah?” Â And I’d have a different answer almost every day. Â A week ago, I wasn’t too sure about my cat, and I found myself wondering that I rather preferred his living with a family with other cats, and who wants him. Â This weekend, I have felt as though all I want is to move into my own apartment and to live with my cat again. Â (Despite the fact that I said several times this past year that I probably never want to live alone again.)
Talking with my stepbrother tonight, I find myself really wanting to pursue coaching and teaching. Â It has me wonder if I don’t just get excited about other people’s dreams and their passions, and I long to have the dream, the desire, the passion that they have about something, as opposed to the actual something. Â Do I want to coach and teach, or do I simply want the clear desire and love that my stepbrother showed for the two activities tonight? Â To be fair, I really did love coaching lacrosse (assistant coaching, anyway), so I’m not looking at something in which I have no background or foundation here. Â Nonetheless, it is still something into which I am looking regarding my future and my means of making money.
Anyway, … that’s what I have for tonight…
Post-a-day 2017
And so one thing ends, and, with anxiety, something new begins. Tonight, I complete my life here in Japan, and dream one last dream before I move forward to my next step. I felt like I was in “What About Bob?” today, taking my mother’s guidance to do whatever needs to be done next – aka baby steps. I took my baby steps all day long today, and finally got it all finished. I even accomplished a few things I expected not to be able to do.
One of those things being seeing the guitarist I’d seen a couple weeks ago at the nearby train station, who had greeted me in English one night as I was moving my stuff to my friend’s place. He greeted me and asked how I was doing tonight, as I was walking in Shibuya, and ended up accompanying me, with my comfortable acquiescence, to the phone shop to disconnect my phone (It was closed.), and then buying me a Japan-only Yuzu frappucino from Starbucks, and sitting with me as I finally watched the Shibuya Crossing from the Starbucks window (It wasn’t actually very impressive, but I think I never really expected it to be, anyway.), at which point, we finally discovered that we had, in fact, seen one another those two or three weeks back. He was a nice guy, Ryo.
I ended my evening with my last gaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi), on which I spent Â¥680 (just over $6 US), and which I didn’t even finish eating. I’ll miss such affordable sushi, but I’ll survive quite well back in Houston, I do believe. Green smoothies and colorful veggie-based juices are calling me.
And now, at long last, I shall sleep. Rest, anyway. We’ll see if it really is sleep tomorrow morning, when my alarm wakes me just before 5am. I hope I wake rested well.
Anyway, this is it, I guess. Tomorrow morning, I say goodbye to Japan, and then I time-travel (departing 11:10am on Saturday, 12 August, and arriving 9:30am on Saturday, 12 August).
Goodnight!
Post-a-day 2017
Who would have thought that I would spend a year of my life living in Asia? I never even had any real desire to go to Asia, until I met my circus acrobat friends, who are from China. But the desire that developed out of those friendships was merely a cultural trade among friends – I had shared it of my home with them, and now they wanted to give the same to me. In essence, I want to go to China to be with my friends, not because I am specifically aiming to see China. Nothing against China, of course – I just have never had a real desire to see it.
On that note, – let’s roll with the thoughts here – I feel as though I have a rather ability to distinguish between my real desires and my that-would-be-cool desires. I explain. When I have what I am currently calling a “real desire”, it is something that I intend to pursue. With general desires, they are things that would be nice to pursue, but I have no deeper intentions to pursue them. These are, of course, both to varying degrees.
Being a multi-millionaire would be amazing. I desire it. I truly do. However, it is not something I intend to pursue, as much as I may wish to attain it. It is a general desire for me. Returning to German-speaking Europe for Christmas markets is a “real desire”, as I am calling them (Can you tell that I don’t much like my current terminology?). No, I will not do it this year, most likely, and probably not next year either. However, it is in my thoughts, and I intend to do it at some point.
This is where the varying degrees comes in for distinguishing. This is one of my middle-range real desires. Yes, I want to do it, and yes, I believe I will do it. No, I am not in a hurry to do it. Having a frozen margarita in Texas is more of an immediate real desire. I will not wait for this one to come up somewhat conveniently, and then take action, or casually plan for it in my some time soon future. My mother is picking me up at the airport when I arrive home to Houston, and she has known for months that I want to go have margaritas the day I arrive. We are getting margaritas within hours of my arrival to Texas, and are only taking that long, because I want it fresh, customs and immigration and baggage take time, and the airport is a ways away from good margaritas. Essentially, I am pursuing this desire as soon as it is possible for it to be fulfilled.
One other example, just for clarity (or to confuse you more, if this all doesn’t make sense to you), could be in my desire to bungee jump off a bridge that is over water. Something a long time ago gave me the desire, but it was more of an unreal desire for me. I didn’t expect my life to have it ever be an option. However, once I went small-scale bungee jumping with friends, it began to shift to a real desire. I was afraid to pursue it, so I left it in the gray area, ready to be pursued, should the opportunity arise. Now that I have lived somewhere that offers such a thing, – Ibaraki, Japan – I see myself pursuing it. I notice that it is not huge in my list of desires, but it is a real one. The opportunity presented itself two weeks ago, and I made arrangements to go jump. Of course, timing was such that I got dreadfully sick the day beforehand, and so rescheduled with my friend. I am now scheduled to go with a different friend next week. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be okay. This is a real desire that I have, but it is so much on a non-time limit that I am okay not doing it now – I know I will get around to it at some point, so I don’t have to hassle myself extremely to make it work at this one place. That being said, I really do want to handle it all now, and bungee off my bridge in Japan, partly because it’s one less thing for me to think about in the future, and partly because it makes for a fun story. And I used the word “handle,” not because I dislike the situation, but because a lot of things here recently have kind of been a real hassle for me, and so I tend to think more in terms of ‘managing’ things in life for the next two weeks, as opposed to just ‘living’ life and ‘creating’ things, and all that jazz.
Anyway, that was a fun tangent for me. I could have explained it loads better, but I didn’t. I hope that’s okay for now. I’m sitting on a train to go up to my final festival in Japan, and I really need to pee, but don’t want to bother using what might be a gross train toilet (notice that I have no concern for leaving my belongings at my seat – score one big one for Japan on this point), when I know I can make it all the way to the station. So, I have written this to help me pass the time without wandering thoughts on the discomfort of a filling bladder (the realness of the discomfort can be evidenced by the fact that my shorts haven’t been buttoned for close to an hour already). I dislike writing on my phone, and for more than one reason (physical slowness of thumb typing and high error rate are two of the main ones). Therefore, I’ll end with this:
I never expected to end up living in Asia, for any period of time. I especially did not expect it to be for longer than I had lived in any country other than my own. I like Europe. I would have expected my doing a year there long before I even visited Asia. But here I am, one year through (and very through, I do believe) life in Asia. It has turned out that Japan is not a very good place for me to live my life, but that I really do appreciate Asia. I actually have real desire to return to Asia, and to experience more of it. Japan, Korea, and Singapore have only gotten me started, it seems.
In a way, it is stressful, because there are now even more places I want to visit. However, I will just roll with what life offers to me, and aim for returning for at least one visit for a start, hopefully within the next few years. I’d say that this is a middle-range real desire, similar to, and likely above the Christmas Market one. It’ll happen, I believe, as I have full intentions for it to happen. It’s a real desire I have. Life does what it does, though, so we’ll just have to see. For now, I’m at the end of the train line in the next minute or three, so I’ll go wrangle my baggage – giving away loads of nut butters, smoothie boosters, and spices, as well as my Magic Bullet (c) (Is that right?) – and head for my friend who is meeting me at the station. Then I’ll use a bathroom either there or at her nearby home. And then we’ll enjoy fireworks and a festival, possibly in the rain. Whatever the case, we will enjoy it, which is a main part of what called to mind my thoughts on having lived here in the first place.
Post-a-day 2017
I have been sitting here for over an hour, not going home. The semi-excuse was that I was talking with my mom, but the phone call has finished, and here I still sit. I also had a high level (for me) of caffeine this afternoon, and so I wanted to get the jitters out as much as possible, while I still had the chance to walk around outside and all. Now I feel the sleepy sliding into place, wishing me to bed.
And yet, here I still sit.
I do not know if I am afraid of tomorrow, and am letting that stop me from ending today, or if I am afraid of tomorrow, but have some other reason that I still sit here on my little piece of green-light-backed bench. Either way, I can see clearly that I am afraid of tomorrow beginning. I leave in 12 days, and the planning I didn’t want to do would be coming into effect now, if I had done the planning. Instead, the events are all floating around, wondering if and when they will be accomplished by me. I can almost see the Super Smash-like challenge at play around me, each item fighting happily for a place on my life this week and next. But they all have so many lives, it is taking forever to figure out who ranks where – the current lowest position might still come through and win the whole thing in another 40 lives.
It is such a beautiful night right now, right here, I want to keep it. I want to roll into a hammock out here in the plaza, and sleep with the cool breeze brushing and rocking me all night, clouds floating slowly by above me, and slight coty noises rumbling off and on in the nearby distance.
But, even still, I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t specifically have a desire to remain here on this bench. I also don’t specifically have a desire to walk the block home or to go to bed. It is not apathy necessarily. I just can’t figure out what feeling is there. Because I know that there is something there…
And so I sit, writing this, and taking my time to do so, pausing so as. It to finish and have no other reason good enough to keep me here on this bench. Here, I am intentionally on my own, alone. Once I move onward, that will not be the case. While I am here, there is not much of anything for me to do but to sit and to enjoy. Once I move onward, again, that will not be the case.
…
However, the plaza decided for me just now, as it turned off its lights. No longer is my bench wall green, and no longer are the ground lights shining. The plaza now sleeps, and I accept that as encouragement enough to send me home. I still do not want to go, but I certainly prefer that to being in trouble with the security guard who already stared me down earlier, when all the lights were still glowing.
Anyway… yeah…
Post-a-day 2017
I simultaneously want to live a simplistic, minimalistic-esque life, and one in a huge house, with lots of awesome things in it.
How do I go about making that happen?
Well, I don’t know. However, I have a feeling that my best friend would simply say that I’ll find a way somehow – I always seem to do so with whatever comes up in life. Don’t know how? Well, I figure it out anyway, and make it happen. So she claims, and I mostly agree with her.
Perhaps this is a perfect time to apply this thinking to my current state of affairs (i.e. Minimal money, needing insurance for the first time when I move to the US next month, needing a place to live, needing to find good work for after my temporary position ends around the end of September, and how to get rid of so much stuff that I know I have waiting for me in a packed room at my mom’s house.). Yes, I think it is.
Post-a-day 2017
I don’t know what it is, but something has me unconcerned on the whole. I don’t quite have a place to live after this month. I don’t quite have a well-enough-paying job as of this week. I don’t have any health or dental insurance once I move back to Texas next month. And yet, here I am, trying to get myself worked up, because I am not already concerned about these things.
Why am I unconcerned? I don’t know. There is something in the air though, that tells me that everything is okay, everything will be perfect once I’m back home. So, I am trusting. I am keeping an open mind, and I am listening when things come up.
Let us see where this takes me next month… 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
My mom is on a sort of artist retreat in Washington right now. She called me up to show me the place where she’s staying for the retreat, and it’s gorgeous. The barn-like house and other beautiful, wooden buildings on the plot of land look fabulous amongst the unfamiliar greenery. I kept looking at it all, trying to place it. It looked somehow familiar and yet totally not. But I’ve never been to anywhere that has foliage like Washington, so it’s no wonder I couldn’t quite figure it out, place it all – it actually is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The temperature was in the 50s, with humidity in the 80s, as it was early morning. I found myself asking my mom how far she is from Forks. I had to spell the name for her, as well as tell her that it’s a city in Washington. She had no idea that I was semi needing out. But that’s okay, because it turns out that she’s something like four and half hours away by ferry and car. So there’s no chance she’d be able to pop by for a quick look and a photo for me. (Aka I’m not missing out on a total nerd opportunity.)
So, that was fun, discovering that I’m a bit more of a nerd than I had expected. 😛 Gotta love nerds, though, right? I know I do. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
hannah ananas 