To My Self One Year Ago

How are you doing?

No, perhaps you might not be doing... so well.

I suspect that even now, as you write this, you are sitting alone in your father's room, agonizing over what you should write.

Please, worry as much as you need to for now, and let yourself get lost in those worries. Eventually, you will somehow manage to grasp the thread that will help you take a step forward.

That said, you decided in your heart that the third time's the charm and returned to this place (note), but I imagine you couldn't come up with a single essential topic at that moment.

And so, after thinking until you were holding your head in your hands, you ended up giving birth to a disjointed article, written as if you were just scribbling it down, under the assumption that "it probably won't reach anyone anyway."

The way you roughly lined up each word that came to mind, as if you were just scribbling them down, I think perfectly reproduces the incredibly helpless situation you were in at the time.

"Caught up in the unreasonableness of society, the path I originally wanted to pursue has been closed halfway through, where should I vent this frustration..."

Isn't that what you were thinking? I have a feeling that when I reread it, I received that kind of sign. If that's not the case, I'm sorry. I'll apologize in advance.

However, even if the results don't pay off in the future, I hope you will continue to spell out words the way you want to express them. Even if you are currently drifting through a painful and difficult environment.

You will definitely meet people you should cherish from here on out. You will spend days walking together, helping someone with your own words and being helped by someone else's words.

Even if the environment you are in doesn't change immediately, don't push yourself, don't rush, and don't try to be someone you're not. If you keep the will to "keep going," the path will gradually open up before you.

However, for you, who remains in such a dire situation that you cannot even find your voice, this might sound like empty platitudes. I believe I fully understand that it is only natural for you to feel that way.

No matter how much you vent your feelings, you might just fade away without anyone ever noticing you. I'm sure you are harboring such anxieties.

But I think that is because there is a negative emotion at the root, such as "nobody cares about me anyway." First of all, I hope you can shake those off and gain the power to continue.

And beyond this, you may find yourself walking a path of hardship unlike anything you have ever experienced before. While it is hard to say for certain, you will likely find yourself standing at a crossroads in life.

Even so, I pray that you will live without losing your humanity and by holding fast to your convictions. At the very least, the results you aimed for will surely be engraved here in this note.

So, please...