I Wanna Be Like You

Dear 長谷部さん,


You spent your summer break appearing on TV shows and radio shows, hosting charity events for the earthquake/tsunami victims, oh and giving 50 M yen to Unicef. 

You come back to Germany only to get a "minor" injury that required stitches on your eyelid.  (I'm still baffled how an eye injury of any kind is minor)  Two days later, you score a goal in a testspiel - a beautiful header into the net at 12 minutes - as though you weren't still sporting a bandage. 

Are you for real?  


Were you one of those kids - the kind that teachers and adults all adored?  While trying to coax all other normal people into doing something, too often adults pull out the "Why can't you be more like <insert perfect child's name here>?"  Despite our best intentions, the very mention of such a question immediately set up a standard that us normal kids could never follow and we started resenting that perfect kid. 

The only time I was the <insert perfect child's name here> that I can remember was back in the day when I played softball.  The star kid's mother/coach asked the star kid, "Why can't you be more like Erin?  She warms the bench the entire game without complaint.  Can't you just sit out half an inning?"  That was the first time, sadly, that I realized that warming the bench was a bad thing.

Well, despite the fact that I keep shaking my head in disbelief and asking myself, "Why can't you be more like Makoto?"  I find I really can't resent you...especially since you're so giddy about the Japan/Germany Women's World Cup game today in Wolfsburg, especially since you couldn't contain your excitement in receiving a signed copy of a Mr.Children album, especially since deep down, I realize that all that resentment as a kid towards those perfect children really just stems from admiration and awe.

Love,
Me