【英語雑記】キッズイベントで大人がいつも遭遇するありふれた苦難とその意味について

ここ1ヶ月で二つの子供イベント（トミカ博と雪まつり）に行ってきました。率直に言うと、すごーっ・・・く、疲れたんですが、一体何がそんなに辛かったのかを思い出して、せめてあの辛かった出来事を記事にしようという思いで書いてみました。ちょっと愚痴っぽくなってしまいましたが！

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Kids event. I had joined to two big kids events in a month. One is Tomica, toy mini car's brand, and the other is Sapporo snow festival. My five years old boy seemed had fun for them. But us, parents, especially me who's the introversive type of man had been exhausted so much. There's all the things I have been hating all my life, had been set up in those places. Huge crowds, long and winding queues, noisy music, high priced fast foods, shabby attractions, traffic jams...those are very things which I always want to be away more than anything. But it doesn't work if you have little kids who can't stay still all the day in a home watching X files DVDs. Life takes our lives, and what it leave us? It might be the smile on a kid's face. Of course I understand it. At least I kind of saved by it. But ah, well, it still makes me think and tend to grumble.

A toy mini car event had been ruined from the start. In the bad weather, almost the storm, It took more than an hour to get to there driving all the bumpy, slippery road. Then we found the event hall building, tried to get in, but all we saw around the building were cars waiting to get in the parking lot. We disappointingly passed the gate and drove along the long lines of car to find the end of line. It's still 9 in the morning. What's all this? The car moved an inch, stopped, moved an inch, stopped...if I can, I wanted to ditch the car and walk away. After all, it took 45 minutes to park the car at the parking lot which is far from the hall. Besides, 15 minutes walk in the freezing wind and violating snow. So when I arrived at the gate at the hall, all my energy had been drained out. Almost empty. All I needed was a nice black coffee, a nice relaxing couch, a nice silent music, and dark lighted warm place. But the situation in front of my eyes was so that far from what I wanted. Long queue, noisy music, illuminated place, cold hall. The most relaxing place was a compartment in the toilet. Of course, the relaxing was not what kids event gonna aim for. So if you want to relax, all waiting for you is stiff folding chairs. Now you can imagine what happened and how I spent for the next few hours.

Then the another event, Kid's place at Snow festival, was seemingly the same. Even worse, it's in the outside. Can you stand with standing for nearly an hour in the snow covered field where the cold wind breezes, only for your kid to slide the no more than 10 meter ice made slide? No way. But bunch of parents had patiently waited. And can you also imagine that it takes an hour standing to wait to get a pack of fried potates? No way. But we also had to. Before we left at the evening, I was totally exhausted, feeling sheer pain on my back.

It would be easy to say that I never go such an hell any more, and shut myself up in the room on holiday with X files DVDs. Still, well, it won't work. Because, on the other side of all the agonies, all the kid are having fun. If the kid shows smile to them, all the parents offer anything they have.

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最後はなんかとってつけたように綺麗にまとめてしまいましたが、でもほんと、親は結局、シンプルに子供の笑顔が見たいだけなんですよね。どんなに辛い思いをしても、笑ってくれればもうそれでいいや、みたいな。

正直、子供を持つ前には、自分がそんなことができる人間になるなんて、想像もつきませんでした。というより、いまでもやっぱり、ただの氷の滑り台のために雪の中で1時間も立ったまま並ぶなんて馬鹿馬鹿しいと思う気持ちに変わりはありません。そんなことまでしなくても、もっと楽にいくらでも楽しめることが他にあるわけです。でも・・・理屈では推し量れない何かが、親たちを非論理的な行動へと駆り立てるんですね。それはやっぱり愛ってことになるんでしょうか。なかなか難しいです。