Start of the Healing

 

The year is coming to an end and so, I thought I would try and write about a few reflections. At the time of writing, things on the geopolitical stage look pretty awful. America has just put back its most erratic an incompetent president into power. The genocide in the Middle East looks set to intensify and there seems to be no end in sight for the war in Ukraine. The world, it seems is turning to s***.

Still, life has carried on and as always, I manage to find an optimistic side to things. For the first time in 13-years, I am single again. My 13-year marriage to Huong, that determined and focused Vietnamese girl, ended in March of this year. We’re still friendly and I’m glad to announce that she’s since remarried and seems settled in the USA. Ironically, she’s found happiness in Washington State, the place where my stepfather Lee and his family live.

When I told Kiddo that I had officially ended things with her Mum, she asked if I’d still be her dad. The answer remains yes but she’s now an adult and this experiment with parenthood goes into a different phase of letting your kid find her own way and respecting it no matter how much you may disagree with the choices she makes.

Sold our home in July. There’s nothing like seeing the physical emptying of the house you once shared for the message that “It’s Over” to really sink in.

 

 

I do miss her. She remains by far and away the best looking and most focused of the women to touch my life. I got to see the “real” Vietnam, thanks to visits to her Home Town and more importantly, she brought Kiddo into my life.

The pain of divorce was cushioned by the fact that I had fallen for someone else quite deeply – as in the, I’ll my body in harms way for you type of love. It was kind of unexpected but it happened and I’m glad it did. It was like I gave her a portion of my life force and whenever I was around her, I felt that the world was mine to conquer.

Unfortunately, things are not meant to be. In a rare moment of vulnerability, she revealed that I am a cause of pain to her and since my presence in her life is painful for her, I shall remain outside and away from her existence.

I am, as the Americans say “Playing the field.” The main person in my life is a nice girl, who seems to want to make life better. She admits that she realizes she’s “not my type” and given that my mother has described “my type” as “sh****” it’s probably a good thing and I could get used to being around someone who is genuinely, in the words of my youngest brother “shockingly normal.”

So, amidst all these developments in my personal life, I work on pampering myself a little. Exercise remains a fact of life and occasionally I get my head shaved by a professional and on the odd occasion, there’s afacial treatment to get my 50-year-old self looking presentable.

 

 The family I was born into, remains a source of strength. Mum organized a family trip in Malaysia for the event. It was good to see the family. We’re all growing older we remain as close as ever.

 

 

 

Professionally, I remain in the insolvency trade. Never saw myself in anything resembling legal or accounting but I remain here, celebrating a decade with the same employer. I have gone from the guy who couldn’t hold down a job to a guy who has been in the same job in the same place for a decade. I enjoy the fact that I remain “unqualified” in an industry where everyone is obsessed with paper qualifications.

I have no idea what the next year will bring. I’ve heard from two sources that the fortune tellers tell me that I shall soon be approaching the decade where I make my fortune. I can’t verify any of this but I will do my best to be as decent a person as I can be, even if the world goes to the dogs.