Chapter Five After Becoming A Grownup
Finally, I was able to get married with Ryo. Ryo graduated university and after his first year as a trainee, he made his proposal to me.
I didn’t want to depend too much on him, so I worked and earned some money.
The problem was about having children. I didn’t have the confidence to bring up children. I’m so awkward and quiet and unreliable. I could never take care of my children.
When I told Ryo about it, he said, “You’ll be all right.”
But I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Why was Ryo such a reliable person when I wasn’t? I needed to try harder to become like him.
However, it isn’t necessary to always try too hard. Happiness comes naturally, so you don’t have to work too hard.
Ryo and I had our first child. He was a boy, and we named him Ken.
I was afraid, but once he was born, he was so adorable that I forgot my fears.
“Ken, my sweetheart.” I touched his cheek and tickled his feet.
I also made a new friend named Miwako. She lived nextdoor in the mansion, and she just had a baby too. Her baby was a girl named Yoko, and she was good friends with Ken.
“What if they get married in the future?” We joked.
After I had a family, my past no longer mattered to me so much. I was busy, happy and doing my best to live my present life.
However, my past didn’t completely disappear, and I sometimes recalled my memories of my adolescence.
I hope Ken becomes like Ryo when he grows up.
When Ken grows up, I want to take him to the beach and tell him that this was where his father asked his mother out.
The beach that we sat in must be moving slowly even now. Time flies by so fast.
A little while ago, Hanako came to my wedding ceremony. It was twenty years since we last met, but I was glad that she seemed to be doing fine. Since then, I sometimes take contact with Hanako.
I couldn’t invite Mayuko and Tomoka.
“Why?” Ryo had asked me.
He couldn’t know my true feelings. Only I know them. Actually, I can’t quite understand them myself.
Ryo comes home late from work. However, he can take care of his family as well.
Unlike me, he is perfect. I feel I need to become more like him. However, Ryo always tells me, “You’re fine just the way you are.” I can’t quite understand that remark...
I wanted to love myself more. I wanted to become stronger. It was surprising how Ryo always stayed with me in spite of all my faults.
But Ken grew up as a good boy.
Maybe this is the meaning of my life.
Many things happened. I learned the pain of losing my lover, found that some friends are my true friends while some aren’t, and realized that my husband loved me no matter who I was.
Ryo, thanks so much. Many feelings can be expressed by this single phrase. But it’s a wonderful phrase. Thank you for loving me. And I wanted to keep telling him that I loved him too.
Recently, I’m receiving medication at a hospital. Everything seemed fine, but I couldn’t help feeling anxious, so I went to the hospital. Now I am drinking pills such as mental stabilizers.
Everybody has difficulties. I didn’t want to work too hard and live at my own pace. I have Ryo, so I’ll probably be okay. Still, I feel a bit nervous.
At that time, an offer to act in a movie came to me. Could I, a mother in her thirties, possibly become an actress? I thought about it and finally rejected the offer. I could only live in a safe way. I wonder where my bravery from childhood went.
You see, I wanted to live in love rather than in chasing dreams.
“This is your big chance.” Even though I was told that, I didn’t change my mind.
When you become an adult, you start understanding your limitations.
Ryo said, “You didn’t have to reject the offer so easily.”
Ryo, why don’t you understand... I cried all night. It was the first time we had a disagreement.
But I believed in Ryo. So, at the next day, I called the production office and apologized for rejecting and asked if I could still take the offer.
The role was a heroine in a romance movie.
