My father's words of 'good luck' are blurring.

Lately, I haven't been able to fully relax.

I know the reason.

Just one thing.

It's because my father is coming to Tokyo

during the long weekend.

We haven't met for much longer than that

illness that has been raging around the world,

so it might have been seven or eight years.

I started writing on note for various reasons,

if I were to justify it in many ways.

One was to heal my complexes, traumas,

and certain kinds of wounds.

Perhaps I have been 'writing' so that I could

say that I am okay now.

The destination of that 'writing' was myself and my father.

My first note was literally about looking down on

feelings close to 'hatred' toward my father,

making jokes and retorts in my own writing,

and perhaps performing that I was okay now.

But, it feels strange, but sometimes on note

While I was writing about my father as if I were sighing,

I felt that my perspective on my father

had changed somewhat.

Emotions that have lost their sharp edges.

The dimension of forgiving or not forgiving

is a feeling of 'it's okay now'.

Perhaps I felt that most clearly when I was

organizing my bookshelf.

Ever since my parents separated, he had been

giving me books as Christmas presents every year

for about 20 years.

The other day, I created a corner in my room

for the books my father selected for the first time.

That might be because of the note topic #MyBookshelf,

though.

To find a place for each book on the shelf for the article

While I was making it, I suddenly felt like I touched upon my father's feelings.

I felt that way.

I once threw away all the letters that were tucked into the book

because I wanted to cut ties with the trauma I had received from my father.

I had thrown them away after reading them once,

thinking that re-reading them was enough to shake

my mental state at that time.

And I have intended to cherish at least the book.

There were many things, but I'm okay now,

not that I'm trying to cover it up.

The many things I received from my father,

when I change my perspective, I think

they also become the many things my father received from his daughter.

I can't measure it, but I was able to think that it's okay now.

Since I started writing on note, one of the things that is quite different

from the past is the phone calls from my father.

I have been able to think that it's okay now.

I have been able to think that it's okay now.

I have been able to think that it's okay now.

It had become not so much of a burden.

In the past, we couldn't even hold a conversation.

It was a time when we were connected by our mutual silence.

During a phone call some time ago, it was as if he were wondering

how many more times he would be able to see the cherry blossoms.

I heard him lament about how much longer he would be able to read books.

I heard those words.

Perhaps that was the first time I imagined a world

without my father, even for a fleeting moment.

That father of mine is coming to the city where I live soon.

That is why I have been feeling nervous for the past few days.

The last time we met, we parted ways at Yokohama Station.

When I said thank you for the meal,

my father turned back once before passing through the station gate

and said, "Good luck."

He said it with tears in his eyes, and my heart felt like it was tearing apart,

thinking that I didn't want to see him because I wanted him to spare me from things like that.

My heart was about to break.

On top of that, "good luck" was a phrase

I had always hated.

Because I am a contrary person who cannot

honestly bring myself to say thank you.

Every time he said that, I felt like he thought

I wasn't trying hard enough, and well, there was

definitely a part of me back then that wanted to say I wasn't.

That 'good luck' from that day.

I think about the feelings he put into those five characters for me.

Because we had been through so much, perhaps

that was all he could manage to say

in those five characters.

That was the first time I saw my father cry.

A new emotion sprouted within me.

I felt a stinging pain in my chest.

I wanted to drive that feeling out of me

as quickly as possible, so I wandered around

the downtown area until night.

That day is already in the past, though.

My father is coming to Tokyo next because the painting

he started after retiring won an award,

and he says it is for the awards ceremony.

That father who used to tell his daughter to do her best

I wondered if he had been doing his best in various ways,

when I received that news.

On the phone, he said, "That's great, isn't it?"

"That's great."

Thinking that when we meet next time, we will probably

exchange those words many times.

But I still haven't relaxed my tension

about meeting my father in person.

It's not a sharp tension, though.

For some reason, I wanted to write those feelings down on note.

Life is shaped by feelings I cannot write,
and I keep the feelings I want to write under lock and key