Aomori Day 4 – Wandering Skylark

I love The Tower card so much for some reason.

I choose to read this one as more optimistic because that’s how it feels overall.

Disaster averted. Money needed to be spent and discipline had to be set. Sure, there were moments of a lack of foresight, but the result is creative energies and new thirst for knowledge flowing through.

Today I woke up from a dream where I was hanging out with old classmates and the girl I liked in school was my girlfriend.

These dreams are very interesting to me because they’re not really rooted in any nostalgia, much less in past reminiscence.

I effectively cut contact with everyone the moment I graduated high school, and the girl I liked ghosted me. The last one was a bit of a sore point for me because in ghosting me when I thought everything was fine, I grew immensely worried, I flooded her with calls and messages trying to remain casual but worried something had happened to her.

It wasn’t until one year later, when I didn’t see her leave me a birthday message on facebook that it all dawned on me at once and I was basically dealing with the feelings of rejection one year later.

Now, to be honest, even back then I didn’t hold the ghosting against her because hell, like I said, I cut contact with everyone. The two things that got me at the time were: a) The fact that I got worried about nothing and ended up looking like an obsessive freak rather than a worried freak, and b) That I did think of her as a friend if nothing else and I was just starting college and feeling very lonely.

I remember the feelings were so overwhelming I ended up talking about with my dad on the way back from college and he told me that he kinda guessed it and that he thought I was a gentleman all the way through from what he saw, and I cannot explain how much that assessment meant, especially in that moment. Because the way I explained it all to friends at that moment did make me sound like a bit of a weirdo.

To be fair also, it was one of those situations where we really didn’t share any hobbies or interests, she was just nice to me and cute, and that was enough for me. Not to mention if what I’ve heard about her since is true I might’ve dodged a bullet.

But this is all to illustrate how curious the dreams are to me. It’s like my brain needs a “character”, a known image to conjure up for a specific feeling so it brings out whatever first love feelings lay around, with the vague idea of her.

I’m so glad that nowadays I can think about it that way in so much past tense. After I moved to Japan I remember I dreamt about her (again, in that general way) a lot. And it felt aggravating because I hated the idea of being stuck with her in my brain, of not being able to move on.

I also told an ex-friend about that in a moment of vulnerability and proceeded to regret it ever since because they held that against me, which is already bad on its own but then you remember how I felt so aggravated by even dreaming and now someone was rubbing dreams on my face when I was awake?

There’s a reason I used the word “ex”-friend.

One day I’ll feel the joy from those dreams while awake, hopefully.

When I was fully awake finally, I went out to get souvenirs and I’ll be damned the weather finally cleared up and became nicer on my last day.

Couple of amusing details: Turns out Asupamu is actually an acronym. ASPAM: Aomori Prefecture Sightseeing And Products Center.

…I assume the acronym makes sense in Japanese.

They also had Sanrio characters and the fact that Hello Kitty was the one to be depicted as the Nebuta warlord made me giggle.

I saw so much Nebuta Festival stuff that I’m definitely investigating that later.

I walked a lot looking for souvenirs and ended up in a bit of a rush because everything here closes at like 8pm.

Saizeriya came to my rescue as always.

While walking I was considering the idea of going out and taking pics at night, but remembering my tarot readings in past days (and just my goals on this trip). I ended up deciding against it and to just take beach pics another day.