Time is something that I think people spend a lot of time trying to figure out. They want to organize it, plan it, save it, kill it, understand it, prolong it, and always seem to either have too much or too little at different points in our lives. It heals wounds, blurs the memories, fades the photographs, slips through our fingers, and waits for no one. Sometimes it means nothing and you wonder where it went, other times it is everything. That 30 seconds you took to run out and hug somebody goodbye might mean more to you that weeks spent invested in something else, and could be something you remember the rest of your life.
As time moves onward, one has to wonder where things go, what has happened really. As previously mentioned I'm more than a bit terrible at keeping any sort of personal record of myself and my doings. Since I have been to Japan I have countless days that seemed so unique and new, but are now being washed away and faded by the intervening months. I've traveled and seen things I never knew existed, met old friends and made new ones, and all the while time passed by, drawing me irrevocably forward along with everything caught up in this thing we call time. I see choices coming on the horizon, and need to decide how to steer myself as they draw near. I see people close to me drawn through there own paths, trying to direct where they end up. I wish us all the best. I'm enjoying the ride so far, and it will be interesting to see where we end up.
Over the break I traveled up through Tokyo and to Niigata. Last weekend I went to Miyoshi and participated in a speech contest. Both events while seeming so recent, still fade so fast. In a way the ephemerality makes it that much more precious of an experience. Still though the images fade, the feelings remain, and I'm grateful for everything that I've been able to experience so far, and look forward to much more in the upcoming months and years ahead of me.
Let us see where time takes us.
~Jeffrey
