If I'm never gonna get out...

of this whale, I might as well make it livable in here.

Like a lab-rat who escaped the maze for a day, I know what the outside looks like. I've been there and have tales to tell. I know how large the world can be and how small you can feel in it's presence. I'm better for it, but it makes the yearn to go back that much more unbearable. Hard to say which is worse: never having been, or having been and being unable to go back.

It's just one of the ways I'm different now. Whenever it rains, I miss Japan.

In Tokyo, it rained the entire time. Walking down shiny rain-soaked streets unable to read the signs along the way -- we would make our way to different destinations. A shrine. A mall. A ramen house. An electronics district. A street bazaar. Breakfast.

I found myself sitting in traffic this morning, watching the rain fall on my windshield. Thinking about when we were at that shrine in Kyoto, and how we bought that clear umbrella for 200 yen, and how I watched the rain through it's transparent shell. How we walked with that tour on that gray day in July and sat on a rain soaked wooden bench and shared a shaved ice. How perfect it was, and how we didn't even realize it.

I swear to God, I almost turned around, picked you up, and drove to the airport. I almost bought two one-way tickets. I almost didn't look back.

We could have escaped the maze again. Together.