One year ago today

A year ago today my preexwife made that position official when she informed me that she was throwing me out and divorcing me. As it was a fight over me preparing to iron my shirts, in honor of that announcement from her, I ironed shirts today. It is the first time in over a year for me to iron anything as I did not in the 2 1/2 days prior to the argument and certainly did not after it for the remainder of 2025. However, a year ago I was planning on ironing my off season shirts that hung from the curtain rails of the bedroom for quite some time, not wanting to hang them in the closet until they were ready to wear. I had hoped that she would be at least appreciative if not even happy to have these out of the way. Had I completed the task before she returned home and denied her the opportunity to engage in her usual 3rd degree of questioning anytime she caught me doing any chores around the house, that might have actually been the result. But she returned home from lunch with her ma earlier than I anticipated and the rest is history.

Other mile posts passed. On the 31st Imade my first full fledged dinner at home. Earlier I had stocked up on food to so but was so far behind in moving and checking students’ homework that I had to go with eating out or grabbing a bento so that I could use the time otherwise spent cooking and washing on these tasks. Sadly, had to throw out some food as it had expired. A carton of milk took on the shape of a barrel thus informing me that it was well past its expiry date.

Originally, I planned on what follows for another posting, but this turned out shorter than I thought it would. I Amat a loss for how to proceed with my son. Cannot recall how much of this I have shared with you, but when I dropped off his Christmas Gifts from me on Christmas Eve, his reply to my “Merry Christmas.”was “Un.”. He did not say “Thank you.”, wish me a “Merry Christmas”, did not give me anything by way of a gift or card, and did not even say anything to me as I left. Nor did he share holiday wishes or give a gift or card the following day when I took him out for dinner as his mother had her welcome party at her new job.

As the bells tolled in the new year, I sent him a message wishing him a “Happy New Year.”. Still no reply at all. It could be that his mother did not allow him to use his idiot phone past the regular cut off time despite it being New Year’s Eve, but he did see it the following day as reported by the app. No “Happy New Year”, no “Thank you” even by today the 3rd. I have an otoshidama, new year’s money envelope, with money for him, and I will give that to him. But what should I do as far as sending messages over the app the preexwife set up for the family? I had been sending “Good Night” each night but with no reply except for the couple of days a month or so ago. One the one hand, I want to let him know that his daddy is thinking of him and loves him. On the hand, I think not sending messages may lead him to realize that I will soon not be around for him. I can, at present, meet him and/or message in real time but in a year and half, will be on the other side of the globe. After that time, we will not be able to be in each other’s presence nor easily respond to each other in real time due to the time difference.

I miss my dad horribly. Each day I see something I want to share with him and think of questions I want to ask him but I cannot not as he was taken before his time just recently. On the other side I have my own son who does not care if I am in his life and seems to prefer that I am not. How is he going to feel about himself in the future?