The night I realized that my life in my 40s, which I had spent only working, was actually empty.
I ordered just one drink at Snack Yuki today, too.
I chose Glenkinchie 12 Year Old.
It is light and has a sense of transparency.
Even though it goes down smoothly,
after I finish drinking it,
it is a liquor that leaves something behind.
On the train home from work,
I suddenly thought.
Did I do anything for myself today?
Even when I looked back,
nothing came to mind.
Until I reached my late 40s,
I had spent most of my life on work.
There was a lot of overtime, and I always got home late.
I would come home, eat, sleep, and go back to the office.
If I went out for drinks with colleagues,
the topic was always complaints about work.
I didn't have any particular complaints.
But if asked if I was having fun,
I would stumble over my words a bit.
It was around that time that there was a department transfer.
In the new team, there was a person named Y.
They were a bit eccentric.
One day, they said to me out of the blue.
“Sakuma-san, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
They were looking straight at me with clear eyes.
They weren't blaming me.
They weren't making fun of me either.
They were just asking purely.
That's why I couldn't brush it off.
In my head, I thought about it over and over.
What was it that I liked again?
What was it that I wanted to do again?
It surfaced, then vanished.
It surfaced again, then vanished.
Nothing came to mind.
I couldn't look Y in the eyes.
If I looked straight at them,
I felt like I would have to face my own emptiness,
so I kept glancing around at the ceiling.
It was empty.
Truly, it was empty.
It was the night I realized, for the first time in my late 40s,
that I had nothing.
Besides work,
is there anything you are so absorbed in
that you lose track of time?
One night, I talked to Mama about it.
While polishing a glass, she paused for a moment and said.
"Heh heh... people who realize they are empty, you know, they can still make it in time. There are far more people who end their lives without ever realizing it."
She smiled a little,
and turned her eyes to the next customer.
I, too,
had a time like that.
Since then, for a while,
I kept asking myself.
When I am doing what,
do I lose track of time?
I had always just repeated doing things because they were necessary.
I read self-help books.
I chased business trends.
I felt like I was at the cutting edge of the era
because I possessed the latest knowledge.
But if asked if I liked it,
I didn't.
When I started writing,
something was different.
No one told me to.
I don't even know if it's useful.
What I wrote first
was really about nothing at all.
What I am thinking right now.
Without being able to put it into words well, I just kept writing.
Then,
something strange happened.
The things that had been bothering me for so long
began to clear up, little by little.
The feeling of walking through a fog
was like the fog lifting.
I felt like I could see
the stairs I needed to climb.
No matter how many hours it took, it wasn't painful.
Ah, so this is what it means to like something.
When I realized that,
I almost felt like crying.
You don't need to understand everything.
There is just one thing
I want you to ask yourself tonight.
Is there something you find yourself doing
without anyone telling you to?
Do you have something like that?
Not because it's "necessary," but
something you "find yourself doing."
I think that
is your clue.
Probably, anyway.
I took another sip of Glenkinchie.
It's light and transparent.
But after I finish drinking it, something remains.
Even within the emptiness,
surely something is sleeping.
Probably, anyway.
The glass is empty.
I'll stop here for today.
To those visiting Snack Yuki for the first time.
What kind of person I am, and why I am writing this essay.
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