Tortoise
This is a contemplation of my life as I step into my thirties, along with my aspirations for the future. There are elements of my past that I had once cast aside, deeming them childish and insignificant, only to rediscover their value as I've matured. Those charming, enjoyable, and challenging pursuits that I believed I had missed out on. But upon reaching my thirties, I started learning to play the guitar, rekindled my passion for collecting beloved toys, and came to accept my own immaturity, understanding that it too is a form of maturity. Some scars, once avoided, have now begun to heal. I'm gradually exploring and confronting them, realizing that the pain isn't as unbearable as I once imagined.
Author / Illustrator: Shin-Dii
That year, at the age of 19, I remember you said you really wanted to raise a tortoise.
Viewing social media and everyone's exciting lives, you started to feel stomachaches, so you decided to close all your social media accounts.
Eventually, you chose to drop out of school, and during that time, it was lonely. You really wanted to have a little pet to talk to.
You didn't end up getting a tortoise, but you did buy a stone that the seller claimed could bring positive energy, and you decided to believe it for a while.
In that year, you got into your dream university, and you became the person you'd always wanted to be, filling your days with youthful energy.
After graduating, you turned your hobbies into your job, and the days seemed to drag on slowly, becoming a bit mundane.
You always felt like you were charging forward headfirst but also escaping from something, even though you didn't know what.
In that year, at the age of 29, you started learning to play the guitar.
After listening to the concert alone and sitting on the grass in the square to enjoy the breeze, you thought about how nice it would be if you could extend these years a little longer.
You reopened your social media accounts, happily sharing your daily life with the people who cared about you. You began collecting toys and models, things that you had abandoned earlier in life because they seemed childish.
You still liked drawing, but not for the sake of pleasing others.
You began to learn to like some of the things you used to dislike; you started to embrace and slowly heal some of your scars.
At the age of thirty, this year, you made a bet with yourself. If you went to a distant place and learned to write your own name again, would you truly learn to love yourself?
.