[Lantern Under the Blue Sky #003] Until I, Who Could Become Nothing, Start Walking Again
I have accompanied this essay with an instrumental piece I composed.
For someone who stopped in their tracks while trying to become someone,
yet still decides to start walking again on their own two feet.
I wrote this song while imagining such a figure.
Please, if you would like, read this along with the music.
When I was organizing my desk drawer, an old business card turned up.
My name was printed beneath a job title.
Staring at those characters, I stopped what I was doing for a while.
Back then, if I handed someone a business card, I could explain who I was.
When my job changed, my title changed too.
When the country I lived in changed, the people I met, the language I spoke, and the scenery I saw all changed.
Even so, somewhere in my heart, I had always carried the same question.
What will I be able to become?
When I was young, I thought that if I just kept walking, I would eventually reach an answer.
To be recognized for my work.
To accomplish something.
To possess something that only I could do.
If I could find that, I felt I could finally give my life a name.
That is what I felt.
However, what remained in the hands of me, now 62 years old, was not a distinguished title.
Work that didn't go well.
Plans that ended halfway.
Words that never reached their destination.
Nights I couldn't sleep, wondering if I would be able to protect my family.
And it was a white sheet of paper that I had rewritten many times.
"Daddy, what are you looking at?"
My daughter peered at the old business card in my hand.
"It's an old business card from back then."
"Is that Daddy from back then?"
"That's right."
My daughter compared the business card with the me of today.
"Then, what about the Daddy of today?"
I couldn't answer that question right away.
The me of today had no business card to present with pride.
I hadn't become anything.
Those words fell into my chest.
It was a heavy sound.
But my daughter thought for a moment and then said,
"The Daddy of today is the Daddy who writes every day, right?"
That was all it was.
But that one sentence created a small path at my feet where I had been standing still.
It's not about what I've become, but what I am doing now.
It's not about what kind of title I hold, but who I am sitting at my desk for.
I was writing because I wanted to protect my family.
I was writing to turn my failures into a record so that someone else wouldn't have to stop in the same place.
I was writing because I wanted to find a small light within the experiences of those who have yet to find their words.
When I think about it that way, it's not that I couldn't become anything.
It's just that I couldn't fit my life into a single title.
There are the days I spent in America.
There are the 11 years I lived in Cambodia.
There is the time I spent standing between people in my work.
There are the nights I couldn't sleep, wondering if I could protect my family.
I cannot choose just one of these and say, 'This is who I am.'
However, all of them continue to the ground beneath my feet today.
The path that looked like a detour was not a path that disappeared along the way.
I did not throw away my old business cards, but returned them to the back of my drawer.
It is not because I want to return to the past.
It is because I no longer wanted to deny the person who had walked that far.
Outside the window, a blue sky was spreading.
The lantern on the desk was still lit, even though it was daytime.
I took out a new sheet of paper and wrote slowly.
'Lantern Old Man'
It is not a company title.
It is not the name of a qualification.
It is not a title that only those who have succeeded can claim.
For me, who has walked while feeling lost,
it was a name meant to place a small light at someone's feet.
I did not start walking because I had become someone.
I decided to walk again, taking along the version of myself that could become nothing.
There is no guarantee that a grand answer is waiting at the end of the road.
I might fall again.
I might take a detour.
Even so, I can still move one step further than I did yesterday.
What I needed for a fresh start in the second half of my life was not a new title.
It was a reason to put my feet forward once more.
That reason had been by my side all along.
My wife and daughter.
Someone I have yet to meet.
And the version of myself I had left behind along the way.
I picked up the lantern and opened the door to the counseling room.
Under the blue sky, a single path stretched out.
It is the path of me, who could become nothing.
That is precisely why there is no need to compare it to anyone else's path.
Today, too, I will walk along this road.
In my own name.
At my own pace.
Once more, from here.
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[Lantern Under the Blue Sky #004 ]
Even on the long way around, there are lights I left behind
Lantern Old Man's Fantasy Stroll
My daughter was strong
Always.
From Lantern Old Man.
This phrase is our watchword that we have cherished since the days of the information center.
Thank you so much for your follows and likes, always.
This information center is not a place I walk alone.
💙Feeble, 🟢Clark-kun, 🟤Encore, 💛Crystal, and my family who watches over me nearby.
I want to keep moving forward like this, hand in hand with everyone.
"Let's go on like this, hand in hand."
Always.
From Lantern Old Man.
