Thoughts at the Horizon

This morning I spent an hour working on a post about a special project for this blog I'm working on.  Then the post didn't auto-save and my internet, which is never very reliable as it's free and shared throughout my apartment building, then chose to go out completely.  This left me with a completely blank post. After that I just decided it was time to leave the apartment and go to the gym to vent my frustration through sweat and tears.  Needless to say, I'm still working on this project and will unveil it shortly.  It will be a series of posts that I hope will help those who come to Japan.  Apart from this, today has been sort of unproductive in many ways.  I had wanted to work on a proposal for an art project and to do a re-write on a art review I wrote, but in the end I did neither.  This is not a particularly Japanese themed post, though today I started thinking about the Japanese concept called もののあわれ.  This post is not exactly about that though, but underneath it mono no aware is there.

This is not a sunny day.

Today has been a really weird day for me and I'm just going to openly share this with you all, because I think if I keep it inside it's doing no one any good. I don't often share too many personal things online, but sometimes a girl's gotta vent somewhere.  Nothing special happened today, but I just felt very down for no particular reason apart from the sudden understanding of how lonely and isolating living in Japan can be some days (this isn't endemic to Japan of course, I felt this way in NYC, London, Germany, Vietnam and Tampa...but I think it's heightened here in Japan).   I started thinking about my relationships in Japan with my friends and co-workers and how I wished for stronger connections with certain individuals and how that's just not working out the way I had wanted it to, despite all the energy and effort I've put towards this.  I then started thinking about all the failed friendships and relationships I've had and then the day slipped into darkness. I always want to blame myself for these failures, but I know it takes both people and both parties are responsible.  And what do these failures mean?  And what do the half-baked relationships with friends, co-workers and lovers mean?  How can I strengthen these friendships?  Is there any way to do that?  And how do I show those who love me how much I love and cherish them constantly?  Ultimately I think I lack a sense of community and without community it's easy to feel as if we are on the outside of everything, floundering in life's uncertainty.  Some people enjoy being in that place, and sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't.  And today was one of those "sometimes I don't" days.

Sometimes I feel this way.

 
Some days are meant to be experienced through these low feelings I suppose.  We can't have happy-go-lucky days everyday and those who think that need to be more honest with themselves.  Life is a struggle, some days are wonderful and some days are meant to throw at you all of the issues that are stewing underneath the surface of things.  Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not.  Sometimes it's horrific in ways that are impossible to articulate.  When the horrific happens, remember to show empathy and love because it's the only way to show that we're all connected and bound to each other in this world.  That we're not suffering alone. 

 Sometimes I feel this way.

Life, with its ups and downs, is a learning experience as we unfold and unravel towards our oblivion and beyond that.  The question that I kept thinking about all day was, how do we grasp at this life and live it fully and develop deep relationships with others when it is impossible to hold onto, when it keeps slipping away, when those around us change or push away from us or are lost forever?

 After the rain comes sun...after the sun comes rain again.