I've just tuned into the

with a new pair of Bose headphones, and for some weird reason I have this burning urge to write a blog post. Not a "I shall take over the world with comments and spam" post, but an actual, heart to heart blog post. I'll admit I don't really have any idea what I plan to write about. Honestly, I think that's a bit like life: we open up the window and start typing on a blank form. Of course, the web-page has been provided by someone else, but the actual content we create by our own sense of intuition and learning. Maybe I'm over analyzing?

 

What makes me reach for connection? Why do I turn my face to a book when on a public bus and remain lonely when I spend my days wishing, dreaming, even begging, friends to come over and visit the sick guy who can barely walk down the stairwell to his kitchen each morning. Two cups of coffee and a kvetch later I've usually figured out how to get back to bed and move on with life. Some days, though, the heart just craves connection. I have my family, of course. It's never been a very large family (but with a last name like mine it's not hard to imagine why), and last year my little group of three dwindled back into a duet of one parent and one son. With my dog's passing, who had been as much a brother for the past eleven years of my life as I could have wanted, I felt the whole in my heart for family and connection. Now it's just us, my mom and I, sitting around the breakfast table and planning how to take on the world. Taking on the world these days is a full-time job, especially when my world consists of a chronic illness and a government denying my access to help.

 

Where was I? Human connection. Friendships. Why I hide from the world, shuttering my heard in a locked box when the public appears. Maybe I just hate the idea of being seen for who I am: a young man tackling the world with a very poor hand of cards dealt to him. I don't really cry, mainly because I feel I have to show I'm strong and capable of facing all my problems without collapsing. The truth is, of course, I collapse all the time. Instead of relying on friendships to bolster my courage I tend to shun intimacy with others, mainly because when I finally do open up people freak out and cut off connection. Us humans are strange creatures. Friends always seem to say, "tell me what's going on," or "I'll be there for you, promise," but when the truth comes out and the darkness of Pandora's Box is revealed everyone tends to back off and let someone else go first.

 

OKAY, enough of the wallowing in self-regret and despair. Wow. Big, cheery parade covered in a thunderstorm I'm being right now.

 

I have a small bedroom. It's about 7x8, so that's a decent sized room in a Tokyo apartment, but it's still a little smaller than a good old rokujo. Some people would complain about having a room that size, but I love it. It's small, cozy, makes me consider if something is really worth putting in my bedroom, and has two fabulous windows. When I'm having a poor day with my health I can lay in bed and look out at the deciduous forest, watch the trees sway in the wind much like how I sway in the current of life, and feel the sun arcing into the sky as it beats down on me from either window. There's a tall pine across the way, in a meadow. Someone was stupid and built a house next to it. I mean literally next to this tree. I think their porch actually goes around its trunk. When the wind and the rain pick up I can't help but watch as the tree sways against the odds, never faltering and cracking. Despite its height it's very thin: a string bean of a pine. I feel like it's trying to tell me something.

 

"Watch how I stand," I feel it says. "Watch and learn how to bend in the wind."

 

As I sit in my little room and look at the pine from my window, I can't help but feel a tear. I want to bend in the wind. I want to stand tall and stride through life with confidence, not having to worry if I need to bring a wheelchair with me to eat at a restaurant, or where I could possibly go to college without having ludicrous tuition fees (online I think might be best for now). I want to enjoy swaying the wind. It's the swaying part I'm working on.