"so this is Christmas . . ."

Here's the thing about holidays: it doesn't matter where you are or who you're with, you have to decide to make something of the holiday. You can be far away from home and still be happy, or you can be with friends/family and still be depressed. It's all in how you deal.

This is the first Christmas I've spent thoroughly and completely away from my family. I keep waiting for some melancholic wave or something to hit me and dampen my spirits, but the fact is that I'm happy. And I have no reason not to be happy. I enjoy my job, I like where I live, I like the people I work with (students AND co-workers), and every day is a little adventure unto itself. Every day, I'm happy to wake up and be where I am.

Homesickness has never been something I've understood anyway. Maybe it's because I can easily let go of attachments, or maybe it's because I believe that everything in life is fleeting. Maybe it's because I've never felt an attachment to any one place before. When I think about where home is, I think of where I am right now. I am home, both in the verb and noun sense. I've never needed anything outside of myself to represent home. I miss my family and my friends, but not so much that I'm suffering from being so far from them. So long as I remember them and all the years past, I carry them with me, and therefore, they are never too far from me.

Even though it's Christmas and I'm working and far away from the people I've always spent Christmas with, I'm happy. Not just happy - also pleased. Where I'm at, what I'm doing, it all feels good to me. Maybe in a month or two, I'll actually be hit with some sort of melancholia, but for now, I'll just enjoy being happy.

Happy holidays, folks. Winter has come; it has always seemed the quietest part of the year to me. I'm looking forward to going to Takayama next week to do a little bit of solitary travel. I've always thought of the end of the year as a time to reflect on what's past and meditate on what may be waiting in the future. I have a lot to think about.

Merry Christmas!

(oh, and I'll post about the Kamakura/Tokyo trip soon too, probably in two or three posts)