Thoughts

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Rain

Posted on 2025-05-24 14:48 by randy

Well, the weather took a turn for the worst. No cycling today. I’m flying back on Tuesday morning. My original plan for this trip was to send the bike back on Sunday – I’d read online that I could get it delivered to the airport in a day, but then the hotel people told me that it would take a minimum of three days, and that’s only for luggage that is a maximum of 200cm, length + width + height, which my bicycle bag exceeds. So I’m cycling back on Monday. I hope it doesn’t rain..

I had a good quiet day to reflect on why I came here. It’s been almost ten years since my bike and I last came to Japan by ourselves. A lot of bad shit happened since then. Good things too. But, all of it, things that changed me. I’d forgotten how to relax, how to enjoy life. I’d gotten very used to just anticipating the next disaster rather than enjoying the moment. I’m not quite over that yet. But I’m learning.

I’m not trying to hide from that, from the person I’ve become. Months before I decided to come back here, I considered the idea of going back for a trip, and I realized that I didn’t need it. I was getting to where I wanted to be on my own, without a need to come back here. I’d put the idea out of my mind since then, until one day I suddenly felt pretty damn good and thought to myself “I feel like doing a little cycling trip”. So I did. It’s not a pilgrimage, it’s not a quest for nostalgia goggles, it’s just a fun thing the present version of me likes to do. And, as I mentioned before, I can’t think of a better place to cycle than right here in Japan.

A part of my personal journey, perhaps a large part, is about becoming more comfortable with the different versons of myself. Japan is really where I grew up, if you can call post-university life growing up. When I came back to the Netherlands after Japan, I was a completely different person. There was the child-like Dutch version of me, and then there was the twenty-something, adventure-seeking bohemian. That’s who I was when I first went to England, but that gradually morphed into the boring old middle-aged me that I am right now. There was definitely a point in the last ten years where my significant other and I stopped saying the word ‘normaling’ ironically and just got on with the groceries..

But now that I definitely can’t hide from middle age any more, it feels like things have stabilized a little. I haven’t forgotten who I was before, but I’ll acknowledge that I am not the same person I used to be. I also actively don’t want to forget those past personalities, so in a way this trip is perhaps an attempt to make peace with my past self/selves. An attempt at proving to myself that, if I try, I can perhaps almost be one functioning adult. Perhaps.

The weather should clear up tomorrow afternoon. There should be just about enough time for a nice little cycle around the neighborhood before I head back. It’s been a good trip so far. I genuinely feel ten years younger compared to how I felt a month ago. Cycling is good for you.

Unadulterated. Unashamed. Unambiguous. Unapologetic. I’m still 100% pure me.

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Freedom

Posted on 2025-05-18 17:30 by randy

It’s 2025 and I have never been this free in my life. Freedom has been on my mind a lot throughout my life. When I was younger I used to think freedom was a universal good thing, but after the last few years (the last decade, really) I’ve come to see that reality is, as usual, a bit more nuanced. Ultimate freedom, for all the good that it would do, would also mean that you are not tied to anything. I miss being tied to my parents, my home country, and to the life I used to lead back in Japan. I still strongly enjoy the freedoms that I have, but now that I’m older, I also appreciate my ties, my bonds, a lot more.

In the past I’ve not been the best at acknowleding the ties that I have (had). As the saying goes, you only know what you have, when it’s gone. The sense of gone-ness has featured a lot in my life lately, and I’m still learning where to place that. People die. I’ve lost connection with the people and places that used to matter to me. My health is not getting any better. Getting old fucking sucks. Such is life. During the shit times, those negatives are all I can see.

But recently something happened that made me see my life in a whole new, much more positive, light: I started on weight loss medication. I’ve not been on it for that long yet, and I’ve had some miserable moments during the first two months I was on it, but two weeks ago I experienced something of an epiphany. For the first time in literally ten years, I didn’t have to worry about any stomach issues. I didn’t have to worry about what I ate, or how it would make me feel afterwards. It felt fantastic.

And with that came flooding back my excitement for life. I suddenly realized that, all the things that I do for fun, I didn’t really do for fun any more. I just did them because they were “things I did”. Sure, I derived some level of satisfcation from it, but it suddenly felt insigificant compared to how I felt at that moment. I realized that I could do things again and enjoy them as much as I used to. I realized that, no, it’s not just all downhill from here as I get older. Some things can get better. Some things will get better.

It reminded me of one time, when I was in my mid-twenties, sitting on a hard airport floor in Switzerland somewhere, because my flight was delayed for several hours. It sounds miserable, but at the time I felt absolutely fantastic. I was at the top of my physical game and my freedom game at the time, and I would’ve felt great anywhere. That is the feeling of excitement, of being comfortable with myself, that I have found again. It’s not always there (yet), I definitely still have plenty of moments where I’m my old numb self again. But the spark is there. Thanks to this feeling I have a reminder of what it feels like to enjoy life again. I am motivated.

The same week during which I had my epiphany, I booked a week off, bought a plane ticket to Japan, and packed up my bicycle for travel. I’m going cycling in Japan on my own bike, for the first time in ten years. It won’t be a mega serious cyling trip since I’ve only got one week and I intend to stay in Kanagawa, but it feels like the start of something new. Over the past ten years I’ve thought a lot about finally “finishing” cycling in Japan, by doing the last quarter of the coastline between Tokyo and the northernmost point of Hokkaido. And all those years I had been silently dreading that trip, because it’s the least hospitable cycling one could do in Japan, and I knew it would be a serious challenge for me given my physical state. So I swore it off. After my parents died, I asked myself how much I actually valued that trip versus the hardship it would give me, and I realized that it just wouldn’t do anything for me. It wouldn’t mean anything. And I stand by that. But now, with my newfound excitement and, hopefully, future physical fitness, I can also see a world where a trip like that is not a massive hardship for me, and I can definitely see myself deriving excitement and satisfcation from an epic cycling trip like that. Even if I never end up doing it, I have regained the freedom to do it if I feel like it. And that feels fantastic.

I’m writing this from an airport lounge at Heathrow. Life has been kind to me in that way. No more cold floor tiles in Swiss airports. I’ve got some sunny days ahead of me, no fixed schedule, no worries on my mind, and a newfound physical fitness. If you asked me even two years ago that I’d be where I am now, I could not have imagined it. But here I am. New adventure, here I come.

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Man

Posted on 2025-03-09 22:47 by randy

Man is destined to never know true meaning, because if man could know true meaning, man would not be man.

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A new year

Posted on 2025-01-05 07:09 by randy

Before I went on this winter’s Japan trip I told myself that the new year wouldn’t properly begin until after I had cycled Atsugi. I somehow also decided to pile on all my mental issues to be solved on this particular day, when I am in a good mindset to think about all that’s happened in the past year. I turned 40, lost both my parents, had some health scares and hit an important financial milestone. What a year..

Where has all the time gone? All these events certainly made me reflect on my life a lot. It’s been suggested to me that I lack ikigai. I don’t think I’ve ever had a clear purpose in all of my life (except once, briefly, a long time ago). The events of this year spurred a certain unrealistic sense of urgency in me, in that I somehow expected myself to find my ikigai on this trip. “Sure, let’s just get that pesky little problem out of the way so we can start the next year clean”. That kind of attitude. Obviously I was stupid about that, and I did not manage to find meaning in life in one day.

While I have no answers yet for any of the major issues I am facing, I think I’ve gotten better at pinpointing the issues. Ikigai is certainly a big thing for me, but it’s also an issue that’s waaaay at the upper end of the hierarchy of needs. It’s not something that’s on fire, and I can take my time on finding the right answer. I’m learning not to conflate my quest for ikigai with more practical issues like the “where-should-we-live” problem. It’s about time we found something nicer for our little family, and perhaps 2025 will be a good year to find our dream house. A third thing that gets conflated into this problem mix for me is how I tend to feel like a completely different person when I’m in the Netherlands, Japan or the UK. Integrating those parts of myself better is another thing I’d like to improve on next year.

So my mental image of cycling Atsugi wasn’t as glorious as it was last year. I was horribly underdressed from the cold, freezing my ass off, and the electric bike’s battery ran out before the slightly steeper bit, so I was pretty miserable when I came across the scene from the photo above. It’s one of my favorite roads in Atsugi, the one that leads to the mountains and lake Miyagase. There I found this old man painting the scene, and, looking at him, all my cold and misery just faded away and I felt happy. It was strange. My grandfather was a painter. Perhaps it’s something I can also find purpose in in the future.

I wish you all well. There will be more to come, and it will be better. Don’t be in a hurry.

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For better and worse

Posted on 2024-12-31 10:38 by randy

Another year has passed. Another year in which I haven’t written much, and now there is too much to write. It’s not often that a year has ended so different from me than it started. This was one of those years, for better and worse.

I’m in Onomichi right now. I want to write “right back where it all started”, but it’s not quite that. It is a place that I have vivid memories of, though. Not in the least because it’s the start of one of the best cycling routes in all of Japan. This marks the third time I’ve been here, and it’s the first time I’ve been here in winter. The first time was at a very turbulent stage of my life, in my younger, “wilder” years. I write “wilder” because I was never really all that wild, but I was definitely a very different person then than I am now.

Despite the Shimanami Kaidou being an absolutely gorgeous cycling route and easily one of the best in Japan if not all of the world, the second time I came here, I could not appreciate it, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had begun to build up my life in the UK and had taken a short week off to cycle Shikoku. And for some reason I just couldn’t appreciate it the beauty of it at all. It registered clearly to me that what I was seeing was beautiful, but I was devoid of the positive feelings that I remembered from when I went here the first time, and I felt terrible for it. Morose. Dead inside. Being unable to appreciate that beauty bothered me for many years after that.

The third time I went here – now – is the year in which both of my parents passed away. This fact still hasn’t fully registered with me. Some people I know experience grief as a massive but brief peak and then it goes away. For me, the initial impact of such a major event barely seems to register, or at least that’s what it appears like to those around me. But then it takes a long, long, loooong time for me to come to terms with it. I’m still a ways away from that.

Cycling the Shinamami Kaidou. Three times. The first time in my youth, too naive to know about the troubles in life. The second time, with all the weight of the world starting to creep up on me. The third time, after it’s all over, for better and worse. The road was beautiful this time. I enjoyed it very much.

Happy new year everyone. New things will keep happening.

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My mom died

Posted on 2024-09-13 07:04 by randy

I don’t know how long it will take me to get over the death of my dad, but I know for sure that it’ll be a lot longer than the three months it’s been so far. And then my mom died.

Mom had struggled with lung cancer for the past few years. She’d done chemo and overcome it. But when she started feeling ill after dad died, it took the doctors a long time and a lot of scans to figure out that, while her lungs were still clean (well, minus all the COPD she also had), the cancer was now in her bones. From there, it went really quickly.

I have no fucking clue what else to write here. Life is miserable right now.

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Me

Posted on 2024-08-13 14:34 by randy

I am no longer adventurous.
I am too anxious.
I worry too much.
I am not as free as I used to be.
I am free-er than I ever was before.
It takes me ten years to get over some things. Maybe fifteen.
I am not a hedonist.
I can think myself happy.
I don’t want to rely on others.
I am no longer my old self and not yet my new self.
I have not slowed down in a long time.

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My dad died

Posted on 2024-06-27 17:47 by randy

My dad passed away last week. A long-term illness, it was not entirely unexpected, and definitely exacerbated by his bad habits. But it was still sudden, and it still doesn’t feel real. During the past week I’ve had so many thoughts about it all, yet now when I’m staring at this screen, I don’t know what to write. But I think I should write something, because that is what I have done in the past, and that is why I’ve kept this blog alive for so long. Write about big things. Let people know you’re alive. That kind of thing.

It’s odd how life just.. continues, as if nothing happened. My dad was always a huge presence in my life when I was growing up, and thanks to both my parents I have had a fantastic childhood. They never had a lot, and they gave me more than anyone could have expected from them. He was well known by everyone in town, and he was always kindhearted to everyone, even if they did not deserve it. He struggled with his health for the last few years, and it’s a relief for him and those around him that he’s no longer in constant pain.

I left my home country almost twenty years ago, but I’d been back plenty of times throughout the years, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I definitely didn’t quite see eye to eye with him in the end. We had too many differences of opinion, and my dad was always “right”, so I didn’t much feel like sticking around for that. I’ve never regretted that decision, and I still don’t. This time, going back to my home town for the funeral, seeing what other people have built up there while I’ve been away, I don’t know how to feel about that. A part of me wishes that I’d also been a part of that, but another part of me knows that I have to make my own path. Just as one can not un-see things, one can not un-experience life, so I think that makes it very difficult for me to go back. I’m very glad to see people who are committed to a lifestyle, a person, a location, so thoroughly, but that is the kind of resolve and determination I just don’t feel about anything or any place, yet. Perhaps that will come later.

So, what next? We deal with the things that are thrown at us, and move on. Life will continue to happen. Let’s make the most of it.

Wear sunscreen.

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Past lives

Posted on 2024-03-24 14:24 by randy

I saw Past Lives the other day. I don’t think it was the best of the oscar nominees, but it was the one that resonated with me the most. I too left a country to start a new life, twice. It takes a little time, but, after a while, it really does feel that the person I was in those past lives is just a completely different person. It affects the people you leave behind, but also my own life; every time I go back to one of the countries I used to live in, I can’t help but be reminded that that life is now gone forever. Depending on my state of mind, and which bits of the past I remember, that can either feel sad, or liberating.

I’m turning 40 this year. Insert cliché here. Because my past lives were all very real breakpoints in life I think turning 40 doesn’t affect me as much as it might others. If I had lived only one life, I would have a lifetime worth of things I still want to accomplish by now. Instead, I have two past lives’ worth of things that other versions of me wanted to accomplish, and I feel less emotionally attached to those things than I wish I would. I still want to cycle Japan, but it’s not a hobby that current-me would start. I still like going back to Holland, but I can definitely no longer call it my home.

I’d like to write a book. I’d like to build a computer game, from the ground up, by myself. I’d like to be at peace again, the way my past lives were. Despite having it better than ever, I’ve never worried as much as I do now. Though perhaps that’s finally starting to decrease a little. I don’t know if hitting 40, or other upcoming events in my life, will trigger a new life. For the moment at least, I want to make the most of my current life.

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Lifestyle changes

Posted on 2023-07-20 13:07 by randy

This week has just been full of surprises. A while ago I was diagnosed with a long-term disease that affects what I’m allowed to eat and drink. Today I was diagnosed with a second long-term disease that also affects what I’m allowed to eat and drink. I’ve barely reached middle age, but the doctor was quite clear that the changes to my body are irreversible, and I won’t be able to keep the same lifestyle that I used to have when I was younger.

That came as quite a shock to me, even though I knew it shouldn’t. I know I’ve got health issues I should take better care of, but I always seem to get away with things as long as I occasionally do something healthy to counteract all the unhealthy things I’m also doing. That definitely seems over now. I’ll need to severely limit myself in what I eat and drink, otherwise I’m very likely to die. It’s as simple as that.

Initially, when I heard the diagnosis, I felt upset, because I didn’t want to lose what I had. I was happy with my life, I didn’t want to make changes. But now that I’ve thought about it, and now that it’s absolutely clear that it’s just necessary, it just seems fine to me. Just another thing I have to do to survive. I think I can adjust my mindset to accept the new reality, but only time will tell. Time never stops.

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Thoughts

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