Living in the Present

I was thinking yesterday about how I used to always spend my life thinking about what the next step would be. Freshman year of college I picked out all the classes I wanted to take the whole time I was in college. The summer I worked in Alaska I was wondering what to do the following summer. In Hawaii I was looking for my next job. Then there were the years we were working and hoping to make Japan happen. I'm guilty of doing this in my personal life too. It's not always a bad thing, I'm often prepared or more able to be flexible when plans change because I've already imagined a hundred different alternatives. But being in Japan for an indeterminate amount of time (and trying to be an author) makes a lot of my planning for the future harder.  omeday we'll move somewhere, and my job will be something, and I just don't know. I mean, I'm pretty sure we'll have an oven again, and wherever we live will be bigger than our current apartment, and eventually there will be children. But it's all pretty hazy.

For a long time I was adjusting to all the change associated with moving here and figuring out how to have a mostly normal life. And then once I started feeling settled I started trying to plan what would come after Japan. John and I have some thoughts and dreams, but in a big way those just aren't things we can really know right now.  So now I'm just trying to embrace the here and now. A lot of last year was about learning what Japan was like during the year, getting to know the weather patterns, learning about seasonal events and fun seasonal products. It's sort of strange to be doing it all again for a second time. Now I know that it generally doesn't snow until February, and that green tea and dark chocolate kitkats come out about a month before the sakura start blooming. (I know a lot more useful things too) Things are starting to feel familiar, and that in itself is interesting. I wonder where this blog will go in the next year? I'm sure I'll still be learning and discovering lots of things, but everything won't be new the way it as last year.

But now I'm feeling happy about where I am. I've got a good thing going with writing and friends and John. We're going on vacation tomorrow, and it seems like Spring is starting to arrive. Right now things are looking very bright, and I'm trying to just enjoy that instead of looking further into the future.

Yummy Lunch Date With Raku