I don't believe that I will ever forget yesterday, for as long as I live.
I scored the trifecta in ego-crushing events, one, two, three, just like that. It's like the World Series, the Superbowl and the World Cup Rugby all at once, with every single player pausing to give my arse a victory kick on their way off the field. It may possibly have been the very best day of my life.
Along with my subscription to Chaos Theory comes the belief that all things are interconnected, to the extent that "things" as we commonly perceive them don't actually exist. It's all One, or, as my buddy Larry loves to say, "Everything is everything." If that statement doesn't sound like nonsense to you then I'm glad. It's clear as day to every part of me except my mind, which is too busy warming up its sad and pouty face for when the news gets out about what has happened.
In fact, although I confess to having no feelings about what happened -not yet anyway- such a strong impression did yesterday make upon me that I wrote a song to commemorate it... it goes a little something like this...
She must really like me,
Else why’d she say “Go to hell!”
My business that took years to build,
What joy, I had to sell,
Got proof my partners cheated me,
Things are going pretty fucking well
“You get what you get, coz you do what you do”
Now, hey that rings a bell!
It seems my life has turned to shit,
This all happened yesterday,
My mind it wants to piss and moan,
But I just don’t feel that way,
I’d really like to hug my kids,
But here I gotta staaaaaay
My karma’s rolled up in my hand,
Looks like a ball, so I say “play!”
...Well, lucky you couldn't hear me sing it!
So that's it. Yesterday the sale of my business went through. The settlement is sitting in my bank account right now and, while allowing me the warm little delusion of security that somehow accompanies a string of zeroes, it gives me no joy at all.
I started the school myself 12 years ago and it grew and became something much bigger than me. It's quite an independent organism now, to the extent that, to ensure its survival it needed to lose me to ensure that. It was the back and forth between Japan and Australia that made it necessary. While in-country it's been great, but being mostly absent over the last five years and with partners who also departed in early 2005 has made it unworkable for me. Having very little business aptitude hasn't helped either, a set of shortcomings my wife has not been shy about detailing, for my ultimate benefit I'm sure. Although I dragged my heels for a few months, I realized before it was too late, found a suitor and sold up.
In going over the final books prepared by my remote Japanese partner, a mind-bogglingly glaring something jumped out and slapped me in the face.
Between 2000 and April 2005 we have somehow lost an entire month's income.
The ramifications of this are only now beginning to sink in. My hands are shaking as I type. This little tiny thing seems to make a whole lot of other tiny little things now somehow clearer.
At the last minute and having at the time only questions about the fateful spreadsheet, I instructed the buyers to put the entire settlement into my own bank accountant, till we could settle our own books this side. Since then it seems pretty clear now what has happened and I wrote a sincerely worded email to my remote partner asking her to explain.
But before sending it, I of course ran it past my very business-minded wife, whose basic instructions on the matter boiled down to "They've stolen from us. Don't bother with the questions. Just take all the money."
But that's distilled from the nearly four hours of skyping between Japan and Australia. That advice, though, was not at all the most significant aspect of our exchange, by a long chalk.
Cutting to the chase of that, soon after me rejecting her advice and the discontent that produced in her, we got to the part where she says, "I can't do this anymore. It's over."
Oh, we prattled on for a little while longer. Long enough for her to tell me that beyond not being good enough for her, I'm not even really a man, but something far sadder. Her headset was broken by then (damned kids!) so we were typing away furiously in the chat window, trading insults and jibes before settling into a resigned and pretty mutual acceptance of, "so this is it then." After 21 years, exactly half of both our lives.
We were looking for way to stop the conversation as it just kept going around and around, so I just cut her off in then end. Probably not the best way, but so be it.
After that I couldn't help a last, maybe final something, to try and look past the head games to the underlying feelings. (Mental note: do that BEFORE the fights erupt, not after!) She had told me she wouldn't read it, but I'm hoping she does, because it was a chance for met to say that I'm sorry - of course only for the things that I am truly sorry about.
Reading this all back to myself I am impressed as much by both the gravity of the situation as my own detachment from the events described. It is very much like reading someone else's story, and in a sense that might be true, because I feel like I died last night.
Ah, and now I feel some tears welling up inside!
There is of course a universe of context for what is but a very small chunk of my story. I got what I got because I did what I did, and it is certainly not over yet. My karma has been quietly snowballing and I feel the only way forward now is to stand directly in its path and take it on the chin.
I can't say that I awoke this morning reborn or anything, but I feel very strongly moved to get it down in writing. So in that sense, my rebirth may be more than just a rumor, as a note-taker to Reality is always what I have yearned to be. Besides the novels, short stories and scripts I tinker with, I have always felt bereft of anything meaningful to write. Maybe I should have been more careful what I wished for, as now it seems I have it.
***
As strongly as I felt those events, less than a week ago, the ego-demolishing cascade of events has continued and continues to liberate me, what I feel now is quite different. Each of those circumstances have evolved since then. My wife has since recanted her desire for divorce and apologized for her behavior. The circumstances of this extended separation have been very trying on us both. Where this leaves us I cannot say for certain but our situation has morphed into something different in my absence. In great part because of the suffering I chose by being way from her and my children, I know who I am, but can no longer speak for the relationship.
My business partner has been exonerated of that which I all but accused her, so the crime remains unsourced and unsolved. It appears certain that a sizable chunk of income has exited our business over the five years my hand left the tiller and I have no explanation for it, nor is anybody apparently accountable. This is regrettable in business terms but it no longer moves me.
My school is still moving into the hands of its new owners and I feel confident that it will thrive and do much better than it has. It gives me satisfaction that my “death”, my exit from the school I founded 12 years ago, might serve a higher purpose.
When I get back home in 13 days, after this three month absence, I will have a blessed three weeks before possibly taking up a temporary teaching post there. During that time my work will be focused upon this project; getting reacquainted with my children outside of school hours and cooking for them, as well as much needed time with my wife during the evenings - maybe even some socializing. Who am I kidding? Of course there will be socializing!
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