Mother's Day2025 Interview⑤
- Maco Yoshioka
- 5月27日
- 読了時間: 7分
Enjoying the Present Moment in My Own Way
How Years of Essay Writing Led Me to Where I Am Now
Interviewee: Shinobu Koizumi
Interviewer: Maco Yoshioka
This spring, Single Mothers’ Sisterhood’s Mother’s Day Campaign marks its 5th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, we launched a special interview series, revisiting the single mothers who have written essays for the campaign and listening to “what happened next” in their lives.
In this fifth interview, we speak with Shinobu Koizumi, who has contributed six essays over the years, sharing her inner thoughts and everyday struggles. We talked about how writing helped her notice changes within herself, the new paths that opened from there, and the future she now wants to cherish.
Shino~chan`s Essay
Discovering a New Self through Self Love （2021 May）
My Best Ally: Embracing My Neurodivergent Uniqueness（2023 December）
1. When you reread the essays you wrote in the past, what kinds of feelings come up for you now?
I’ve really come a long way
When I reread my past essays, I was honestly surprised: “I wrote this much?”With a bit of distance, I could look at them and think, “I’ve really come a long way.”
I cried so many tears, and there were times I was really down, but I can see that I was still trying to move forward. I look back on that now with a kind of quiet emotion.
The moment I got the color of the sky back
One scene that especially stays with me is the day I happened to look up at the sky outside a convenience store in my neighborhood.
In that moment when I thought, “Wow, it’s beautiful,” it felt like the ability to feel the color of the sky—something I hadn’t been able to sense for so long—finally came back to me.
In the beginning, even though I was trying to write in a positive way, I think I was still caught up in my own misfortune. But as I kept writing, my experiences slowly began to feel meaningful, and something inside me started to change.
Relationships where I can safely show my vulnerability
Over these past four years, I’ve always had friends from the Sisterhood by my side.
We have relationships where we can talk without putting on a mask, and spaces where we can honestly share our feelings. I’ve realized just how much that has supported me.
Because of that warmth, I think I was able to step outside my comfort zone.
2. Are there any parts where you feel, “This is so me at the time,” or parts where you feel, “This is different from who I am now”?
Back then, I was all about taking action
When I reread my old essays, what stands out is how I was desperately struggling, determined to “somehow figure this out myself.”
I was trying to move forward by taking action, action, and more action. That feels very true to who I was back then.
But looking back now, it also seems like I was pushing myself a bit too hard. I didn’t really know how to let go or relax.
Now, I’ve learned to be kinder to myself
Today, I blame myself far less. I can cherish the open spaces in my day where I simply feel things with my five senses—the blue of the sky, the pleasantness of the wind.
I’ve also gotten better at noticing when I’m tense or trying too hard.
By weaving self-care into my everyday life, I think I’ve finally started to grow a sense of kindness toward myself.
Turning a painful memory into a personal milestone
For years, I carried a heavy memory: on my birthday, my ex-husband told me, “I want to move out.” That memory cast a long shadow over many birthdays that followed.
But this year, on my birthday, something shifted. On my way home from a study group, there was a moment when I felt, “I’m okay now.”
I was finally able to stop linking my birthday to that past pain, and instead turn it into a day when I could truly celebrate who I am today.
3. Since you wrote those essays, what has been the biggest change within yourself?
From self-blame to taking action
When I first started writing essays, I was deeply distressed about my son not going to school. I kept thinking, “This is my fault,” and blaming myself.
Now, I’ve learned how to turn that time and energy into something that helps me move forward.
At the same time, I started asking different questions, like:“How can we have better conversations? “How can we involve others and build better systems together?”
I feel that the direction of my thinking has changed. Instead of just enduring, I’m beginning to focus on relationships and structures, and how I can gently act on them.
Letting go of “shoulds.”
I’ve also been able to loosen my grip on thoughts like “my child must do X” or “they have to do Y.”
A child is the closest “other person” to you. Precisely because of that, I’ve come to feel how important it is to trust them and give them space.
When you let go and hand things over, there are moments when their own strengths really come out.
People already have power within them. I feel like I finally understand that phrase in a real, embodied way.
My son, who once stopped going to school, is now a university student
There was a time when my son could hardly bring himself to do his homework. Now, he has found what he loves and is actively engaging with his studies at university.
Everyone has their own timing.
The feeling of “I want to do this” or “I really like this” naturally gives you the energy to move forward.
Watching my son like that has helped me loosen my own shoulders. I feel much lighter than before.
If you were to rewrite your essays now, would you want to change anything?
There’s nothing I actually want to rewrite.
There are parts where I think, “Wow, I was so immature,” or “You really didn’t have to blame yourself that much.” But what I felt back then was the truth of that moment.
Even if I was still in the middle of things, there were words that only that version of me could have written.
I want to keep honoring that whole process of change itself.
How has your experience of joining Single Mothers’ Sisterhood’s campaign affected you and your relationships with others?
A place to grow both skills and confidence
Participating in the campaign—which was run entirely online—was a big turning point for me.During COVID, I started from “What is Zoom?” and eventually learned how to collaborate online using various cloud tools.
So when my very analog workplace began introducing ICT, I already had knowledge and experience that put me a step ahead of other staff. That gave me the confidence to share new ideas.
Learning to sense what lies behind people’s words
While supporting other writers with their essays for this campaign, I also noticed something else: behind what people manage to put into words, there are often backstories and circumstances that never get written down.
I began to feel that what I can see is not the whole picture. That awareness made me want to honor each person’s life more carefully.
I also grew my ability to express my own thoughts in words.
And above all, I started smiling more.
If you could send a message to the “you” who was writing those essays back then, what would you say?
You’ve done so well.
Whatever you say, you didn’t run away, and that’s amazing.
The way you’ve kept going is already shining light on the people around you, so it’s okay to relax and do what you want to do.
A lot has happened, but somehow everything has worked out so far.
You’re someone with a lot of good fortune—a very lucky woman.
Over the next three years, what do you want to cherish, and what dreams or goals would you like to realize?
I want to turn my life into “a colorful assortment.”
This idea came to me from a line in the song Tamamono by RADWIMPS:“Since we’ve got this chance, let’s send it back as a one-of-a-kind assortment.”
It’s the theme song of the morning drama Anpan, which I absolutely love. The lyrics are so powerful; they’ve encouraged me again and again.
I want to go to more plays and concerts and let my heart be deeply moved.I want to keep filling my life with moments that nourish me, while discovering new sights I’ve never seen before.
I’d love to try things like skydiving and stand-up paddleboarding (SUP), too.
I also want to keep deepening my learning about mindfulness and gently connect with the people around me.
And I hope that, little by little, I can help build a society where everyone can use their strengths and live in their own way.
Through this campaign, how would you like the message of “family diversity” to be conveyed to society?
Through this campaign, I hope people will turn their attention to each individual story.
There may be things you can’t see yet.
Rather than making assumptions, I’d be happiest if more people thought, “Maybe I’ll ask and listen a bit more.”
When we realize there are invisible worlds and experiences we don’t know, I believe society becomes much more interesting.
We don’t all have to be the same. Each of us is walking a different path in life.
I hope we can become a society that’s open to many different values—a society where we can simply think, “That way of life is valid too.”
Do you have any favorite phrases from your own essays?
People already have power within them! What really matters is creating environments where they can use that power.
My mind, which had been so full of self-denial, slowly melted away like ice.
—from Meeting a New Me Through Self-Love
Because of the keyword “school refusal,” I was able to meet so many people, and my relationships became richer. For my own rich life, both my divorce and my child’s school refusal are precious treasures.
—from Welcome, Trials
Shino-chan, thank you so much.
When you said, “Even in what looks like a string of bad events, there are hidden treasures,” I could see both your past journey and your hopes for the future overlapping in your smile.
Things that may look like failures from the outside have all become experiences—and you’ve kept moving forward while telling yourself, “Okay, so that’s what that was.”
Because life is finite, you want to fully do what you love and what you’re drawn to. And when you get tired, you’ll pause, practice self-care together with others, and then start walking again.
From this very real, down-to-earth way you live, I felt a warm, gentle strength.
Call for Donations
Thank you for reading this interview to the end.The nonprofit organization Single Mothers Sisterhood supports the mental and physical health and empowerment of single mothers. Your generous donations will be carefully used to fund the operation of 'Self-Care Workshops for Single Mothers'. Donations are accepted via the Donate button below.
\ セルフケア講座はこちら /
コメント