From the future self journal:

“It’s still early morning at the house and i can tell it’s gonna be a warm day.
It already is. It’s spring. I can hear the birds singing and there’s a lazy gray cat on my bed. She hears them too.
Soft light is flooding the bed from the large windows.
I look over. The other side of the bed is empty. Blankets ruffled, an impression on the mattress, the smell of a warm body still hanging in the air.
I stretch and slide out of bed and onto the floor. No slippers needed, the usually freezing blue and yellow ornate tiles that make up the hallway floor are just a bit cool to the touch.
I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth over the old avocado green sink that was already in the house when we moved in. One of a few functioning items. There are tiles and plants everywhere. The odd paint bucket. One of them catches rain from a hole in the roof.
Let’s just say the house is not 100% finished yet.
My long brown hair is messy and i’m wearing just underpants and a crop top that reveals black ink dots over my belly button. I look down at my toes, the nails are blue and glitter and there are more tattooed dots, on each toe.
I smile and fine lines appear around my eyes. I look like me.

I enter the kitchen where my love is standing by the gas stove, cooking up eggs with avocado. Toast and potatoes.
It’s Sunday and we’ve planned a chill day without too much renovation work and a big breakfast.
My beautiful man is wearing sweatpants, still all sweaty from his morning run. He likes it when i sleep in.
I walk up behind him and put my arms around his waist. He’s much taller than me.
He gets easily excited, like i do. It’s one of the little things we have in common that make me especially happy. He turns around smiling, always smiling, and hugs me hard and lifts me with little effort and puts me down on the kitchen counter, and feeds me a potato wedge from the pan. I sit there, barefoot and happy as we makes coffee, and i tell him about the weird dream i had, and he tells me his.
We laugh and try to analyze the absurdities of our nighttime adventures.
The kitchen door opens up to the porch where we eat, surrounded by cats and dogs and chickens, all trying to get a bite. We throw them bread crumbs and the chickens pick at our toes for more.

After we’ve cleared the dishes i go back outside. There’s a large, round rattan chair full of pillows on the porch, next to it a small marble table.
I sit down, pull my legs up in the chair, and do my morning journaling using an old cook for support while i write.
On the table next to me is my coffee and a sea shell with some smoking palo santo in it. Wind chimes above the door provide a random melodious soundtrack.
Lucifer is curled up next to me, breathing heavily and twitching in his sleep. A sunbeam hits his face and he is smiling.
I can hear my love inside the house, rummaging, trying to start a project, then giving up and flopping down on a chair where he proceeds to strum a few disharmonious chords on the guitar, his latest obsession since we moved.
It sounds awful. I laugh to myself.

The air smells like flowers and ocean and fruit trees, and i’m thinking that i never imagined a sense of happiness and belonging like this was possible.
I want my boo to come out and enjoy the moment with me, but i don’t want to disturb Lucifer, so i close my eyes real tight and focus. Focus hard.
He peeks out the door and i don’t say anything, but i tell myself that i made him come out here using the power of my mind.
But in reality he just missed me too.
We kiss and the world falls away like it always does when we are together.
Whatever hardships and obstacles we endured to find each other and this place seem inconsequential in this moment.
And this moment is all there is.”

I journal every day. Every morning. I can’t think of a single more life changing practice. So simple, so accessible.
All of the habits i have developed during my chosen isolation are coming in handy during this involuntary one that we’re all finding ourselves in.
While others are struggling with loneliness, i’ve come to love solitude.
I would say i’m lucky, but it’s been hard, daily work getting to this point, so luck has very little to do with it. But i do feel lucky. I feel grateful.
All that time, i didn’t know i was preparing for this, but i was.

I don’t write about the future every day, but sometimes i do.
I meditate on it as well.
Turns out the brain doesn’t know the difference between vivid imagination and an actual lived experience. So by just thinking about it, i get to feel the happiness that comes with having a perfect Sunday morning in my future home.
Pretty cool.

Today my vision for the future was a lot smaller, as they tend to get when you’re suddenly restricted by health or by tragedy, and miss the simplest things, like we all do right now.
Here’s what i wrote today:

“I am on Admiralbrücke with a group of friends.
It’s sunny and warm and we’ve been crying and hugging and laughing over our reunion, with each other, and with the world.
Everyone is smiling at each other. Strangers are hugging.
The city hasn’t felt a genuine sense of love and solidarity and relief like this in decades, and you can feel the energy everywhere. The air is buzzing with it!
We stand in line for pizza at Il Casolare, but no one is complaining about the service or the wait today.
We buy späti beers and we have a picnic right there in the street.
A band is playing next to us. There are groups of people everywhere.
Things aren’t just back to normal. They’re better.”

Pictures from Portugal 2018 that i can’t believe i never posted?
It probably took me forever to get the film developed.
I went there for a week to celebrate my birthday. Or run away from it, both are accurate.
My mom was there too, and later Frances, one of my best friends.
It’s one of the best vacations i’ve ever had, and one of the best birthdays.
Even though i mostly focus on the little things, like having brunch with my friends.
Like going to Rossmann.
Like having a job.
And not seeing other humans as potential carriers.
I also think about travel a lot.
I want to travel with my mom again.
I want to go back to Tokyo. In spring i can always smell the Kōenji air like i’m there.
And i want to continue to be vulnerable, and to fall in love.
With places.
With humans.
With memories of the future.
With life.