Haunted Memories

I as a Ghost in my own life

21 years ago today I wedded my preexwife. Difficulties began right away but I dismissed these as the settling period of starting a new life together. Most or all at that time might have been for this reason. I’ll never know. But we have been through a lot, good and bad. As told earlier, the worst was when my earnings were low and the best when they were not. Not a unique situation I am certain.

There are, however, several friction points that proved too great for our marriage to survive. One is the massive pressures created by the US FATCA/FBAR and CBT laws. While generally ignoring my concerns over these, she actually cited that a benefit of divorcing me would be the name change of our kids from a non Japanese one to Japanese. The difficulties closing our joint account and having all the house bills automatically transferred from one her accounts was a massive headache. More so when consultations with city office led her to believe that my concerns were overblown, actually, all in my head. The restrictions upon my finances and especially on their growth was certainly a huge factor. The extra cost in money and time for the family trip 7 years to Chile, not wanting to transfer in the US due to my homelands demand that my kids travel on a US passport, which they do not have, we transferred planes in Canada instead.

However, after returning I started several new jobs and by the start of 2020 things were looking the best they ever had. All my debts paid off (Well, all those I knew about then.) and my savings growing again for the first time in too many years, that was to be a great year. At my wife’s suggestion, we were planning to fly to someplace other than the US to visit my parents. The two households had narrowed the options to a couple locations in Europe. Things were looking good indeed. Then the 5 years of the panic. We experience 4 1/2 years of lockdowns lite here in Japan and even though the borders are now fully opened, much, too much of the country is adversely affected with the panic. Was compelled to do a mask yesterday for the campus tour of my new medical hospital. There are some places we can get away from wearing the damned things and others we cannot. The fights in the house over masks, Zooming, the clot shots, working from home all added immeasurably to the forces driving us apart. She was obviously unhappy but every effort I attempted made things worse. These last couple of years I have been reduced to little but watch as the family falls apart before my eyes, powerless to doo anything to prevent it.

These extraordinary stressors of the panic finally, slowly pried the long standing fractures in our relation to a full break. And yet, we are carrying on as if we are not parting company. The preexwife gave me and the boy/s chocolate for Valentine’s Day, as is customary here. I gave the customary return gift on White Day, one month later, so just 4 days ago. I am still using a great deal of time and money on the household, and she is expecting even more from me as the Kid needs to get caught up on missed homework in preparation for the entrance exam around the end of the year. But they are so far behind with grades so low that they may not be allowed to even sit for it which would cause for me to leave even sooner. This has me spending a lot of time trying to figure out what, where and how to transit to the next phase of my life, whatever that turns out to be.

Adrift without any propulsion; no engine, motor, no sail nor a mast to bend in to, not even a paddle, I am tortured by the ritual of a home life that is no longer mine but I am compelled to act as if they are.