If I could go back in time by a time machine, I would most certainly
choose one summer day in my senior year of high school and redo that
day.
In the summer of my senior year, I had been in the final stage
of study for the entrance exam to the leading university in Japan. My
love for music was the biggest obstacle for study and I tended to lapse
into listening to rock and pop records on the stereo easily. Since I
spent too much time in music instead of study, I determined to stop
listening music until the entrance exam was over. I pulled the plug of
my stereo off the outlet, paste it on the wall of my room along with a
handmade poster that said ‘Patience!’ in capital letters. I tried to
devote everything for a life at the best university in Japan.
I was
an avid fan of a Japanese band called Tulip. Most albums and tapes I had
were theirs. I frequently went to their concert that would give me a
heavenly time. I had had to stop going there as well in that summer. So
ironically, or almost fatefully I should say, Tulip was having the
1000th concert that coincided that particular summer of that particular
year, of all summers and years in the calendar. It was a milestone big
enough for them and their fans to be held at an amusement park that was
reserved specifically for the event for the whole day. The amusement
park was operated as ‘Tulip Land’ for the day, where paper cups and
plates donned Tulip Land’s special logos and designs that were available
on that day only, commemorative goods were sold, games and events
connected with Tulip were held during the daytime, and the 1000th
special open-air concert was held in the evening. As you can imagine, it
was a dream event in which fans would drool all over. For me, it would
be the day with Woodstock, Comic-Con and Disneyland combined all
together at one place. It would be actually a dream. There was no way to
miss it.
Back then in Japan, it was an era of so-called ‘Entrance
Exam War’. Students with four-hour sleep pass, and with five-hour fail,
that was a general rule for the war. Not individual ability but a name
of the school one was graduated from decided later income and social
rank in Japan. It still does. I think a social structure like that has
brought this long economic decline to today’s Japan. In a whirlpool of
the relentless era, I was an immature, foolish high school senior who
was willingly sucked into the war to get a name of the university. In
the depth of it, I had looked for any possible way to spare time for the
dream event. It would be held in Tokyo that was over 300 miles away
from Kyoto where I lived. It couldn’t be a matter of a couple of hours
but a two-day trip. It would be crazy to waste two days in the middle of
fierce competition like ‘Entrance Exam War’. I reached a heartbroken
decision. I chose to study in my room instead of going to Tulip Land.
I had had gloomy days for a few months until the day of the event
came. My dismal feeling culminated on the day. For the entire day, all I
thought of was what was going on in Tulip Land. I glanced at the clock
every hour and imagined what game was held by now. Is it a trivia quiz
about Tulip? Or a lottery game for Tulip goods? Are fans sipping soda
out of a paper cup that has ‘Tulip Land’ printed on the side? Has the
concert started? By which song is it kicked off? Which song are they
playing now? Are the fireworks showing? Is it done? Is it over now? I
couldn’t focus on anything all day long. I spent the whole day in my
room without studying at all.
At the end of the day, I realized I
could have been there. I just might as well have gone to Tulip Land as
wasted the whole day. I intensely regretted it and literally gnashed my
teeth. I blamed myself for my stupidity. The size of regret appalled me
so that I sincerely hoped never to feel this way.
I hopefully
expected time would heal the regret. On the contrary, it had tortured me
at length for months. The regret hadn’t been eased but deepened. It
continued to ask me what I was doing, and the question had evolved
gradually into why I was studying for the entrance exam, what going to
the best university meant, whether it would bring happiness, and
eventually, it began to ask me what I lived for. As I had grappled with
those questions, I studied less and less. By the time of the entrance
exam, I had lost interest in the university. Instead, I got a grip on
what I really wanted to do.
I failed the exam not only to the leading
university but to all the other famed ones I had chosen as a safety
measure. Only one college of my worst-case scenario accepted me but I
didn’t feel like going there. I decided to do what I want however
society works or whatever people say because I simply didn’t want to
experience that kind of regret again. All what I went through in that
six-month period after one regret of Tulip Land set the course to take. I
chose to live as a singer-songwriter.
Decades have passed, and yet
Tulip’s 1000th concert pops up in my mind every time I think about
regret. Tulip Land had never been held again. Since the band broke up
and the guitarist passed away, it never will. I passed up the once in a
lifetime event for sure. Time neither solved the problem nor eased the
pain. I still agonize over how foolish I was not to go. In me, a word
‘regret’ stands for Tulip Land.
