#56 To write is to love.
Writing has transformed 'this kind of life' into the 'best life'.
That is why I continue to save myself by 'writing'.
＊
One day, suddenly, my father quit his job.
My mother was a housewife suffering from depression.
My younger sister dropped out of the public high school she had entered as the top student.
This happened when I was entering my third year of university.
The challenge left for our family was, 'How will we pay for the remaining two years of my university tuition?'
The only people I could rely on were my wealthy uncle, a graduate of the National Defense Academy, and myself, whose only merit was being physically healthy.
My mother bowed her head to my uncle and borrowed money with a promissory note, and I started a part-time job as a hostess in Nakasu.
In the morning, a ramen shop; during the day, an apparel shop; at night, a snack bar in Nakasu.
I filled every hour I didn't have university classes with part-time work, and the days continued where I sent about 200,000 yen home every month. I worked so hard I lost track of where I was.
Honestly, there were times I thought negatively, like 'I don't want my own children to go through such hardships.'
But it seems I wasn't unhappy back then. I learned that 20 years later by 'writing' about it.
I also had good encounters. Living in that unique world and the process of gaining new values felt like something precious to me.
The catalyst for learning that 'Oh, I have absolutely no right to bind others with my own values' was heavily influenced by my experience working as a hostess.
By trying to write about it, I realized that.
By trying to write about it, I discovered a part of life that was necessary for me.
＊
After working desperately and somehow graduating from university, I started working at my dream apparel company as a new graduate. The work was undeniably fun.
However, because I had chosen to work in a 'black company' environment, I was rushed to the emergency room twice with 'acute gastroenteritis'.
'I was an idiot,' 'I could have handled it more efficiently.'
I lived a life so devoid of breathing room that I want to hold my head in my hands when I remember it.
Because my 'likes' and my 'abilities' were not proportional, I made many mistakes at work and was far from being a capable person. (And that continues to this day.)
However, by remembering my past self and 'writing' about it, I was able to objectively grasp my own potential for growth.
The past that I thought of as 'I was so hopeless back then' changed into 'I managed to get by in my own clumsy way' when I put it into words.
If anything, I even felt a little proud.
'I did it with all my might in my own way; I must have loved it that much.'
However, along with that emotion, impatience also welled up.
By looking back on that 'time that was fun but painful,' I was confronted with the question: 'What is my level of commitment now?'
I notice things by writing, and I feel impatient.
'Wait? So am I working as desperately now as I was back then?
Is it just talk that I want to make writing my job?
Do I really want to write?'
By writing, I questioned myself and disciplined myself.
By writing, I was able to become serious in the true sense, thinking, 'I really do want to write after all.'
＊
After leaving my job at an apparel company to get married, I gave birth to three children in consecutive years.
"I hate children."
I was 30 years old when I discovered that about myself, despite having had three children.
"Not everyone in the human race possesses something like maternal instinct."
"I want to work, I want to work, I want to work, I want to work, I want to work."
While raising my children alone, I was so depressed at the time that I thought this once every minute.
I once wrote about looking back on those days when I blamed myself for not being a "good mother."
I had convinced myself that I hated children, but that wasn't quite right.
When I write, my past self emerges, saying things like, "Huh? Maybe I did love them in my own way," or "I managed to find joy and do my best even during those painful times."
When I read this essay aloud to my children, who are now in elementary school, the three of them burst into laughter.
"Mom, you were so depressed!"
"Mom, were we really that much trouble?"
"Mom, out of the three of us, who was the hardest to raise?"
It was a good time. In that moment, I was enveloped in an indescribable feeling that all my struggles from back then were finally being validated as "the right answer for now."
Honestly, when the term "parent gacha" became popular, I felt guilty toward my own children, but the three of them had accepted me as their mother.
Writing saved me.
Writing allowed me to properly comfort my past self.
＊
It was when my youngest was two and a half, I think, that my husband suddenly said, "I'm closing the shop."
"Huh? Déjà vu?"
My father's past from my college days flashed back.
My husband, who was a restaurant owner, gave up on his future due to the state of emergency caused by the coronavirus.
From there, I switched from an office job to a sales job to support our family of five, and I started working desperately once again.
With an unemployed husband and me working full-time while raising children.
I had no room in my heart, and the past where I was emotionally frayed was truly too painful to look at.
However, I try writing about that past as well.
As I continued to write these things down, the feelings I held toward my husband gradually began to change.
Even though the coronavirus had settled down worldwide, my husband continued to add to his years of unemployment—two, three, four years...
In the end, he was unemployed for a total of five years.
Of course, I have blamed my husband. I told him that we wouldn't even be able to manage our daily lives tomorrow, let alone how we were going to raise our three children.
But my husband would just lie on the living room sofa with eyes that looked as if he had given up on life.
That was when I finally realized it.
My husband was depressed.
When I made up my mind to let go of my anger, thinking it was foolish to be mad at such a husband, a circuit breaker in my head snapped, and I erased the notion that "a husband is someone who works" from my brain.
From then on, I kept writing. I wrote incessantly on X and Ameblo about "life with an unemployed husband," and a fighting spirit that was by then beyond reason welled up in me, thinking, "I'm going to get my money's worth out of this life I chose with an unemployed husband!!"
And it received more reactions from the public than I had expected, leading to many "likes" and comments.
"I'm a first-time visitor. I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh after reading the episode about your husband."
A single comment like this stirred up my motivation to write.
"My hardships and the dark feelings I had toward my husband were turned into a chuckle for someone else."
It might be presumptuous, but that is how I felt at the time.
At first, it contained some anger, but as I continued to write, something interesting happened. I remembered my feelings from back then, when I first met my husband and "everything I saw changed completely."
And remembering that, I felt relieved, thinking, "That's good."
It seems that I, who felt relieved, still care for my husband deep down.
Looking back and writing about it this far, I wonder if "writing" hasn't been essential to my life.
From the outside, it doesn't look like I've been living a peaceful life, and in fact, there have been quite a few times when family and close friends have told me, "You're going through unnecessary hardships."
But for me, when I write about all of it, I often realize, "Wait, I'm actually incredibly happy."
Thinking about it that way, no matter how painful or rock-bottom the situation I am living in now may be, if I keep the spirit of "that's why I write," I can turn a painful reality into a past worth loving.
That is why I think this:
"To write is to love."
Thank you for reading until the end.
*This essay is an entry for the "Why I Write" note contest hosted by Hana Fujiwara👇