生きづらさを抱えながら生きている人、または抱えることに慣れてしまったすべての人たちへ

English follows Japanese.

「しかたないのよ、そういう時代だったんだから」

母はよくそう口にする。笑って言う顔に悲壮感はないが、その言葉を聞くと母がこれまで諦めてきたであろう多くのものを想像して私は切なくなる。

シングルマザーとしてバリバリ働きながら私と弟を育て上げてくれた母は、身内贔屓を差し引いても優秀な人である。
頭の回転が速く、手先が器用で、タフである。家事は何でもハイパフォーマンスにこなし、還暦を過ぎた今もフルタイム（＋残業100時間）で働いている（労働環境の過酷さはここではスルーする）。
しかしながら、母は決して自分の思い通りのままに人生を歩んできたわけではない。

母は、北関東の片田舎で商店の娘として育った。
高校は県内で一番学力の高い県立高校へ進学したかったが、父母（私にとっての祖父母）に「女に学歴なんて必要ない」と一蹴され叶わなかった。
小さいころから絵を描くことが好きだったが、「（商店の娘が）絵なんか描いてどうするんだ」と筆を折られた（物理的に）。
4年制大学に行くことは当然許されず、最大限の抵抗を試みてなんとか東京の短大進学の権利を勝ち取った。
なぜ祖父母はそんなことをしたのか？と当時まだ無邪気で無知だった10代だった私は尋ねた。母は笑った。
「理由なんてないのよ、そういう時代で、それが普通だったの」

大学卒業後は地元に戻ると約束して上京した母だが、守る気はさらさらなかった。
近所の評判を気にする見栄っ張りな祖父母が文句をつけられないよう、全国展開している百貨店に就職を決めた。
ただ、そこでも長期のキャリアアップにつながるような業務を担当することはなかった。
女性は結婚したら辞めるもの。女性は男性のサポートをするもの。それが一般的な価値観だった。
やってらんないわ、と当時社会人になりたてでいっぱしに女性のキャリアを憂いていた20代の私は憤った。母は首を傾げた。
「確かにね、でもそういうものだと思ってのよね」

母が離婚をしたころ、シングルマザーは今ほど公に認知された存在ではなかった。
今よりもっと「不幸」「特殊」「大変」というネガティブなイメージが強く、世間は腫れ物に触るようだった。子供である私自身も「可哀想に」と周囲から声をかけられることが何度もあった。
体調や学校行事など子供の状況にスケジュールが大きく影響されるので、母は働きたい場所ではなく働ける場所で仕事を選ばざるを得なかった。多いときは3つの仕事を掛け持ちしていた。
よくやったもんだね、と自身も転職も離婚も経験した30代の私は、感心するような誇らしいような呆れるような気持ちで言った。母は懐かしそうに言った。
「我ながらそう思うわ。今考えると、『ひとりでなんとかしなくちゃ』って必死だった。誰かに頼るなんて選択肢すらなかったな」
自分らしさとか働き甲斐とか考えなかったの、と私は聞いた。母は質問には答えなかった。
「あんたはそういうの、大事にしなさいよ」

今も昔も、世の中は一般的なレールから外れると生きづらいものである。

母自身は、今「生きづらい」とは感じてないだろう。パートナーもいてそれなりに毎日楽しそうだ（2か月に1回は大喧嘩をしてそのたびに私が仲裁に入るが）。
しかし、今日に至るまで数多くの「生きづらさ」を感じ、抗ったり諦めてきたりを繰り返してきただろう。

そんな生きづらい社会を脱するきっかけに気付いてもらい、一緒に成功体験を積み重ねていくことで、生きづらさを感じる全ての人、生きづらさに抗うことを諦めた人達を、「諦めてしまった人生」で得たかったものを得られたり「自分で決めた人生」を謳歌できるようにしたい。

そういう想いで立ち上がった「青いバラプロジェクト」です。
はじめまして、どうぞよろしくお願いします。

“But that’s just how it was back then.”

No more, no less. My mother would always smile blandly as she said that every so often, but everytime I heard those words, I’d imagine all the things she’d given up in her life. That had me anguished.

My mother raised my younger brother and I alone. Not to brag, but my mother was an outstanding mother. She cooked and cleaned with one hand while working a fulltime job with more than 100 hours overtime with the other. Not to mention she’s in her 60s and still has that kind of lifestyle under her control today. But that didn’t mean she always had everything at her will. 

My mother grew up in the outskirts of northern Kanto area as the daughter of a local grocery store. She had every potential to get into the best high school in the prefecture, but when she told her parents, they only laughed and said, “You don’t need education, you’re a woman.” And just like that, her dream school remained a dream.

She liked to draw as a child, but her parents grabbed her pen and broke it as they scolded her it was a waste of time. Daughters of local grocery stores don’t draw. That was one of the many unspoken rules her parents enforced on her. 

It was almost a given that going to a 4-year university was a closed road. She fiercefully fought her way through to finally managing to enter a community college in Tokyo, but as a teenager I never fully understood why my grandparents had to do that kind of cruel to her. When I asked, my mother laughed.
“There’s no reason. That was just how it worked. That was normal.”

The only condition of Mother going to Tokyo for college was that she came back home after graduation, but no way was she going to keep that promise. But she still cared about her parents enough to start her first job at a nationwide department store, so that the neighbors won’t be talking behind their backs about their daughter turning out to be a disappointment.

Only, she wasn’t able to stack up on her career there either. No one expected women to continue working after they got married. Women were never to be standing in front of, or even next to, men. Their one and only role was to support.
“That’s ridiculous,” the 23-year old me, who’d only started being in the workforce, fumed. I, too, had just faced how low the possibilities are to succeed as a woman.
“True,” Mother agreed, but also looked up to ponder. “But I never really questioned it.”

When Mother had her divorce, the single-parent label wasn’t as widely used in Japan as it might be used today. People frowned upon single mothers as they saw them being “unfortunate,” “strange,” “difficult.” Those negative impressions on them had people steering around the other way, avoiding the best they can interacting with single mothers. Everyone felt bad for me too, for being a child of one. My mother had to adjust her work style for me when I was young, so that she could take care of me when I was sick and attend the occasional school events. She wasn’t able to work where she wanted to, rather, only where she could work. I remember she worked three jobs at one point.
Now in my 30s and having experienced changing jobs and a divorce as well, I gave my applauds to my diligent mother.
“You really did work hard back then.”
“I think so too,” she said, traveling 20 years back inside her head.
“Thinking back to it now, I was always desperate to get everything done on my own. I could never push the ‘ask for help’ button because it never existed.”
“Didn’t you ever think about what you wanted? Or being yourself? Or getting satisfaction out of your work?” I asked, without a breath in between.
Quietly, but boldly, my mother told me, “You should value those things.”
She never answered my questions.

One thing I know that hasn’t changed back then and now is the fact that it’s simply difficult to live in the Japanese society if you’ve stepped aside from the tracks so-called “normal.” 

My mother probably doesn’t feel that she has a difficult life today. She has a partner and seems happy as she is (though I’ll skip the part where I’d step in and mediate their quarrels at least once a month).
But it isn’t that hard to tell that she’s had her difficulties in the past and each time, she either had to fight solo for what she believed in or inadvertently withdraw from them with many questions remaining in her heart. 

My mother’s experience is merely an example of thousands of people who have been shot down by the society and have been forced to abandon their dreams and goals. Our mission in the Blue Rose project is to allow these people to realize that there is a way out of this ignorant culture. By continuing to achieve success together, we will support them to once again collect hope that they are capable of actually chasing the dreams they have given up before and truly enjoy the lives that they have willingly chosen to live. 

We welcome you to come along with us on our journey.