1 month post op Japan

Today marks one month since I returned from living in Japan for a year. It is also, coincidentally, my birthday.

After a tumultuous return and a deeply destabilising time away, I’ve finally found the space to sit with and reflect on the year I’ve had.

Japan showed me so many ways of being and moving through the world.

I was extremely hard-headed when I first arrived. I lacked focus, despite carrying so many dreams and goals.

My attitude and approach to life were quickly humbled but also expanded and refined in ways I could never have imagined.

It showed me how to care for myself, for others, and for the world as an extension of myself.

How to move slowly and with purpose.

How to trust my intuition and my own capabilities.

How to trust others.

How to find pleasure in simple moments—in openness to beginnings and acceptance of endings.

Above all else, it taught me how to surrender to the flow of time and destiny.

My experience of Japan was full of magic, yet it also acted as a mirror to my deepest existential fears and spiritual questioning.

I’ve always struggled with letting go.

There were many times I made the wrong choices.

Many times I felt helpless and alone, as though my efforts were futile.

Many times the pressure felt overwhelming.

At times I acted with too much pride; at others, I didn’t believe in myself nearly enough.

I sometimes placed myself in vulnerable situations that could have been avoided. But more often than not, I was faced with my own and others’ shame and limitations.

In facing these truths, I learned more about myself and my capabilities than I ever thought possible.

I pushed myself to my limits often alone and unsupported while still achieving things I now look back on with pride.

I learned to find love in everything around me.

I learned that love is abundant.

That love can be felt in the smallest gestures of care, in the way sunlight filters through the forest in the early morning,

in the way birds sing and play,

or in devotion to your craft and to others.

Love lives in reflection, and in showing up to try every day.

I felt and shared so much love. I also experienced profound loss.

I no longer relate to the person I was when I first arrived.

I shed beliefs, people, and attachments I once held tightly learning to hold their memory with love, even when I felt deeply hurt and abandoned more times than I can count.

This year taught me the art of letting go.

Of moving on.

Of evolution.

Of honesty.

Of accountability.

Of the perpetuity of change.

That what is meant for you will always find you.

And that sometimes a connection or opportunity has simply run its course.

That knowing when to move on is an act of love too.

And in that act of change

It’s okay to feel.

It’s okay to express.

It’s okay to feel lost.

To make mistakes.

To need holding in times of vulnerability.

Love that is true will not leave you.

No one truly has all the answers.

Everyone is doing their best.

Sometimes life is unfair.

And sometimes what you need is simply beyond someone else’s capacity to give.

Ultimately, the journey back to yourself is not found in the pursuit of being taught,

but in the felt presence of remembering.

And maybe my issue for now is that restlessness and desire to experience the fullness and vastness of that remembering.