i'm on my way up.

so i've been rather down as of late. i had an amazing time in korea, and a pretty awesome time in tokyo before that (i'm still working on the blogs for those), but things from home are popping up in my head and i'm missing stuff. shopping for christmas presents in korea probably didn't help as i realized i would have to attach notes to everything if i wanted anyone to get what their gift was and why i thought it was cool, and even worse that i wouldn't be there to see them open them. then i realized that i wouldn't be there for my family's christmas for the first time ever and thinking about all the traditions i'm going to miss (such as christmas morning doughnuts, the circle of presents with my family and my bro and i always trying to make it even) it just makes me really sad. and then i realized that i wouldn't be seeing tyler's family (or tyler) at christmas (or thanksgiving) probably ever again, which has been my routine for the past four years, which just gets me all misty eyed. but really i AM feeling better. being able to have a random hour and a half conversation with elena just brings everything a little closer and makes it not so hard. sometimes it's just tempting to cut off everyone from home because then i wouldn't be thinking about pdx or worrying about what's going on there, but that just seems silly when those are the people that i love. so i just have to use my will power to separate my pdx life and desires from what i'm doing now without actually cutting everything out. but i feel like i can do this, hence the feeling better. reminding myself to take it a day at a time is what i have to do--which i have never been able to do in my life, but i will do now. life goes on and i only have a limited amount of time in japan so i have to milk it for all it's worth. and i'm on my way to doing just that.