Closing Doors

One aspect of moving that I've always hated is that you spend a long time leading up to the actual move thinking about all the things you'll be leaving behind.

I'm excited about the idea of being in Japan, but I'm almost afraid to leave Ottawa because of all the things I suddenly notice that I have going for me here. They say you can never go home again, and I know that's true from my own experiences. So what will happen when I leave this home, and try to come back in a year?

I will change in Japan, I will not return the same man that left. I can't say how I will change precisely, though obviously I have my own preferences. Hopefully I'll be something more than I am today. What the changes are doesn't really matter though, only that they will take place.

"Home" will change while I'm gone too. My friends will make more friends, my employer will hire somebody to take my place, my wonderful downtown apartment will be rented out to another tenant.

Who knows what vestiges of my current life will remain when I return in a year? Even if nothing changed except me, would I still be able to fit into my nice round hole, or will I find myself oddly square-shaped?

Today I went to my last Japanese class. I said good-bye Tomoko-sensei, and she wished me luck in Japan. She even suggested I send her e-mail from there so she would know how I was doing in her homeland.

There are many things like this I'm having to go through right now, each time I do something I think that maybe it will be the last time. On Monday I have to give notice on my apartment to let them know I'm moving out. One day soon this week I have to give notice to my employer that I will be leaving.

I'm closing a new door every day as I approach my departure, and i do it without knowing which doors I will be able to unlock when I return.

My Life! Get Your Own!

I have the following message for health food enthusiasts: "Screw off you grass eating loons, and let me enjoy my food."

I'm getting truly sick of health fanatics and how they feel it is their moral obligation to tell me when I'm doing something that doesn't fit with this ideal they have of what is healthy.

Are you my mother?

Is it absolutely necessary to your continued existance that you tell me that having syrup on pancakes will cost me my life?

Are you being paid by some sadistic food mogul to ensure that I never enjoy a meal in your presence?

I want to make this painfully clear to you all. I don't care what you have to say about my lifestyle. Not in any way, shape or form.

Your opinion carries the weight of a feather, and I wish you'd blow away.

You can take anything and everything your naturopathic doctor ever told you, and shove it up the orifice of your choice. That would be a more useful way of spending your time than trying to convince me that I should drink boiled leaves instead of orange juice.

There are several reasons I hate this behaviour. I'll explain just one of them in the hopes you will decide to re-engage your minds while reading this.

I live a much different lifestyle than most people I know. I don't drink alcohol, I don't touch drugs, and I won't have sex until I'm married. These were decisions I made regarding my lifestyle, and not once have I ever suggested to anyone else that they adopt them. Nor have I ever looked down on or ridiculed anyone that lived differently than me.

Until now.

Because I damn well do look down upon self-righteous twits that think they have the right to tell others how to live. Even if it's just insistantly criticizing what I eat when you're around me. Leave off!

It's my bloody life, not your's. You are cordially invited to mind your own business.