Because I'm serious.
"Because you're serious."
When I'm told that,
there are times I can't honestly feel happy about it.
One day, my husband suddenly brought home a puppy.
That was the start of my first experience
living with a dog.
I was at a loss, faced with a husband who just innocently
doted on the dog without imagining the gravity of being responsible for a life.
Even though it was a puppy, when it bit me, it would draw blood,
sometimes leaving welts,
and it hurt more than I expected.
On top of that, there was that unique state of excitement.
The way it would spin around the room at incredible speed,
or the way it would jump up and try to bite me,
looked like a wild beast and it scared me.
By nature, I am—to put it nicely—cautious,
but I also have an anxious side,
and I'm the type who wants to think ahead and be prepared.
So, witnessing that behavior,
I began to seriously worry about how to deal with it.
Besides, it wasn't just a problem between me and my husband.
What if the current playful biting turned into real biting as an adult dog,
and it bit a stranger or another dog while out for a walk?
What if my mother, who lives with us and has dementia, was bitten,
got startled, fell, and broke a bone?
The issue of liability.
The possibility of my elderly mother becoming bedridden
if she broke a bone.
Who would take responsibility
and how, if that were to happen?
When I talked about these worries to an acquaintance who owns a dog,
she encouraged me, saying,
"We had playful biting too, but
it settles down once they're one or two years old."
But a year or two while harboring anxiety and fear
seemed far too long.
And even though I hear it's better to train them while they're puppies,
with a husband who just spoils the dog and me being afraid of it,
it didn't seem like we could do it well.
Wondering if there was something I could do from now,
I confided in my acquaintance again, telling her about our home situation
and asked for advice.
She not only listened to me very sympathetically,
but also asked for opinions from her dog-owning friends,
and I felt like she was really there for me.
I was truly grateful.
However,
in the LINE message where she forwarded the advice from her dog-owning friend,
the phrase
"She must be serious"
bothered me a little.
Still, I figured there was absolutely no malice intended,
and I tried to not let it bother me and just let that feeling
wash over me.
But...
Later, when I met the acquaintance with my husband
and the topic of the dog came up, that acquaintance also
said, "Because you're serious," quite casually.
Then, my husband, who had caused the root of this worry,
chimed in,
"Yes, she's the serious one in our house," and
joined in, saying it with a smile as if it were someone else's problem.
At that moment,
combined with the text from the other day's LINE message,
my smile froze.
The knot deep in my chest grew larger and burst,
and a bitterness spread.
Serious.
Originally, it's a word with a good meaning.
Sincere, responsible,
proper.
But sometimes, this word takes on a different meaning.
Overthinking, worrying too much,
nervous, inflexible.
—To me, that's how it sounded this time.
Of course, this is just how I felt about it.
The person who said it probably didn't
think that deeply about it,
and you can't know what's in someone else's heart.
Even so, from the context and their expressions,
I felt a loneliness, as if what I was desperately worried about
was being brushed off with, "You don't need to worry so seriously."
It's wrapped up like an oblate wafer with the word "serious,"
but the contents are somewhat bitter.
The true nature of that bitterness,
I think, is surely "loneliness."
No matter how much I try to explain it in words,
it's easily dismissed as a personality issue,
and the seriousness isn't shared.
For me, I'm just trying to face the reality in front of me
with complete sincerity,
that's all I intended.
But,
thinking about this and that,
and spinning it into words like this.
Including that part of me,
perhaps I really am "serious."