...where distraction is the main attraction.

Monday, March 27, 2023

If it's Monday, this must be Japan

This morning I woke up in Japan. I was supposed to be here exactly three years ago, on an extended trip that I had planned for months, an excursion that was already carrying the weight of my emotional stability and mental health long before it had begun. It was to have begun during the last week of March 2020.

And then, to quote Bo Burnham, "the funniest thing happened."

My home and my marriage did not survive what followed, nor should they have. We postpone some truths for far too long and then end up suffering for it.

Life is very different now, and I have learned much more about myself and others than I ever wanted to know. Re-planning travel to Japan filled me with more fear than excitement, until something finally clicked in my brain. It was simple but also not: Just go to that country and enjoy the experience without trying to fill an abyss. Imagine that? Forget deeper meanings and searches, and just go.

I'll be documenting my time away, privately, for my children. Maybe some of it will show up here on the blog, maybe it won't. I've scheduled a quintet of whisky reviews for the next two weeks, and future reviews are already planned, so there shouldn't be much of a blip in content. But hopefully my beard will be fabulous upon my return.