see you, future

I was looking through photos of my recent trip to Japan and recalled how I felt coming home to my host parents' new house in Nagoya. There was a sense of loss. I had always imagined visiting my host parents and coming home with them to the same house they used to live in, the same house I stayed in when I was still a student, with the same tatami room I'd lay my futon on at night, the same house I would hurriedly leave from in the morning to catch the school bus, the same houses I'd pass by on my way home walking from the bus stop, and the same neighbors I had gotten to know during my stay. My host mom said they might eventually sell the old house and it dawned on me that that place in my memory will eventually be inaccessible and there'll be no more new stories for me to tell about it. But I also find comfort in knowing I was able to come back and see it for perhaps what would be the last time doing so during my visit in 2013. Because for one last time I was able to recall how it felt like being the student I was at that time, in a country foreign to me, with cold weather and warm people. I am reminded: there are things we can only hold on to as long as we can and as long as circumstances would let us to.