It's me again.  Are you getting used to this relationship?  I wonder if it's any different than what you already do -- connecting with the you of last year.  It...probably really isn't any different, is it?  Probably isn't anything new.  But that's okay.  New isn't always good, right?  Far from it.

"Recently life has been suggesting to me to live in the moment.  To embrace the beginning, middle, and end of all things equally.  But I'm not sure.

Something I confirmed during my Journey today is that when you leave the lantern room, the lantern goes out.  Forever.  Even if you walk back to the room, the lantern will never turn on again.  The peaceful music won't come back.  The light is simply gone out forever.  Extinguished, by the fact that you left.  That made me sad to think about.

Would it be wrong?  To simply stay in the lantern room.  Of course, there is not that much to do in that room.  Maybe it's obvious that you should move on at some point.  But I'm beginning to wonder whether I enjoy the peace of the lantern room more than the free and open air of paradise.  Which one is more important to me?  Is it worth giving up what I have now, in order to start over and continue to experience new things?"

The answer is...both yes and no.  Haha.  I guess it's difficult to explain.  Perhaps the most succinct way that I can put it is that, it is worth giving up what I have now, in order to start over and experience new things.  But at the same time, the lantern room is the one that is more important to me.  I guess that seems "wrong" in a way -- why would I have to choose the one that's less important?  But that's the way that life works.  It's sad.

"What happiness is there?  If I can never be what I want to be.  If I can never have what I want to have.  If I'm destined to lose everything someday?  Everything that I play with disappears and blooms into flowers.

Perhaps I've forgotten what makes me happy.  Or I've lost it.  With happiness, perhaps we can stand and accept ourselves for being imperfect.  Maybe it helps us to realize that there is value, even in things that are not perfect, not beautiful.  As long as you are happy.

So, how?"

Friend...I still don't know.  I still don't know.

I know it has something to do with what I said about the sandcastles.  About how maybe the sandcastles aren't the reason we are at the beach.  But even as I say that, I question it.  What if that was just a lie that I told myself to cope?  I went to the beach to be with my sandcastle, but it never stays with me.

"Well, you dummy, maybe you should go somewhere other than the beach, and build something other than a sandcastle"

Show me how?  Show me, what else there is to life.  Maybe the problem is that once we are set on building a sandcastle, nothing else can really substitute for it.  Even if it could...why should we settle for less?  Should we give up on finding the rainbow shell in the sand, if we know it probably doesn't exist?

"You said that this world is too terrible, making you want to escape
With red eyes you cried, then smiled, saying you don’t want anything"

=That= is a lie, and we both know it.  But it's okay.  I don't blame you for it...not at all.  It's easier to not want anything.  It's easier not to be able to be disappointed.  The hard path is to live with hope, and expectation.