I did plan to make a post on some other technical considerations I had in mind, like internet plans and VoIP, but I haven’t felt quite up to it.
The past week or so I’ve been spending my time quietly at home, talking more to my parents and brother, especially my mom since it’s the school holidays for her so she doesn’t have to go to the kindergarten to teach. Something I wish JETs could do during the summer holidays but.. that’s beyond our control. While each day feels like it’s been passing rather slowly, on the whole it feels like the weeks just sped by. I’m getting quite anxious about revision for my JLPT test since I haven’t been doing the practices regularly and as a consequence am rather behind schedule.
“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness.” – Anaïs Nin
There’s been an undertone of anxiety and some conflicting emotions in my social interactions with people, most likely brought about by certain irrational thoughts that run through my head. My social circles are rather small, so I don’t think there are really that many people for me to meet, but for those that I keep close I do want to see more of them, hang out more with them. I’m just grappling with my own personal dilemma of appearing too.. needy (for lack of a better word) that I escape into aloofness, which is completely contrary to what I want – which is to spend so much more time with the people I love before I leave. As a result, I’ve been venting at the Tumblr I share with one of my closest friends, when I guess all I really need to do is say, “Hey, are you free? I’d like to spend more time with you. Let’s hang out.”
素直になれないな。。
Being upfront with my feelings is hardly my strongest suit.
“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness – and call it love – true love.” – Robert Fulghum
This piece on loneliness by This Japanese Life is extremely well-written and worth reading, and I get so many of the points made there. I don’t think loneliness is necessarily something that occurs only when you’re away from the people you know though. It’s like a little voice that speaks out in your head – when you’re in the company of people you know & can connect with, that little voice is easily quieted, but when you don’t feel a sufficient level of mutual understanding and connection with the people around you, that little voice resounds and echoes in the empty caverns of your mental living space, easily drowning out everything else. This is when shadows become demons as they creep out to fill your emptiness, whispering insecurities and uncertainties, eating little holes into yourself, holes which you feel compelled to fill in some way through vice or less destructive activities.
I am fortunate to have friends with whom spending time is truly a gift for my soul, friends in whose company my problems are washed away, friends whose warmth cover you like a warm fleece blanket and soothes the pains in your heart and quiets the demons in your head. These are the people with whom I feel the safest, with whom I think could make me stay even as I feel like I’ll always be drifting around, the people I keep close to my heart. My friends are the reason why I think I can be brave if I need to, even if it’s not necessarily courage but foolhardiness I have; they are my home away from home.
I will miss them terribly, but for now I will try to spend as much time as I can with them.
“I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds – but I think of you always in those intervals.” – Salvador Plascensia
Away 