Changes, Big Changes

 Hello, it's been a while since my last post.

In the time since there've been some changes I decided to make to my personal life, leading to this hiatus.

For one thing I left my previous job.

Last year I blogged about how I felt burnt out, this year something similar happened and that's when I kinda figured, "yeah no, I'm out". Glad to have the experience under my belt, but I'd like to do other things than try to stick around and inevitably feel it a third time.

Second, I moved back to Japan.

My life until this point has been very weird, I've spent more time in the states, but I spent my entire high school/adolescent years in Japan which to me basically means that I was born in NYC but raised in Japan. Like everyone with my background I did have to eventually pick where I wanted to be, I went with Japan.

This is what the extreme downsizing I've been doing the last few years was gearing up for. To my surprise I actually did manage to bring the amount of stuff I moved out here down to a reasonable amount. Once again big thanks to folks like The Lost Collector, Night Owl Cards, nick, NPB Card Guy, Dime Box Nick and Gavin for their "contribution" to this effort.

A third big change that's also happened is that I just kinda stopped collecting sports cards. My interests shifted elsewhere, mostly to Yu-Gi-Oh!

In the time since I've moved back to Japan I've only gotten two baseball cards for myself and have actively continued to downsize since among the stuff that came with me here, a few cards were designated to be distributed to folks in Japan.

The Shinnosuke Ogasawara autograph above replaces an older one I had which had a shitty picture. This one isn't much to look at either given how much real estate is devoted to the autograph but it sure beats just having some generic profile picture looking shot where Ogasawara looks pissed off.

The second autograph was of Shinya Matsuyama which I got for a specific reason.

My old collecting friend Anco89 got me a signed Shikishi (a Japanese autograph board) with a signature made out to me by Matsuyama. This is extremely cool and will definitely be kept. Also pairing it with an official certified autograph felt right.

But overall it's just been very easy to not think about sports. Maybe wrapping up work and moving around kept me preoccupied too but outside of the week where the World Series was happening nothing really had me interested in sports and even less about accumulating those pieces of cardboard.

Who knows though, I might get the itch again. Maybe not to get stuff for myself but more accurately to send PWE's across an entire ocean.

As for this blog it's not formally ending, but I also can't commit to posting as often as before. Not when my interest in sports cards is this low. I'll just let the ideas come to me naturally.

In some ways I suppose it's very fitting that all of this happens in the same year after I decide to part with what I was preoccupied with for the better part of the last decade. It's a new chapter for me personally. The fear, the anxiety, the dread, all of that is there, but so too are feelings of excitement, hopefulness and optimism. I know I'm in for good and bad times ahead just like if I were to be anywhere else, bring them both on. I'm ready.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

これからもよろしくお願いします！