Reflecting before Golden Week

BAAAAAAAHHH!!! Ok. That feels better. Sometimes I try too hard to be composed and need to let a little crazy out.

So I have to leave Japan in a few months and I am realizing that both logistically and emotionally that is going to be no easy task. So much to do! In addition, when my contract finishes at the end of July, I have a wedding to go to, a possible trip to China to still carry out, a long overdue visit to my home country of Croatia as well as trips to the UK and Austria to take care of. I have to figure out where I will live when I finally get back to Toronto sometime in October and what I will do with, well, everything. I have to get letters of recommendation and apply to graduate programs. I have to choose a program first – but even a location would help coz both Vancouver and Vienna are in the running at the moment. Relations or development? Business or diplomacy? Travel or career? Money or meaning? And on and on and on and on. Ok. I have to breathe. I know it will be fine….right? RIGHT??

The truth is though, I am not so worried about all this today. Why? Because it’s Friday. And not just any Friday, but the start of Golden Week – the big holiday week in Japan. I have most of next week off so I am leaving tonight for Miyazaki down in the south to go surfing for a few days. For the latter part of the week I am going to a big outdoor music fest at the foot of a volcano with the boys. Basically I will be living in a tent for the next couple of days, and that is fine by me!

I am always confronted by the abundance of good things in life, despite the minor setbacks that occur. Why then, as an excitement and novelty seeker did the fates curse me with sentimentality, romanticism, attachment and worst of all overthinking? Something I will never know….but what I do know is that I must keep moving. I must keep living, exploring, and learning. Boredom, stagnation, understimulation – those are my enemies. I am determined that when I look back on my life it may be with longing, but it will never, ever be with regret.

So when I come back from surfing, I may be battered and bruised, but you bet your ass I`ll pass out with a smile on my face! (um...wish me luck all the same....)