The Real Reason I Always Felt Envious #MyTreasuredThings

I have always been envious. The fact that I want to know the origin of the kanji the moment I write that down might be a remnant of my student days when I studied the Japanese language.
The kanji for 'envious' (urayamashii) is made up of the characters for 'sheep,' 'water,' and 'lack.' It seems the character refers to sheep as something delicious or good, and depicts the state of drooling while looking at them.

In the lab, at the clubhouse, in the underground mall—the lovely light swaying on the earlobes of people I passed by. I never imagined back then that it would take me more than ten years to realize the 'real reason' why I felt envious of that.

❅

After I turned twenty, I gathered my courage and said it.
I want to get my ears pierced.

At the time, I was working part-time at a musical instrument manufacturer where many of the employees were former band members who had once aimed to go pro, and I would look enviously at their earlobes, which still had small piercing holes. Of course, it wasn't the holes themselves I envied, but the state of being able to wear earrings.
However, my parents were strongly against my sudden confession. When I told my grandparents, thinking that if my parents wouldn't allow it, maybe they would, my grandfather pulled out a classic text and said, 'Uta-chan, do you know the phrase "Our body, hair, and skin are received from our parents"?' He lectured me, saying I must not harm the body my parents gave me.
That's unfair. If you say something like that, I can't get them pierced, can I?

Eventually, I mentioned the same thing to my husband, who is eight years my senior, but he rejected it without any particular reason.
I just kept envying the ears of others, and in the end, I entered my thirties without ever getting my ears pierced.

❅

I've always wanted to get my ears pierced.
Why don't you just do it?
Oto-chan said that with the speed of a reflex.

Oto-chan, whom I met through our children after I reached my thirties, had become closer to me than my friends from my student days as we shared our personal worries. Her thin earlobes were always adorned with small, elegant earrings, and I was intensely envious of that.

When I asked Oto-chan, who had nonchalantly told me to 'just do it,' as if making small talk, 'They say that getting your ears pierced changes your life, right?', she suddenly turned serious and said,
It does.

I also talked to our mutual friend, Aoko. Then, Aoko tilted her head slightly, looked me in the eye, and said,
Why are you asking other people? If it were me, I'd just decide for myself and get it done.

At that moment, I felt as if the dots had connected.

❅

What do you want to do?

As we were becoming closer, Oto-chan would ask me that at every opportunity.
But every time I was asked, it became painful. Back then, I didn't really think about what I wanted to do, and I never knew what the correct answer was.
I didn't realize at the time that the very act of searching for that "correct answer" was what was causing me pain.

I suppose I just wanted to feel secure by relying on someone else to approve of what I did. I thought I could only get my ears pierced once my family or friends said, "Nice earrings!" That's what I had convinced myself of.

So, looking back now, my "what do I want to do?" at that time wasn't "I want to get my ears pierced!" but rather "I want someone to tell me, 'Nice earrings! Why don't you get them pierced!'" Even though I am the owner of this body, I couldn't decide for myself and was trying to make others decide for me. The one who was being dishonest wasn't my grandfather, but me.

Hearing Aoko's words, I felt like I finally understood the meaning of the question Oto-chan had been patiently asking me: "What do you want to do?"
What do I want to do? ...In my heart, which had been stagnant from thinking until my head felt like it was smoking, the many words I had received from Oto-chan until then began to soak in like water.

It was in the early summer of my memorable 32nd year that I decided "for myself" to get my ears pierced and made an appointment at a plastic surgery clinic.

❅

Deciding things for oneself is something most people probably do naturally in the process of becoming an adult without giving it much thought.
But for me at the time, it wasn't a given. That's because I had always relied on the people around me for decision-making, living my life by saying "thanks to you" when things went well, and "it's someone else's fault" when they went poorly.
The more I look back on the past, the more I break into a cold sweat realizing how naive I was to have left my life up to others.

Come to think of it, I believe that was also around the time I learned the term "self-axis." Because I had always lived with an "other-axis," I was constantly reading people's faces, delegating my decisions, and searching for the correct answer, until eventually, I could only breathe shallowly.
The ones who saved me from that were Oto-chan and myself.

Four weeks later, by the time the disinfection of the piercing holes was finished, my state of mind felt as if the fog had cleared. I removed the starter earrings that had been put into my earlobes at the plastic surgery clinic and replaced them with white gold hoop earrings.

That was a gift from Oto-chan, and in a sense, it was my memorable "first earrings."

❅

I had always looked at other people's ears and felt envious, but perhaps I hadn't realized that what I was truly envious of wasn't "having pierced ears," but "the freedom to decide for myself to get them pierced."

In this way, Oto-chan's words became reality.
By getting my ears pierced, my life changed.

I learned in the process of getting my ears pierced that as long as I am not causing trouble for anyone else, I should decide things for myself.
The moment I realized that the "freedom to decide for myself" belonged to no one else but was within me, living became easier.

Therefore, these earrings are my first step.
Proof of my mental independence.
And, a treasured thing of mine that taught me through personal experience that people can change at any moment from the instant they realize it.

This essay is a significant rewrite of an essay from April 2020.
I am participating in this project.

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