Destinies Children (a year in review)

This year has certainly been one of mixed blessings, perhaps it was just such a year like this in the life of Charles Dickens that inspired him to write the now famous and quotable opening line in his tale of two cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." This year certainly had me at my lowest when I thought my relationship with my partner had ended during the summer but the year ended not only with us back together, even stronger than before but also my children finally came home to us and gave me my most wonderful and fulfilling moment since meeting Hitomi. Hitomi herself realized her own dream this year in opening her own studios.

In that space between worlds where instant rice can reconstitute itself as macaroni cheese, I float and I am usually cynical that people can look in there and discern a future event as easily as if they were reading the news of yesterday. Yet strangely enough that is exactly what one man did for me. As I shopped in Ginza at the end of May in 2010, I spied a strange man amongst the usual myriad fortune tellers. Many of them have their little idiosyncrasies and designs and flairs to attract a customer but this one was different. I had to stand and look at his reflection in a shop window for some minutes because I was strangely drawn to him. He was calm and he almost innocuously blended into his background chameleon like and certainly he was not prominent like the others who were actively searching for business. I was on a fairly busy little connecting road between two main thoroughfares and I could have easily of blended in amongst the shoppers and passers-by and yet from my vantage point across the road he turned and looked directly at me as if he knew I was looking at him or as if he knew I was coming. I turned at once and strode purposefully toward him. I had it in my mind that I didn't want him thinking I could be uncertain in any way even if I was! As I sat with him I remember feeling an aura of serenity about me and instead of the usual unspecific allusions about what could be as some of them may tell you, he specifically told me what was and now, from this point in time, I can also say what was to be.
He told me with great accuracy who I was, where I'd been and what I was doing and what I'd recently experienced. He told me that I could lose my greatest love (which I believed to be Hitomi) but he called it a trial which to me meant that I could overcome whatever barrier parted us.
Eighteen months ago he said that I'd be a Mother within two years and I looked at him incredulously. I wasn't sure how exactly this could be at the moment he said it. The thoughts that came to mind at that time were that Hitomi and I may somehow adopt a child or if she did leave me and I somehow met a man and became pregnant again. It was a few hours later that I thought perhaps I could be reunited with my own children in some way. He also said that I'd have one more battle with my health problem and it would be my last. I did not know whether I or it would be the victor but his small smile on that note gave me hope.

Dear readers, I have several times this month visited that same small road hoping to glimpse him once more but the doorway by where he stood has been empty each time.

This year started off with our celebrating this last New Year in the Mars, our favorite bar and we kind of thought that because we had celebrated it in a different way this year we were going to be forging a new kind of destiny for this year and perhaps in a way we did just that! I remember sitting to write my blog yearly review last year and I actually said "This last year has been one of mixed fortunes although thankfully the prediction that I received last year at the New Year of my greatest love deserting me didn't seem to materialize." with open cynicism. It was as if the fates were insulted at my acrimonious thoughts and they decided to defer it to this year instead to teach me a lesson.
During January I was working in Hiroshima on my final project for work. Hitomi and I had talked about my work and because of the continuing problems with my health I had felt unable to continue at JJ magazine. I was literally burnt out and my creative spark had simply disappeared into the night like the last firework fading from view. I could no longer give them my best and so I made my decision.
On February 12th I left that building for the last time with some wonderful memories and quite a few friends left behind. My medications had been increased the previous October and although the scans seemed to show that there was no recurrence of the tumor but there was a nasty looking vacant spot there that refused to heal.
Now I was no longer working I felt that my world had slowed down and there was suddenly time for me to do everything that needed doing. However I also felt empty in not having a purpose. I had quite a few promotional events which gave me something to do but it wasn't fulfilling mentally. I took up some part time translation work to occupy my mind more than anything else. When it comes to promotions there are girls a lot prettier than me and who are better at the promotional modeling than I and perhaps they could not chase after the positions that I could and I wondered then if I was taking the bread from another's mouth unjustifiably.
The Doctors had suggested a trip overseas to the Brain Institute in L.A. I was filled with doubts because I was quite frightened inside when I thought about what I presumed to be my final battle as had been predicted. The Doctors convinced Dad that a trip to the brain institute in the United States for a process that would begin the healing inside my head was exactly what I needed. On Wednesday March 9th, Dad and I flew across the Pacific to Los Angeles. There was one moment that I'll never forget when he caught me crying in my hotel room, he held me in his arms and said that he lost Momma but he was not going to lose me. I wasn't really afraid to die should that moment have come, I was more afraid to hurt those I'd have left behind.
On Friday the 11th, the great Tohoku earthquake occurred and Dad and I watched the images on TV, horrified at the level of damage that the tsunami had caused. It had been 40 meters high at its highest and had reached as far as 10 kilometers inland. There were 16,000 people dead and 5000 missing and many more injured. Trying to telephone home was chaotic so desperate to hear the voices of our family we were.
In California many hours later the rear of the tsunami hit us with a two and a half meter high wave. I stayed in the institute hospital for the weekend while they worked their magic and I came out on Monday feeling good about myself but sad at the pain back home. I recovered for a few days with Dad at my Dad's friend's home on the coast overlooking the Pacific highway before we flew back home.

Home was ghostly with places looking empty and devoid of the usual crowds. The neon's that held back the night were off and the darkness brought its icy touch to the ground that we walked on. We were forced to bury our dead in mass graves without ceremony which is a barbaric atrocity but a painful duty that was forced upon us. Stories of hope and seemingly of miracles and amazing rescues gave us all hope for the future but we still mourned our dead. Then came the problems with the nuclear plants and a deeper, more ingrained fear spread among us. We sent Rina and baby Yoshiro to Kansai, away from the possible contamination.
April came and Hitomi and I left Tokyo for a break and had a few days in Tokushima on the island of Skikoku, across the bay from where Rina was in Wakayama. Those days were wonderful, beautiful and bright and yet it seemed a lull before a storm as more darkness awaited my return to Tokyo.
My Computer was dying and so I bought a new one and a girl from Hitomi's past came onto the scene. I became very jealous and from this point on our relationship also began to die but unlike my computer, I could not go out and simply replace it. One evening on the way home from a small dinner I met up with my old friend Terutaka and he and I renewed our old friendship. Perhaps in feeling that I felt alone and even abandoned helped me to accelerate that re-establishment. More promotion work came my way and after Hitomi came back from a working trip away we made a home studio together in the utilities bedroom. She started advertising herself as a photographer with all the contacts she's made in the past and still her past was with her in the shape of that old girlfriend which really infuriated me.
She decided to buy a property and have a studio proper after using the home studio as a trial run and she went out on her own on this venture, without me and I felt more the rift between us and started going out with other people and as June grew into July she had had enough of my accusing and abrupt behavior and she packed her things and left me and I let her go.
When I was finally rid of the girl who was hurting me so much I realized that I hurt so much more because I was no longer with the girl I loved. The real girl who was hurting me so much was still here and I saw each time I looked in the mirror.

August came and I was fooling myself that I didn't need anyone, I still had lots of friends and Terutaka was back in my life and then I found out that Hitomi and I were working the same venue in Osaka and I looked up to the heavens and asked them what were they trying to tell me?
Seeing her on the train and being in her presence made my cry even if I told you I sneezed. Dad was in Osaka at the time and he took time out to watch one our shows as we worked with the wonderfully charming, intelligent and funny Amemiya. I spent that evening with Dad and somehow he always makes me see things I overlook. We had a real heart to heart. I went back to my hotel and found out that Hitomi was also a wonderful friend for me even if we were no longer lovers, at least not officially.
September came and after having a chat with my hairdresser Maestro, I embarked upon a course of hair care and hairdressing. I was fascinated and it was a way for me to find new things in my life and meet new people since I'd recently become single again but I really started to enjoy it. I visited Hitomi's studio and I was impressed at what she'd achieved. If she was my girlfriend I would have kissed her but in having no outlet for that, I started to look for shallow attentions in the red lights of Kabuckiko.
As October came I knew I couldn't enjoy my life anymore the way it was and I was in still in love with her and I found out that she still loved me but she had simply given me space in which I should find myself. After a good talk together and the realization of what disaster I'd almost created, she moved back in with me only this time we were stronger than ever before.
I made a suggestive little video and the nice amount of money that I earned from that had me wonder for one small moment if I should do more but I decided against it and merely mark it down in my life story as just one more experience. I just decided to stay with the simpler things and the photo-shoots, in-house or otherwise as they were offered.

Hitomi was short of funds but her business held so much promise and so with Dad's help I bought into her business legally which is really all I wanted from the beginning since we are partners in life. Halloween and then Christmas saw the studios regularly booked and I really am proud of her as I watch her dedication and drive make her dream come true and profitable.
Finally the last month fell upon us and Hitomi and I celebrated six years together and there just beyond the window, the snow fell like tears of happiness to light up the night as my own dream was finally given to me. In a twist of fate that was perhaps as just as it was ironic, my babies came home to me, to both Hitomi and me and we became what I'd always wanted us to be, a complete family.
This year for me truly was the worst of times and the best of times.
The clouds rolled back and the moon shone across my dark forest and lit up my way and I finally came back home.
The Future?
I have to say that my life has changed and changed for the better. I leave a lot behind me, all that brought me here to this day but thankfully I can take with me into the future all that means most to me, my family.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE