心の中の大事件
昨日連絡網が回ってきて、日本語学校が休校になりました。宿題の作文ができてなくて苦しんでいた息子はヤッホーと喜んで、外に遊びにいってしまいました。今日もまだ雪が残っているけど、ほとんど降っていなくて、遊ぶにはもってこい。学校が休みになってほんとうによかった。あ、授業料払ってる親がこんなことを言っていいのか??親も朝からのんびりして、すっかり朝寝坊。ご飯を食べたのは昼ごろでした。もう、朝昼いっしょ。こういうことってあまりないです。だからとってもよかったみたい。その時、うちのダンナが先日読み終えた本の話を始めたんです。それは私がすすめた、ドナ・ウィリアムズの「自閉症だったわたしへ」Nobody, Nowhere.そして、自分は自閉症っぽい、って言うのですよ。このあいだうちにアダムが来ていたときもちょっとそんなことを言っていましたが、私もアダムもあんたが自閉症だとは思わない、って言っていたのです。でも、わたしはこの本を彼に薦めながら、全部は読んでなかったのですよね。拾い読みみたいな読み方だけして。それで、そのあと反省してちゃんと読み始めたのです。そしたらびっくり。私までもが「わかる~」とか思い始めたのです。私はまったく自分が自閉症とか思ったことありませんでしたが、たしかに理解できることはたくさんあるし、自閉症的なところがけっこうある。なんと自閉症的な行動まである。それって自閉症の症状だったの?とびっくり。もちろん、それはそういう部分があるというだけで、障害として持っている、といえるほどのことではありません。でも、その話になって、止まらなくなりました。今日はみんなでどこかへ行こうか、とかいってたのもそっちのけ。息子が近所の子と遊ぶために外に出て行ってしまったら、もう堰を切ったようにいろんな話をはじめて。ここ7年間のいろいろな苦しみ、怒り、悲しみが、うわわわわーっと解けていったのです。信じられなかった。もう、はっきりいって、別居にいたるだろう、と思ってたし、その後は離婚になるかもしれない、と思っていました。友人たちはみんな早く別れたほうがいいよ、って言ってたし、わたしもそう思ってたのに。すごいことって起こるんだな、と。彼のメンタルな問題のことは、本当に出口がないような気がして、二人で行き止まりにぶち当たっていたような気持ちになっていたのですが、たとえそれが「自閉症」であっても、 何か別のものであっても、それに名前がつけばそこから解決の糸口というか、救いのきっかけが見えてくるような気持ちになりました。相手を赦せないっていうのは、赦せない自分が苦しいことです。もちろん、赦してもらえない人も苦しいのですが、「だったらもういいよ」と関係を絶ってしまうとか、開き直って無視するとかいうこともできます。だけど、自分が赦してないというのは、逃れようがないことです。つまり、人を赦すことができないとき、一番つらいのは自分なのですよね。今日、彼のことをいっぱい許すことができて、はじめてそれを実感しました。気持ちが本当に楽になったのです。いままで、腹が立つからとか、フェアじゃないとかいう思いが先にたち、素直になんかなれなかったし、相手のいいところも、自分の悪いところも、わかっていたって認めたくなかった。そしてそれがまた苦しかった。罪悪感っていうのかな。でも、そうか、自閉症かもしれないのか、そして、彼のいろいろな不可解な行動やなんかも、それは彼が思いやりにかけてるからとか、ずうずうしいからとか、礼儀を知らないからとか、私を愛してないからとかではなく、ものすごく大変な思いをして、努力をしているのに、それでもうまくいかない、それほどの困難を要することだったのか、と。もちろん、まだ自閉症と決まったわけではないし、もしそうだとしても、誰にもわからなかったくらい軽度のものかもしれない。またはほかの問題も併せ持っているのかもしれない、といろいろ考えられます。だから、専門家の判断を待たなくてはなりませんが、今度カウンセリングに行くときに、何をどう相談したらいいのか、なんとなく方向性が見えてきました。彼は精神異常とかじゃない、冷たい人間でも、あまったれたずうずうしい人間でもない。始めに私が信じたとおりの、誠実なきちんとした人間なんだ、ということが再確認できたのです。正確に何年になるのかわからないけれど、すごく長い年月でした。まだ具体的な解決は何もないけれど、お互いの心が近づいた、というだけで、すごく楽になりました。これから、この問題にタックルしていく上で、それを孤軍奮闘でやるか、二人で手を取り合ってやるか、では天と地ほどの差があるのです。わー、止まらない。今日はこのへんにしておかなくては。この本のこととか、書いていきます。とはいっても、ここはあくまでも食べ物系のサイトにしたいので、ご心配なく。でも、自閉症関係のリンクが出てくるかも(ひょえ~)I can't believe I am adding anything to this already long blog, but this entry has to be made. For a long time, my husband and I were having problems and we couldn't figure out what was really wrong with us. Recently we were arguing over small things and I thought it was because I was quite frustrated with the overwhelming schedule we had during the holiday season. When he and his guests went to Cypress Mountain for the New Year's Eve celebrations, leaving me behind alone at home, I was really mad. I didn't wanted to go there and therefore it was OK - that's what he thought but it wasn't. In my culture, leaving a family member alone at home and go somewhere to celebrate the New Year is just unacceptable. They left as soon as I got back from grocery shopping, taking my groceries out of the car and putting them on the ground, they packed the car with toboggans and skies. After that, I started to clean the kitchen and entry and the living room like crazy. That’s what a family do together before the New Year in Japan. Having a clean house for the brand new year is the main thing and no one thinks the whole purpose is to have a family time. But I realized that it is really the opposite. I miss what I used to do with my family in the end of the year when I was a lot younger. My parents were younger and we didn’t have too many things in our house. My brother and I helped my parents and cleaned most unusual places of the house and by the time we were hungry for the very last meal of the year, the house was spotless. We all got very tired but felt great. We sat around the table and had a bowl of buckwheat noodle according to the custom. TV was about to show the special music programme for the New Year’s Eve. After that, they showed scenes from different places in Japan, mostly Buddhist temples. Snowy night looked so clean and crisp. Solemn sounds of the bells. That’s the quiet moment of the beginning of the year. Probably it was adrenaline or something. I had such energy to work like anything for ten straight hours. Finally I had to give up at 11:30pm. But I felt so rested. I was physically very tired but felt so good because I did something I wanted to do without even thinking about anybody. I will never forget this feeling, because it was so weird. I was still really mad and depressed but I felt good at the same time.After the New Year, I already wrote what it was like. I even thought about leaving him. I had thought about it before and that was not just once. But this time I was serious. Even when I was calm, I was thinking about it and started to plan about it. What I would take, and what I would throw out were listed in my head. How much income I would have to have and how I would work, etc, etc. I think I hit the bottom at this time. And you know what happens when you hit the bottom. You only go up. And I did that I guess. Recently I was reading a book about autism. That’s because I needed to read about it for my potential translating job. Then I also started to read Donna Williams’ “Nobody, Nowhere” in Japanese translation to learn about the technical terms on this subject. I found the book quite remarkable and recommended it to my husband, thinking he might be interested. That was before Christmas. The book was so popular, it took us sometime to rent the book from the local library. He finally got it in the end of the year and finished a few days ago.When his friend was visiting us after Christmas, my husband was saying that he found himself quite autistic. Both his friend and I thought that was absurd. But today, he started to talk about it at the breakfast table. Then we talked about it all day. We continued after dinner and then he came to the master bedroom (where only I slept recently) and talked. I can’t write about what we said here because we didn’t stop until 5am. This was a truly strange night. These hours must have been a gift for us. I understood why he felt he was autistic and it was not an absurd idea at all. Actually he might be very well autistic or something like that. As he explained, so many of his strange behaviours were untangled before me. I couldn’t understand why he was doing those things or saying such things for a long time. Last seven years or more, I felt he didn’t like me at all. He said he didn’t hate me but refused to say he loved me. All those things needed translations. And this book was the key to decode the language of autism. Since I hadn’t finished reading the book yet, my husband told me a lot of things I didn’t know and as he explained, I found myself forgiving him for each of the strange behaviours and words that came from him. It was not easy to live with anger. If you can’t forgive, you are the one who suffers most. Sure, you will be sad to know somebody doesn’t want to forgive you. But sooner or later, you will stay away from that person and forget about it or simply ignore that person. But you can’t stay away from yourself. Problem is, sometimes you can’t forgive even though you wish you could. In my case, I wanted to forgive and I actually forgave some of the things but more things were coming and it never stopped. After several years, I was just incapable of forgiving anymore. It was too much pain. Anyway, it is getting too long now. I will write more some other time, may be tomorrow.