Take Two

All the time I am looking for new things to blog. New sights that we’ve seen, new experiences that we’ve had, things that I want to both share and remember. Writing those things down always proves to be a great way to be sure that they don’t disappear into the ether. This year I am finding it a bit more difficult to find new things to share. After all, most things we experience now are things that we are experiencing for the second time, rather than the first. What seemed interesting and noteworthy the first time around, doesn’t seem quite so the second.

On one hand this lack of new and noteworthy makes me sort of sad, on the other hand it shows me that I’ve adapted, that I’ve settled in, and that I’ve somehow, despite the fact that I thought it was never really possible, come to see Japan as my version of normal.

Honestly, I am not quite sure when this switch occurred. It wasn’t fast or drastic, it just gradually developed until the point where I just don’t notice too much anymore. Life continues on here in its daily grind just as it did in Chicago before we left. Sure, when we first moved to Chicago, much like when we came to Japan, it was new and shiny. We took lots of pictures, we noticed lots of new stuff, we found tons of new restaurants. But then, some four years later, we had our groove and it wasn’t so shiny anymore, it was just life.

So, somewhere between 6 months and 4 years the shininess goes away and you can either allow yourself to get stale and bored, or you can find new ways to amuse yourself, new ways to make life exciting, interesting and worth living.

Right now I feel as though I have to find some new ways to amuse myself. Obviously having a kid will change things up quite a bit and, with any luck will be quite amusing, but even before then I feel like I could use a little spice. So, here’s to finding some of the spice in Japan again. I suppose one of my first ideas is to start carrying my camera around again. Whenever I have it with me, I feel like I am more likely to capture some of those intriguing and interesting moments that might otherwise have been ignored. Next, Aaron and I need to get out to a few new places. Next week we will be going on a short 3-day trip to Shikoku, one of the islands of Japan that we haven’t yet explored. Should be a good time, and I hope that I can find some of that excitement that I am craving right now.

Posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:48 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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