Seeking ease to start the day, tea leaves on the bare red carpet, a chipped bowl to drink from. I want to be empty. The sun shines through me as it falls through the window, reaching deep.

I long to be whole, but not for vulnerability, broken like the chipped bowl, yet perhaps better for my imperfections where the sun may shine truly, flawed, creating room to grow.

Open-hearted, lion-hearted, love-centric.

My universe is spinning, my brain sliding out, my mind consumed by thoughts, the threads of me unweaving, but I won’t succumb to doubt.

The sun’s still shining in the sky of my soul, the tea on the floor rich, clean, clear.

Content.

I’m leaving Japan.

I cried this morning. It’s overwhelming. I’m feeling deeply right now, deep, deep love for the vulnerability of life.

It’s profound — this unshakable magnitude. I’m doing my best to ride the waves.

In Japan I’ve healed so much more than just my body, allowing change to wash through to my core.

I look at the wall in my apartment full of pictures, mementos, art, and postcards I’ve collected. I imagine putting these things into an envelope and taking them home.

What do these things represent? One day, I’ll flip through them and glimpse my past, pieces of me, the places I’ve been and the things I’ve collected.

These things make me happy. I hold on to them because they’ll make me smile again one day.

I want to limit my things. Clutter makes me stressed, having more than I can structure in my mind. I’m slowly getting things moved out of my apartment. I want to simplify, keeping only what’s important to me.

I’m living this nomadic lifestyle where I want to move around the world and live in foreign countries.

At least while I’m young, pursuing this unorthodox career of a writer, content creator, photographer. But at the root of my pursuits is a longing to know what’s out there.

I’m grateful to do something with my curiosity, weaving my travels into stories. I’ve found my path in life — a long road unfurling — and that’s exciting to me.

There is no ceiling when digging to the root of things. Each day is a finish line; I’m alive; I’m moving forward; I’m happy.

Do I have my doubts? Of course. But like I said, they don’t linger long. Writing is the way that I assuage them — writing brings me peace.

I’ve been thinking lately about what I want long term. Is it this forever? Moving from country to country, finding a job that pays the bills while writing tales about what I experience? I hope to write forever, but also that my circumstances change.

Life is lived in seasons. The season of my youth is one of exploration.

I don’t need a permanent home. I don’t yet have a family of my own. I have the freedom to get out there, take chances, and find myself in some nifty situations worth writing about.

But in five-to-ten years time, I want a home of my own. A place to return that’s not my parents’ (I love you guys and couldn’t do this without you). That doesn’t mean the exploration will end, but at that point, I want to have more security in what I’m doing.

My dream by then is to be an established writer, sent on expeditions for various magazines and brands to write stories about interesting people, things, and places in this world.

I’ll have a handful of books published, a magazine of my own, and a wide-reaching podcast that’s making a difference. I’ll be starting a family, and it will be awesome.

Here in Tokyo I got a tiny kitchen with one stovetop, a mini-fridge, a futon bed and a table on the floor. I want to go back to the United States with just a couple of bags so I can move to another country again in the next few months.

It feels good to get rid of clutter. When I have less, I feel lighter, centered in my being. The things that surround me in this dojo bring me joy. I’m a traveler; the mementos represent the life I’ve lived.

Things accumulate and they bear my heart, the color of my spirit. Yet I write to be free, bereft of burden. Like the tides of the sea, the things ebb and flow.

I carry what I feel inside. I write these words to understand why. If the pictures were lost, the things all gone, what would remain of where I’ve been?

Stories sketched on the moon, a ballad of my nights, trails carved in the dirt from walking through soaring pines. All I have lives in my heart. Free of things, my spirit shines.

I’m gonna miss this place, the rainy summer nights in awe of the thunder outside. Enlivened by the winter cold, drinking tea cross-legged on the floor.

It’s loose leaf tea named Elevation, from Taiwan. The bowl I drink from is eggshell white, its cracks changing color, browning into caramel with time. The loose leaves bloom in the hot water and sink to the bottom of the bowl like mud in a lake, the water clear on the surface.

This morning as I drank the tea, tears came to my eyes.

Here we are, I thought.

No matter where I end up next, I’ll always have this time in Japan. What comes next will be different, and I’ll learn to love it, too.

The next dojo will fill with things and one day empty. But the love will remain. The tea, the practice, the sketches on the moon will follow.

It can feel overwhelming, the notion that things are as good as they need to be, and can ever truly be.

We think there must be more, but what if there doesn’t? This feeling of wonder and love and sadness and beauty — how much deeper can feelings go? Of course circumstances will conjure different emotions, but the depth I feel here and now consistently overwhelms me.

That’s magic. That’s why we’re alive.

Surrounding me are tea leaves, pens, colors, mementos, books, ceramics, a succulent, clothes, a futon, anime characters, Christmas lights still strewn across the window, magazines, a floor table, and a rug that makes me happy.

Mostly everything will be donated or tossed by the time I leave in a couple of days. That’s the life I’m living, but this season’s not forever. So I’ll cherish it — the tea, the silence, the love — all that fills this room.

I’ll sit in this moment until the next one comes, and the next until the seasons change, the leaves bloom, and time brings something new worth crying, laughing, smiling, and of course, writing about.