A Visual Journey _ Last Day in Tokyo

A memory that has stayed with me.

A Visual Journey _ Last Day in Tokyo


It's a beautiful day.
I talked to him.
It's what I needed--and I wasn't wrong.

The sun is out of its purse.
I'm a little excited, but I can finally let go.
It's hard, being human,
We want one thing, say another, do something else entirely.
So I've decided, for once, to believe in fate.
If it's meant to be, the universe will shift and make it happen.

I walk toward O Station,
Tokyo brushing gently against my skin like memory.
Two boys throw hand signals,
Communication in its most primal form.
Touch--to harm, to comfort, to love.

I round the corner.
The sun coats me like hope.
This city has held me.
Let me dream of futures.
And I've faced it all: the discomfort, the doubt, the desire.

At the IC card machine, I remember:
Money is fragile.
It's the one thing that cages most people.
But those who leap--those are the ones who fly.
When will I leap?

I sit on the train.
The gentle sway reminds me:
It's time to take life seriously.
To be intentional.
To move toward what I want, one brave step at a time.

Then the ache hits.
The guilt I carried--for him,
The quiet mourning of a future in Tokyo,
Friendships nurtured in the summer,
Cut short by the weight of a past I belong to.
Back to my ancestral home,
Where roots are expected to grow.

The curse of being a woman.
The patterns and the flukes that redirect us.
Was this a fluke-- the pivot?

Then, a thought--sharp and sudden.
The permanent ink of a birth flower.
Oh no.
I marked my body forever with memories made.
No more onsen. No more hiding.

I ached, on the last day we saw each other.
He came to say goodbye.
It was quiet.
It was everything.

And maybe it was also... the end.