Sheena mentioned it the other day.

The fact that it's been just a little more than a year to the day that we all set out for Japan, totally unprepared for the effect it would have on our lives. We all had bought our plane tickets and paid our money for the course, and had some vague idea of what Japan actually was, but none of us truly knew what was in store.

I spent the first hour of my day looking through old photos, photos I took a year ago, today.

It's amazing how just looking at an image can bring back an entire feeling, a feeling completely exclusive to yourself. Something you can't really share with words or simply by showing someone the photo and saying: "yeah, this was my room in the Kenshukan."

That was your room in the Kenshukan?

Yes! That was MY room! With Pedro and Brent and three little beds and a broken sink and a window to the street and oh, how many nights did I tip-toe in at 4:30 a.m. after a lengthly chat with Hisayo or Don or Andrew or anyone; and how many times did try to enter only to find a locked door--someone was making out in there (or worse)!

That was MY room!

And my room is a memory for me... a photo "fading at the edges," yes, I suppose its true.

When I look at pictures taken in September of last year, my birth month, it brings back the weather. It brings back the trains rushing by and the sound of people much more ambitious than I, hard at work in the kitchen cooking breakfast. It brings back the big hill and the little commons area where we all took our breaks, unless of course it was raining.

... and you just want to relive those moments, no matter how mundane they may seem to everyone else.

How long can a feeling really replay over in your mind before it starts to dull? Perhaps a long time, because nearly everything for me still feels electric as hell. From that day when I saw my first Shinkansen rush by and Heather nearly jump off the platform, to some silly sculpture garden on the way to Hakone where Yuta fondled a naked statue.

Everything was so, so great.

And it always leaves me with that question, you know, where do I go from here?

Because I can always go back, but it will never be the same.

...

For now I'll just live through my photos.

I've been spending a lot of time looking at photos, lately.

I stumbled on this one of Sara and I. I remember we propped a camera up ontop of a little ladder in my room to take a picture for her mom, but it ended up out of focus. I still like the picture. It reminds me of a time in my life that I can never, ever have back.

I still have a picture up of Sara and I in my cubicle, too.

I'm not really sure why I haven't taken it down yet, to be honest.

It's a picture of us hugging at the airport, on the day I went back to Japan.