Tag: home

Today’s list

I had several things on my list for ‘want to accomplish’ today.

The first half happened beautifully.

The second half were avoided beautifully.

Instead of doing laundry and folding clothes, I rearranged a bit of furniture how I had been contemplating doing for a while now, and then I cleaned up piles of papers and such that I had had around the floor in my room.

And I organized all my paperwork and labeled it to bring to my CPA.*

It was a huge positive move, but definitely not on the list for today. 😛

I also, instead of working on the photos – I moved them to tomorrow, when I’ll be somewhere with Internet already, using my computer, and can stay a while – today, I expanded immensely the efforts I had intended to make with my Italian studies.

Until just a few minutes ago, I was working on the Italian, which was possibly the fourth time today… I even did detail work on it… and that’s saying something.

I also, instead of hopping to it on those aforementioned tasks, I got myself out of the house, down to our main park in town, and I walked.

For hours.

I even ran into a friend, and I joined her and her friend (and the friend’s daughter) for another hour plus, which started right about when I had been considering heading home.

(Suffice it to say that I walked a lot today, and it was great.)

(And I rode the park train twice… and that was lovely(!).)

All in all, I had a great day.

I even listened to a couple hours of my audiobook while cooking/eating and then walking at the park.

So much accomplished today… it feels good going to bed now, exhausted from a reason other than illness.

Not typically my style, but I would like for it to become my style.

Last week was a good start, and this week was even better… let’s keep this Sunday outdoor social activity + self-improvement stuff up, Banana. 😉

*Not that I’m bourgeais (bourgey?) or anything – I hardly have money to survive in this society at the moment; I just used to work for her, and so we have a sort of arrangement for my taxes to be handled.

Post-a-day 2020

Wetter weather

Riding home tonight, I was quite chilled at the drop in temperature from when I had initially gone out while the sun was still up, but I knew I could handle the twenty-ish blocks I had to go, so I wasn’t worried.

Plus, I had verified that no rain percentage was forecast (above 0%, anyway), and I was heading straight home, anyway, so I would be okay.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t exactly taking my time to get up those twenty blocks to home – I was going as fast as was acceptable.

Which made it even colder for me.

And then, just as I was glad to have avoided something on the road, I feel a sort of odd spwhack! on my whole body.

Just as I begin to process the wetness of all of my exposed skin, I realize that I have just driven through a poorly placed water sprinkler.

Though it chilled me that much more, the comedy of it warmed me with laughter the rest of the way home… I could hardly stop laughing at the silliness and the irony combined.

😛

Post-a-day 2020

Seriously?

Can it really be?

Is my throat truly burning with a fire so bold, it could only been a painful yet brief illness?

I Just finished getting over a cold yesterday… my second one in a week(!).

Add in this new version, and it puts me at three different types of colds in ten days… man…

Ugh!

And I am scheduled to work out at 5:15am, and then go to Galveston for the day with my mom…

Ugh…

Help me, please…

Post-a-day 2020

Hercules

I have often dreamed

of a far-off place

where a great, warm welcome

will be waiting for me;

where the crowds will cheer

when they see my face,

and a voice keeps saying,

“This is where I meant to be.”

Tonight’s theme is “where I’m meant to be”.

I had a brief but important conversation with an old friend tonight… And it was scary, but necessary, if I am to be true to myself and to speak up for myself.

I shared how my reasoning for being so aloof with him lay in my experience of being unwanted, of not belonging in the crowd with him and the friends that surround him.

I shared how I am working on being the best and truest possible version of myself, and all that that entails in my life – that I want to share myself, my gifts, and my love with the world to the best of my ability.

I also shared that I kind of always assume that people don’t want me around – and I shared that that is something I’m working on for myself, to see myself as worthy of being wanted around – and that I have noticed in the past several years that, though people usually are totally okay with my being around, and they even enjoy it oftentimes, they never seem to call me first to go do something, to participate… or at all.

He understood what I meant, both logically and from experience for himself, his having been in a similar situation.

And he surprised me with the question of where do I feel wanted, that I belong and I’m loved?

Immediately, I thought of my mom, and then of my best friend….

As I searched my life, I realized that I feel that loving and safe and wanted space in the classroom, with my students.

And then, in a slightly different sense, at the gym where I go… there are groups of long-time friends there, so I don’t feel a part of those friendships, but I do feel a part of the gym community itself, and the friendship that that is – each one of us belongs there, we are happy to be there, and we are happy that everyone else is there.

Beyond that, I wasn’t too sure, and still am not.

I don’t have very many places where I feel fully wanted and loved, like I truly belong.

However, I noticed that it is nice that I spend a lot of time in those places where I do feel the love… I go to the gym up to six times a week, and I see my mom or talk with my mom almost every single day.

I am not teaching classes right now, and my best friend lives abroad and has been really busy with things, as have I, so those two don’t happen very often right now, but they are still incredibly valuable in my life.

Nonetheless, I do get to experience being wanted in someway every week… However, I am working on filling my life with people and places that help me be the best person I can be, which includes being wanted and loved by them.

And it is amazing how ever so slowly, but surely, more and more of those people keep coming into my life… Without my doing anything special – so it seems to me, anyway – these people seem attracted to me – to me – and they want to be around me, and they ask to be around me… They are the people who call me, and not someone else first.

And it is beautiful.

And I truly believe that it keeps happening more and more, because I am being more and more my true self, the person I meant to be.

🙂

All that being said, I almost didn’t share about this at all.

But, reading my book before going to sleep just now, I crossed a line in the book that expressed exactly the same thoughts as my conversation today, which is also something I was thinking about a lot yesterday… So it is a current theme in my life.

I wonder what it would be like to be embraced like that. To actually have a place where you belong.

And I totally get what she means. 🙂

Here’s to becoming each our own Hercules!

Cheers!

***First quote is from the song “Go the Distance” in the Disney film Hercules, and the second quote is from the book Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi.***

Post-a-day 2020

Welcome Home

It is rainy and humid and warm (but will be cold by morning!), and the house was humid and miserable when I first arrived, and the shower was standing, and my towel was (is?) big and fluffy, and I wrapped it all around my body and then my head, and it still isn’t soaked through…, and my bed is soft and big enough for me and not on the floor, and it is finally cool in my room and the hallway and all, but it is still humid in a good way, and so my nose insides aren’t hurting anymore…

Yes, I am back to Houston, Texas, and its winter weather and wonderful beds and towels…

And it feels delightful to be here.

But I’m hungry… hmm…

I guess I kind of did miss a meal somewhere along this past 39-hour day that was my January tenth of 2020… hmm…

Post-a-day 2020

Jet-setting oven

Well, here we go…

It has been an interesting day so far, and continues to be so now…

I currently am very annoyed with Air Canada, but I am hoping that they will remedy the nasty problem when they open the counter (as soon as this ANA flight finishes at the same gate, and someone shows up for my flight).

Also, what to do?

Buy the filthy expensive whisky for my dad, a whisky that you kind of can’t get anywhere else anyway?

I think so.

But I have to wait for them to open the counter to remedy the situation with my flight first…, then walk all the way back to the duty free place that had it (because the one here doesn’t have it).

Huff……

God, help me heal through this next bit of traveling (because I also happen to have a fever right now, naturally).

😛

P.S. They did not remedy the situation, and it was not a very comfortable flight arrangement… however, my seat companion and I commiserated and laughed about it a bit, and had some great conversation besides, so it ended up being tolerable (fortunately!).

Post-a-day 2020

Snuggle bug

The final night has arrived: I return to Texas tomorrow.

It is weird; I don’t feel like saying, “I’m going home…” it just doesn’t feel quite right.

For at least part of me, this is home – I am at home in Japan… in a way.

No, I do not want to stay permanently.

In dinner conversation, the idea came up of my working at an international school or special private school in Japan… and I almost felt a need to quell a rising panic…

But I reminded myself that I am safe and okay, and that I am perfect as I am, and I was able to remain calm easily and communicate nicely – aka I didn’t shout like a five-year-old, “Dame!” (No way!), but instead moved the conversation forward with a different route, so as not to offend.

(Because who wants to be told, “I kind of hate living full-time in your culture, thanks,”?)

Japan is a place for me to visit, that is for sure.

I even could see myself coming for slightly-extended-stays in the future, maybe for photography or something of the sort.

But not living here again.

I am sad to leave, but I am relieved to be going home to Houston, a place that always will hold a spirit of home for me.

I am nervous to go back to my low-budget life as a graduate student slash tutor slash up-and-coming photographer.

However, I actually am quite excited at the terror of what is to come next with all of it – classes and thesis, lots of graduation announcement photos, developing my editing skills, creating my kimono art show, teaching art & yoga (bilingually at that!), tutoring and teaching French and Spanish And Japanese, studying Japanese… maybe even watching some Olympic Games (I did buy some temporary tattoos and nail art to be a Japan fan during them…)…

Yes, I am looking forward to the next steps.

Especially getting even more fit… the gym has been something crazy for me this past month.

I have been totally fine without it, and even eating anything and everything delicious-tasting… and I have grown accustomed to being comfortable with myself more fully…

I am excited to return to the gym as my more-developed self that I now am… more true to myself than before (which was already purty darn good and true).

I am excited to see and to interact with my semi-crush-ish guy, and to be totally comfortable and okay with our being friends forever…

And to have that place be cleared up for something new and a bagillion times better to come into my life… I am ready to take on this life…

Thank you, Japan.

Thank you, Sara, my once-again snuggle buddy (now aged nine years).

Thank you, God.

Thank you, Texas – here I come. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Phfuuuuhhh(g)(!!!)

Well, tonight, we had some adventure.

And I’m still totally pissed about it.

Another hashtag “because ****ing Japan” under my belt tonight (which is kind of a big deal, considering I hardly ever wear belts, and am not wearing one tonight either). 😛

Anyway, I knew the whole time, and I still know now, that it was something I will enjoy and about which I will laugh (and probably much) in the future.

However, I am not ready for that.

And, really, I think that is because my emotions were, in a sense, denied, negated.

I was angry about something that happened.

I expressed this sentiment.

And the person with me kept trying to convince me not to be mad, and ended up doing so in a way that made me feel like my emotional response was invalid or wrong… and that, therefore, something was wrong with me.

Not cool, ね?

So, anyway, I think I need to get clear for myself that my emotions are valid: it is 100% okay and perfect that I was angry at what this other person did and the BS the taxi company pulled.

It is valid for me to be frustrated at my level of Japanese not being enough to sort out the situation on my own (in a hurry, anyway).

It is valid for me to be pissed that I didn’t just do it all the way I had wanted to do it all, but had instead done it a way to satisfy another.

It is valid for me to be pissed that I didn’t do a better job checking specifically the various train times.

It is valid for me to be stressed at the physical strain of running in the cold and wind and rain, in my rain boots that only mostly kept the water out (my heels ended up moist by the end, but it was somewhat expected).

It is also valid for me to be pissed at the person with me having constantly to talk…. (Ugh – shut up, already… I need to get through my own thoughts and feelings, please, without outside input [especially from the source of part of the strain, when that source isn’t changing its tune on the matter]… and to try to convince me not to be upset.

All my feelings are valid.

They are my own experience, and my experience is valid and true.

Thank you for this validation of and acceptance of my experience, Hannah.

Now that I have acknowledged it fully and accepted it, I can move forward in releasing it.

Phew…

…

…

Man, tonight kind of really sucked.

Thank you, God, for helping me through it, and thank you for helping me see the lessons in it, as well as for helping me improve myself from them, that I might do what I am here to do with you and the World and myself.

Amen.

Post-a-day 2019

Tick-Tock

Well, the omiyage are almost all gathered – just missing two magazines (and maybe another box of graham crackers… I need to count those) – and the rough list of packing and pre-departure to-do’s is made.

Accountability partner for tomorrow has been obtained.

Now, just to get to sleep, so I can get up early tomorrow and get to bosse-ing*!

I am beginning to grow nervous, and not exactly from excitement.

I think I am at that point of ‘when the pressure is on you, start, and the pressure will be off,’… so it is just pressure of being unprepared so late in the game for something so big.

So, I suspect I will feel much better by tomorrow noontime, when I have handled already a good hunk of the tasks on my list.

To be fair, I had a whole lot more packing and organizing that needed to happen the last time I was preparing for a trip to Japan, so it is only normal that this feels like Way too late to be only just packing clothes tomorrow.

Also, if all the organizing and cleaning up I want to do before I leave doesn’t happen, everything still will be okay… it just would be great to get it all done, and to come home to a lovely, organized, and clean home in just over a month from now…, so I want to make it all happen. 🙂

Fingers crossed!

*From the French word bosser, meaning “to work”.

Post-a-day 2019

Where is home?

I have been thinking lately more and more frequently about my upcoming trip to Japan.

It is now only two weeks away (not even, actually), and I am nervous but excited, and somewhat stressed.

But the stress isn’t about typical things, so much… not typical for most people, anyway.

It is about feeling a need to make plans for my trip.

Have you ever been busy and away from home for so long, that all you want to do is just go home and do nothing in particular other than be home?

Well, this is kind of how I am feeling about this trip to Japan.

I don’t really want to have to plan anything, because I feel like I am just going home and want to be home for a while before I start making any plans… plus, when we are home, we have time to figure out when to do things, because we live there…’we aren’t going anyway anytime soon.

But I am only visiting for a couple weeks…, about three weeks all together, I suppose… I don’t have all the time to schedule later.

Or do I?

…

I think I might just…

Anyway, I find it odd that going back to Japan feels like going home… like I’ve been off at college for the semester, and am finally returning home for the winter break…

But my semester has been two and a half years this time.

I wonder if it has to do with the fact that this was the first place where I was entirely on my own, as an adult.

I couldn’t go have lunch or tea with my mom, or ask her to help me do something or other, or go to her house for dinner and a movie… or anyone else who had become part of my staple people in life… I was on my own in my day-to-day.

And I built a home for myself, even though it became all too clear that the culture was not one in which I wanted to stay living and working long-term… I had said that I wouldn’t have to be paid a lot of money to go back to working in and living in Japan…, and that still stands.

However, a visit to Japan, as I always said, is a great idea.

And I am delighted.

I will test this idea of not scheduling anymore for now… I think it might help significantly for me… mhmm…

Post-a-day 2019