Here we are almost half way though the first month of the new year. And as I look back and take stock in the year that has passed it is worth taking a moment and writing about it.
As far back as 2022 October I booked my trip to Japan for spring break. I had always wanted to go somewhere exciting and finally this was my chance, my time. I booked my ticket the day Japan opened and fought for my right to go spite my boss at the time fighting me from going. I was going regardless, nothing was stopping and as I pushed my request form back across the table, I left it with saying if your telling me I can’t go then your gonna have to get someone a lot higher in rank tell me so.”
I left for Tokyo the morning of March 10 and arrived in Tokyo on the 11th late in the afternoon. I was back home and loving every moment of it. This journey took me back to Tokyo and down to Kyoto keeping the promise I made of returning. The incredible feat in all this was the fact that I was still in school and suppose to be studying. Regardless, I made incredible experiences and made the very best at making memories and meeting new people along the way.
Only a short time later I would be graduating from University with my bachelors degree in accounting. A long time coming and an incredible feat all in it’s own. Now, was the time to move on from my job and actually do what I went to school for. Finally I had the opportunity to apply at a place I had wanted to ever since I found out about it. In the beginning it was not easy. I had no experience and so getting turned was starting to become a thing.
Than as if by fate I got a phone call from my former boss when I worked in the oil field asking how the job hunt was going. I was honest that I had been turned down here and there, leaving me in a quagmire. He said that he would look into what he could on his end and get back with me. I called him back asking him if I could use him as a reference which he agreed, but then surprised me when he said, I got to go but I’ll call you right back. Moments later he was offering me to come out and interview at my old company in the roll of accounting, it would be much but it would get my foot in the door and some experience.
There was no greater joy in quitting my job and getting to put in my two weeks and leaving behind something that was a detriment to my health and to my sense of being. And even in the end of trying to do the right thing I was replaced and nicely forced out before the end of my two weeks. Regardless almost to the date of three years, I walked on to my next adventure
I walked into a reality where it was chaos from the get-go, but I dug my heels in and stuck it out until I found my way and place. and rose to the top in only a matter of just four short months. And in those four short months, I watched many more things transpire as if you could cram that much into only three months.
I took a chance at believing in something in life as an artist and ran with it as an artist. As artists, we don’t see the world like everyone else, and we don’t let reality get in our way, we see it through our lenses. life is an expression, and the meaning of it is what we put into it and what we take from it. Although the artist’s intentions aren’t always understood, spite is filled with good intentions, with a hope and desire to run with life with fiery passion and love for life and living. Artists walk in their surreal world often forgetting about the reality at hand and often get caught up on their own.
When I think of life and how vastly infinite it is and yet how fine our experiences and encounters are there is no wonder why I want to run with life, with a desire to be a part of everything and to do everything. Tokyo is an adventure that some never experience, and this is my fourth time. I wrote this poem.
“If this is the last time I visit Japan it’s because next time it will be with you, and if I never return it will be because I have found greater meaning in life here with you.”
The truth about Japan and Tokyo is that there is truly amazing magic there, beyond what I could ever have imagined each time I go back I tap into it and run with it as hard as I can. Rather than only having the magic of life once a year maybe twice I want the magic of life every day. Rather than the daily beat scene I want to live the extraordinary happenings of life in there in its infinite possibilities.
This is the next chapter and the next great beginning. On Jan 6th I booked my ticket for Tokyo leaving in September for what I am pushing to be the very best trip ever. This time I will be taking an adventure team to experience the magic for the first time.
The trip is only the beginning. For whatever reason this idea has come to mind and lingered leaving me to live the fullest life possible. YOU MISS 100% OF THE CHANCES YOU DON’T TAKE. Life is about taking chances you believe in and running with them, and the inherent magic of living and being in the moment. When I think about life and the randomness of it all. Out of all the times in known history and in all the moments in which I could exist I exist in the here and now, and out of all the people on the planet these are the people I know, the people that have come into frame.
Life is incredibly infinite and yet the days pass by almost too to fast make sense, and too dense to deconstruct before another day passes. The random pages of a flip book strung together flipping by telling a story. The worst that you can be asked is, what was it like to live there? I don’t want my answer to be
“I don’t know, I passed though it once, I’ve never really been there.”