Kitsune Comes Clean
Partially
Whatever power I had to protect him, little as the preexwife forbid my interventions, while in the same house is gone now that i live elsewhere, I can share that there is just the one kid and that he is my son and that he is 12 years old. I have just one child, a son of 12.
I miss my wife and son terribly, but this feeling predates my moving out by a number of years. The preexwife is NOT the lovely soul I married 21 years ago. While there were changes immediately upon the utterances of “I do” by the both of us, the greatest changes come on gradually over the years. These past 5 saw changes that were no longer gradual but sudden and massive. Things we used to joke about together suddenly became cause for her to fly in to a rage. Allow me to provide two examples.
The last time I was in the States, I met her in a major US city. I arrived there the day before, secured a hotel room, train tickets to another city closer to my parent’s home and w rental car to get us the rest of the way. She flew in from the East where she had been working for a few months. The vehicle I reserved was not the one we received. I reserved an SUV but got subcompact of a sickly, baby poop green. We both laughed hysterically at the color and quickly determined that it must be a color used by rental car companies only as who would choose such a color for their car? Whenever we would see any vehicle of the same color the first to see it would point it out and exclaim that it must be a rental, for it was “rental car green”. Later, we would find a sweet water pond at an intersection that takes us to the on ramp of a highway through Tokyo whenever we took a trip in a certain direction from that city. “Rental Car Green”, was now “Sweet Water Green”.
After several years of us enjoying this nonsense, I spied a “sweet water green” car and called it out. Instead of the mirth we once enjoyed together, she blew up like a terrorist’s bomb, as unexpected as it was forceful. How dare I make fun of another person’s choice of color for their car!
The second involves a school mate of our son. A girl he went to nursery school, day care, kindergarten and then elementary school is unusually tall. Not ungainly so, well proportioned for a girl her age through out, just very tall. When they were in the 1st or 2nd grade, this being during the early days of the panic, I went to pick my son up from Gakudo, think an afterschool day care at the school. My Sion stood on the stoop and the tall girl on the ground. The girl states that she was taller than my son even though he was standing on the stoop. Her words. She noted her height. But when I related this to the preexwife, like a bomb, she went off again. How dare I point out a trait that will unlikely cause her grief later in life! I was just relaying what she said, not what I thought; no matter.
The preexwife’s uncle is notoriously silent. I have heard him laugh, but after 20 years of marriage and a could preceding in courtship, I have never heard his voice. I have wondered these past few years if his wife does to him what mine began to do to me; to fly off the handle at every utterance. Not as far fetched as it may seem. When young, a brother of the preexwife fell severely ill and he and their parents went to Tokyo for his treatments, where were ultimately successful. During this time, the preexwife and her other brother stayed with their aunt in the provinces. Did my preexwife pick up this trait from her aunt? As an aside, years ago, as we were boarding a train with my then young son, he was still in a stroller, which I pushed, I overheard this aunt say to the preexwife that she did not need me as they would help raise my son.
My son too was always the disrespectful person who actively chooses anger over happiness. He was happy baby. Happy until age 4 when he first began to display behavior issues. His did not switch over night, though. Still, there was a rather big change in a relatively short time, that being during his first year in elementary school. Especially during the first semester. By six his attitude had changed so completely that I recall exclaiming how it was it that a 6 year old came to believe they knew more than his parents did? He has only worsened since then. While once episodic only, his bad attitude is now constant.
While the initial change predates the panic, the limitations placed upon us during the panic transformed even the slightest issues into insurmountable problems. I miss my wife and son from early 2020. I miss who I was at this same time as well. These three personalities no longer exist.
Difficult times, during good times we sometimes can successfully cover-up cracks that occur with people and situations. The fake pandemic was a catalyst for so many underlying problems that had been previously covered up, financial, social, familial, professional etc. and some were able to get through the discordance but others were casualties of this traumatic event. One thing is certain there really is no going back when the cracks become too large to cover up and disguise, dealing with anger and resentment is soul destroying. Sometimes forging ahead is the only option and making the best of a bad hand that has been dealt in life.
I wonder if this is not a product of indoctrination. This sounds very much like political correctness gone wild (weaponized compassion). There is nothing wrong with stating a preference, or lack thereof. There is also nothing wrong with relating a notable trait.
I like your "rental car green," probably also known here in the states as "puke green." But there was a time in the seventies when this color was popular. I remember Pintos having that horrible green color.
This sounds like weaponized compassion, which is what happened during Covid. Everything could be looked through the lens of accommodation and compassion. People began to hate their own good taste and sanity and think of it as "privilege."
Weaponized compassion is also something we all have, unless you are a psychopath. Last night I had a conversation with a stroke victim and we both talked about our experiences in the hospital. He was decidedly very angry when he woke up after his stroke in a Possey bed, heavily medicated and not understanding that any attempt to get out of bed would result in a fall.
I discussed how I woke up in ICU, understanding that my leg was gone, not really feeling much pain, as I had some nice neuropathy before my amputation. Many people thought I felt lots of pain, but I didn't. Although I could not, I found, remember the word "amputation", no doubt as my mind was not accepting what had happened.
One of the sad casualties of wokeness is an inability to laugh at ourselves. I tell amputation jokes all the time.