this post is brought to you by nostalgia and introspection, you’ve been warned.
Christmas!!!! christmas christmas christmas!!!
there is certainly no better time than to christmas to consider your family, friends, how your life has changed in the past year, etc.
If this is true, then i have MUCH to think about.
This year I moved to a brand new city (the largest one in the world, mind you), embarked on an incredibly different lifestyle, vastly changed my career, started dating the girl that I plan will be the last girl I ever date, rented my own apartment (for the first time), started living alone, started paying ALL my own bills (often with great lingual frustrations and misunderstandings), found a new and wonderful church, and, for the first time, i haven’t visited the US in over a year.
In fact, on that last note, I haven’t had a Christmas in america in 3 years or a Thanksgiving in 5. None of these things were really planned, mind you, this is just where life takes us. 
When I consider all these life changes, I’m brought back to the unexpectedness of all of it. Sure, some changes and life happenings are pre-plotted and planned, just not most of them. We find ourselves in situations that we often never would have planned.
That, however, isn’t what I want to write about tonight. I’ve been thinking of all these different ‘worlds’ I have found myself in.
We all have different realms of existence…surely you can relate, you have your work relationships, your family (extended AND immediate), the friends that you currently have and your long-time friends that somehow seem to always fit. I have managed to create an impossibly curious web of relationships and ‘worlds.’
I call them worlds because realms doesn’t carry quite enough ‘umph’ to convey the measure of variety found in between the strings of all of these worlds.
I remember Christmas in Foxworth, vaguely, but I certainly remember it. Tuan and Paula coming over to the house. Back then, Dad would come too because he and mom were still divorced, but we would have to wait until everyone was over before presents would begin.
I remember Christmas in Foxworth that last time, when we had Christmas two days early and I slept in on Christmas Day in a house alone. That afternoon I drove to Jackson to be with college friends and leave early the next day for Urbana ’06.
I remember Christmas after India, just before Peru. It is certainly a blur and seems to have so little to do with my life now. It was at Twin Lakes and in Foxworth. Wonderful times.
I remember Christmas in Shizuoka, the first time. Overwhelming. Unsure of my relationship with Elizabeth. Unsure of what I was doing there, but also assured I would be leaving very soon (just a month later).
Last Christmas was also in Shizuoka, much more sure of why I was there but undoubtedly more unsure of Elizabeth. That was a hard and wonderful time.
And now I am again spending Christmas in Shizuoka. It is certainly not my plan to do so. I don’t understand why my plans come to naught, but the Lord is higher than me and I accept what he has brought. 
And at the same time, i have my Tokyo people. We had the best Christmas party I’ve ever had this past week. It was truly amazing. They told me stories of past Christmas times. Combini Christmas. It is strange, my now people, I love them deeply and yet I am so different from them. It’s always been that way. Maybe it always will.
This post was for me. It is the beginnings of a much deeper idea. Patience, certainly, will pay off.
