Observation Record of 'Nothing is Happening' | Part 9 | Living One's Own Life
Previous | Part 8 | A Place to Return To
When I woke up in the morning, I didn't think of anything in particular.
I was sleepy, and I felt like my body was a little heavy.
I don't remember the content of my dream.
I didn't feel disappointed that I didn't remember it, either.
The light coming through the gap in the curtains was at the same angle as always.
I don't have the feeling that today is a special day.
There is no premonition that something is beginning, nor a feeling that something has ended.
I get out of bed, wash my face, and drink a glass of water.
Without checking the coldness,
without being conscious of the taste.
The actions simply continued.
When I went outside, there were as many people as ever.
The road to the station.
People standing at the traffic light.
People walking while looking at their smartphones.
People in a hurry. People not in a hurry.
The walking speed, the flow of the intersection, the waiting time at the traffic light,
nothing has changed at all.
I, too, blend into that flow.
I walk so as not to be late,
I choose a position where I won't be in the way,
and I move forward.
I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to fit in.
But at the same time, I'm not asserting my own pace either.
I am simply there, naturally.
However, if asked if it's the same as before,
it is just a little bit different.
It's not a difference I can explain.
It's not a gap I can tell by comparing.
Just, when I was walking,
I had the feeling that my feet were properly touching the ground.
I wasn't floating.
I wasn't stomping either.
I was just touching it.
It was the same when I was working.
I think when I need to think.
I make decisions too.
I talk to people.
There are times when I'm asked for the correct answer,
and there are times when clarity is needed.
I respond to those situations properly.
My mind is working.
Words come out.
I don't feel like I'm forcing myself.
That said, I'm not too relaxed either.
I am focused.
But I am not tense.
It's just that where I am standing
is clearer than it was before.
During my lunch break, when I was sitting alone,
a thought suddenly occurred to me.
'Have I gained something?'
I thought about it for a moment,
and immediately let go of that question.
The phrasing of 'gained' feels
somehow wrong.
It's not that something has increased.
It's not that I've acquired knowledge I didn't know before.
It's not that I've become able to use a new ability.
Rather,
I felt like the unnecessary things just stopped coming to the forefront.
The old me
never stopped thinking somewhere in my head.
Is this strange?
Is this off?
Will this be understood?
That confirmation
continued incessantly somewhere in my mind.
Even now, it hasn't dropped to zero.
When I'm concerned,
I am properly concerned.
'Am I okay?'
I think that, and I waver.
But I no longer stay
in that wavering for long.
'There is a part of me that thinks so.'
That alone is enough to make me pause.
I don't correct it.
I don't deny it either.
I simply set it aside.
When I'm talking to someone
and my words stumble a little.
In the past, I would have panicked and tried to fix it.
Now, I take a breath.
A silence forms.
Because I know that even if a silence forms,
it won't break anything.
In the silence,
I look at what remains within me.
It's okay if I don't know what that is.
While not knowing,
sometimes the next words just come out.
When I returned home, the room was quiet.
I take off my shoes,
put down my bags,
and sit in a chair.
The air in the room is no different from the morning.
No special emotions well up.
I cannot say for sure if I am lonely,
or if I am fulfilled.
I cannot say either way.
But,
I have a sense that I have returned here.
I did not try to explain
where it was that I had returned to.
I feel like I understand it even without explaining it.
——Perhaps I just want to think that.
Sometimes, I do think about it.
What would have happened
if I had continued living without knowing this state?
Even without knowing,
I might have just lived on,
thinking 'this is normal'.
I
don't really like the phrase
'living my own life'.
It feels a bit too grand, somehow.
Like a goal,
or an achievement to be checked off.
I
haven't accomplished anything.
I haven't saved anyone.
I haven't earned a lot of money, either.
I have simply
stopped running away from my own feelings.
Or rather than saying I stopped running away,
perhaps it is just that the reason to run away has disappeared.
I didn't intend to be running away,
and I hadn't even realized that I was running away.
I didn't have a sense of being afraid.
But, I understand now.
I think,
perhaps I was afraid.
Correctness still exists outside of me.
Social standards,
and the expectations of others,
have not disappeared.
I live while keeping
a distance from them.
Not getting too close, not drifting too far.
I am able to choose that sense of distance for myself—
or so I believe.
That was
the biggest difference.
It's not that I decided anything.
I don't have the feeling that
I've changed how I live.
But,
at least regarding the place where I stand,
I no longer let others' definitions of 'correct' decide it for me.
There are times when I get lost.
There are times when I don't understand.
There is no answer.
Perhaps, from here on out, there will never be a clear answer.
Even so, I am able to return.
To the self before it was explained.
To the sensation before it was given a name.
Perhaps I have stopped
drifting away from this state.
I don't have a will strong enough
to say I'm 'protecting' this state, though.
In my story,
'nothing has happened'.
Here, there are no incidents,
no answers,
and no growth.
All that exists is
the record of the same person, standing in the same world,
slowly changing only
the distance between themselves and everything else.
Today, too, I
will do nothing special.
I will leave my feelings
without giving them a name yet,
just as they are, and end the day.
Whether that is okay or not,
I still do not know.