All the Lovers in the Night

I was so scared of being hurt that I'd done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I choose nothing. I did nothing.

Why does the night have to be so beautiful? As I walk through the night, I remember what Mitsutsuka said to me. “Because at night, only half the world remains.

When I start to feel emotional about something, I can't tell if I'm actually feeling that way. What if it's just something somebody wrote in a book? Or maybe a line or a performance from some movie... Either way, I get this feeling like I'm quoting somebody else's work.

The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright.

Memory's funny, isn't it? We remember some things out of nowhere, but so much of what happens, we never think about again.

As I passed below the haloes of the green and red traffic signals, I was taken by this strange view of the evening, the city streets full of people— people waiting, the people they were waiting for, people out to eat together, people going somewhere together, people heading home together. I allowed my thoughts to settle on the brightness filling their hearts and lungs, squinting as I walked along and counted all the players of this game I would never play.

I’d been on my own for ages, and I was convinced that there was no way I could be any more alone, but now I’d finally realized how alone I truly was. Despite the crowds of people, and all the different places, and a limitless supply of sounds and colors packed together, there was nothing here that I could reach out and touch.

I thought about the books that I had looked through in the bookstore. It occurred to me that they were full of things that people wanted to say to other people, or things people wanted somebody to say to them.

Had I ever chosen anything? Had I made some kind of choice that led me here? Thinking it over, I stared at the cell phone in my hands. The job that I was doing, the place where I was living, the fact that I was all alone and had no one to talk to. Could these have been the result of some decision that I'd made? I heard a crow crying somewhere in the distance and turned to the window. It occurred to me that maybe I was where I was today because I hadn't chosen anything. I applied to whatever colleges my teacher suggested and fell into a job after graduation, which I'd left only because I had to escape. I was only able to go freelance because of all the leg-work that Hijiri did for me. Had I ever chosen anything on my own, made something happen? Not once. And that's why I was here now, all alone.

If you make plenty of money but don't have any kids, you might get called successful. But unless you have kids, no one will ever call you a great woman.

I became unsure of how to leave the mirror, how to leave the me in the mirror behind.

there are way too many things you'll never remember. Sometimes a memory jumps out at you, even though almost everything is lost forever. But what if all the things that we can't remember are actually the most important ones?

You can make people believe whatever you want. You can fool them like it’s nothing. But you can’t fool yourself, not really. That’s why what matters is how you think about your work in your own lifetime, how much you respect it, how hard you’re trying. Or tried.

Night ended, morning came, and as I looked out on the blueness spreading into the corners of the sky, I thought about what he had told me, about all the light that was there and yet impossible to see.

As long as you're living on this planet, you have to be serious about something, but it's better to be serious about a limited number of things.

My life is nowhere but here, and I am nowhere else.

It’s not like I want people to hate me. I’m just not about to go out of my way to make them like me, either. Being liked is wonderful and all, but that’s not what life is about, you know?

It only took me a couple of hours to realise that she was a woman of talents beyond anything I could imagine - even though I was a stranger to such talents myself.

Why does the night have to be so beautiful?

to me that maybe I was where I was today because I hadn’t chosen anything.

Sadness and happiness are all experienced by someone else before us; we’re simply following their lead.

what matters is how you think about your work in your own lifetime, how much you respect it, how hard you're trying.

Look, you owned your feelings, got shot down in a blaze of glory, and came home with your face a total mess. That's huge. You really put yourself out there. But now you're hiding in your safe place again, scared of getting hurt, and leaving everything up to him, wallowing in your own feelings like you're back in grade school, and for what? So that you can romanticize your desire and feel better about yourself? How's that working out for you? What are you scared of? What people think? You want men to think that you have something precious you're protecting?

Their so-called spirituality is completely self-serving, designed to make them happy, or make the people around them think they’ve found some kind of happiness. It’s this shallow belief in immediate profit. They go around talking about seeing something big. As if everything they feel, everything they’re thinking, is so big, bigger than all of us. That’s what they do. They act like they’re all big, ready to share their happiness with everyone, when the only happiness they care about is their own. Like, why can’t they just keep all that stuff to themselves and leave the rest of us alone?

I don’t know, I guess sometimes I feel happy or sad or worried…or maybe I get really into something on TV, or really like the flavor of some giant shrimp, whatever. But sometimes I have to wonder if those thoughts or feelings might be coming from the things I read for work. When I start to feel emotional about something, I can’t tell if I’m actually feeling that way. What if it’s just something somebody else wrote in a book? Or maybe a line or a performance from some movie…Either way, I get this feeling like I’m quoting somebody else’s work […] like the feelings aren’t mine.

I happened to catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window glass. The image of myself that floated to the surface, tinged with blue against a backdrop of the signs, walls, and windows of the nearby buildings, looked absolutely miserable. Not sad, or tired, but the dictionary definition of a miserable person. This was the woman that I saw in the glass, while an assortment of other objects drifted in and out of the reflection. The space around my head was wild with baby hair or stray hairs that had come free. My shoulders sagged, and the skin around my eyes was sunken. My arms and legs looked stubby while my neck looked long and skinny. The tendons around my collarbone and throat stuck out, and my skin was anything but supple, as if the flesh had been deflated, leaving bizarre diagonal lines on my cheeks. What I saw in the reflection was myself, in a cardigan and faded jeans, at age thirty-four. Just a miserable woman, who couldn’t even enjoy herself on a gorgeous day like this, on her own in the city, desperately hugging a bag full to bursting with the kind of things that other people wave off or throw in the trash the first chance they get.

that. But the more we meet up, the harder it gets. Every time I see him, I dunno . . . it just gets harder. I mean, it’s good when we’re together. But after . . . I don’t know how to explain it. ‘Dead inside’ is a little too dramatic. I just feel hard and numb, like some part of me is losing all feeling. I can’t stand being alone. I know this is my own doing, but it makes me really sad. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I know it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But I asked myself: Haven't you always done your best with whatever you were up against? Haven't you given it your all, whatever came your way? Unfortunately, no. That's not how things had been for me. I had faked it the whole way. In all those years of doing whatever I was told to do, I had convinced myself that I was doing something consequential, in order to make excuses for myself, as I was doing right now, and perpetually dismissed the fact that I'd done nothing with my life, glossing over it all. I was so scared of being hurt that I'd done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that i chose nothing. I did nothing.

When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ran out, I started stepping out to the convenience store to grab some snacks, the sort of junk food where it didn't matter if you ate it or not. Even so, I continued to put this food that didn't matter into my body that didn't matter, which made everything seem to matter even less. Every meal, if you could call it a meal, was like another dent in my existence. I couldn't summon the energy to prepare the easiest of foods, exhausted by even the simple act of boiling water.