In my own way, I was an unhappy child. Or rather, maybe I should say I was far more troubled in childhood than I was after I became an adult. I think it’s partly because I was an only child and an introvert, and I didn’t get to spend much time with my parents since they were both busy working. It’s also because I wasn’t able to properly deal with the anxiety and sadness I felt.
Since I couldn’t talk to anyone about this, I couldn’t find a way out of my problems, and little by little the sadness inside me grew until it felt like a massive balloon pressing down on me every night when I got into bed. Of course, it was always about childish things. They all seem trivial when I took back on them now. Like when I got depressed thinking about having to take a test in gym class right after summer break to see whether I could spin backward over the playground bars. Or when I heard a rumor that people buried dead bodies under cherry trees, and became afraid of the cherry tree in my backyard…
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
