🧸Parenting Essay | What the Aquarion Masterpiece 'Kimi no Shinwa' Taught Me

Are you familiar with the song 'Kimi no Shinwa' (Your Myth), the opening theme for the anime Aquarion EVOL?

Back in 2012 when it was released, I used to listen to it every day while being jostled on a crowded train.
The beginning sounds just like a church pipe organ. The lyrics start with 'Awe!'.

It felt like it blew away all my melancholy feelings; it was truly a 'masterpiece' for me.

Chasing after work, playing when work was done, and just sleeping when I got home.
Even in those days when time passed in the blink of an eye, I felt like I was saved by listening to this song.
It made me want to cherish those passing 'moments'.

That is precisely why I pushed forward in my work and played with all my might.

I hate the word 'perfect.' Both back then and now.

I used to work while thinking, 'What even is perfect work?', and after becoming a mother, I started thinking, 'What even is a perfect mother?'

Isn't it something that changes based on someone's whim?
I refuse to be pushed around by something like that.

That is why I love the phrase 'fully incomplete' that appears in 'Kimi no Shinwa'.

The day I became a mother.
I think that was the day the pregnancy test came back positive.

My mind and body were exhausted from long-term fertility treatment, and it was an in vitro fertilization attempt that my husband and I had braced ourselves for as 'the last one'.

'Oh, I finally have a child!'
'I'm so glad I kept trying! I'm so happy!!'

It is probably normal to have those kinds of feelings the moment you become a parent.

But I was different.
The fear of an advanced-age pregnancy outweighed the feeling of 'I'm happy!'
Of course, I had discussed this with my husband many times, and I should have been prepared for it.

And yet.

I became unbearably anxious. Even though it was a hot midsummer day, I crawled under the covers and curled up into a ball.

I could not wholeheartedly rejoice at my son's birth. That guilt still casts a shadow over my heart even now.

And from that day on, I prayed for his health and his happiness. I decided I would do anything I could for that sake.

I struggled, worried, and suffered, trying to fix even the slightest fray. I tried to face things with the utmost care. I was desperate not to overlook even the smallest distortion.

Perhaps I was trying to overwrite the guilt of 'not being able to rejoice honestly that day' by becoming 'perfect'.

While I thought, 'What even is a perfect mom?', there was a part of me that was 'trying to become a perfect mom.' I realized that, and there was a part of me that smiled bitterly, thinking, 'What are you doing?'

But this song taught me once again.

The lyrics of 'Kimi no Shinwa' continue like this.

Fully incomplete
Because you are here
The moments that sprout repeatedly are everything

That's right. Because my son is here, I can remain incomplete. As long as I keep thinking about my son, there is no way I could ever become a perfect mom.

And just as the lyrics say, the 'moments that sprout repeatedly' have become my everything.

He held his head up, he crawled, he walked for the first time, he spoke his first words. I feel love for those moments, I gain courage from them, and each time, a small light is lit within my heart.

To me, the day I became a mother.

If you saw my son now, what would you think? Would you cry, saying, 'You've grown so big'? Or would you laugh and say, 'You're doing pretty well, aren't you?'

It is okay to keep being a mother while remaining unfinished.

That guilt will never truly disappear.
But the light that illuminates that darkness is always by your side.

▷This article is the origin from which this work was born.