The Night We Put Down Our Phones and Played Cards

I played cards with my son.

These days, you don't need to play cards; you can find endless entertainment just by opening your smartphone.
Moreover, since we both do streaming, we find ourselves touching our phones before we even realize it.

But for the first time in a while, we put our phones away.

What we brought to the table was an old-fashioned deck of cards.

Concentration.
Sevens.

That was all.

And yet.

"That's not where it goes!"
"Oh man! I lost!"
"Yes!"

My son is laughing his head off.

I find myself laughing along with him.

I never realized I could laugh this much over such a simple game.

Now that I'm in my 50s, I think I might have believed that "fun" had to be something more special.

Like going on a trip,
eating something delicious,
or achieving something.

But the fun I had today felt a little different from that.

I am sitting at the same table with my son, who is now a college student.

Just that alone makes me happy.

When he was small, we were together almost every day.

I fed him,
sent him off to school,
and listened to his stories when he came home.

I think, "We were always together back then," but before I knew it, he was a college student.

Now, we each have our own worlds.

We have our own schedules,
our own relationships,
and our own worlds on the other side of our smartphones.

That is precisely why this time, where we can just laugh together so casually, feels so precious to me in my 50s.

"I want to win!"

I get serious too.

And then,

"Ah, I lost!"

I say, feeling frustrated.

My son laughs.

I laugh too.

In the past, I was desperate to make my child laugh.

Now, I am laughing because of my son's laughter.

I realize that the parent-child relationship changes little by little.

As children grow up, a parent's role gradually diminishes.

The need to take care of them and worry about them will surely decrease even more from here on out.

It's a little lonely.

But perhaps, in exchange, we are becoming a relationship where we can "enjoy things together."

Now that I'm in my 50s, I think:

Maybe life's true treasures are these unremarkable moments after all.

There are many worlds inside a smartphone.

But today, what remained in my heart was not someone on a screen,

but the face of my son laughing his head off right in front of me.

Me, wanting to win, and my son, frustrated by losing.

Being able to think that such a casual night

was "a good time"

makes me feel happy.

Old-fashioned playing cards are great.

And being able to laugh with my college-aged son

is even better than I ever imagined.

Hiromi