The other night I watched the wonderful Tom Hanks film, Cast Away. It was released in 2000 in the US, but didn’t play in Japan until early 2001. At the time, I was living on a small island called Awajishima that was connected to two of the larger islands of Japan by bridges on the north and south ends. My love and I frequently drove off the island on the weekends to get into the big cities of Kobe and Osaka for some fun. On this particular weekend, however, my fiancée and I were having a great time staying with her relatives in Osaka. We went to see Cast Away in a movie theater on the 6th floor of a skyscraper. Halfway through the film, there was an earthquake! The huge theater was very dark, the room was swaying and I didn’t know what to do. But nobody got up. Everyone just kept watching the film. After 15 minutes or so, my heart stopped racing and I got back to enjoying the film. When it was over, I still had a shaky feeling and was very happy to get back to street level. I wanted to kiss the ground, but I restrained myself..
Later that day, we made a trip to the US Embassy to find out what challenges we faced if we were to get married in Japan before moving to the US several months later. We were very close to having a quick official wedding in Japan to jumpstart the visa/green card issue. We decided to go with a student visa for her instead and then marry in the US. That never happened, because her willingness to stick through thick and thin was quickly tested after our move to San Diego that summer. Money was tight, I couldn’t get a job as a social worker because the county had put a freeze on hiring due to budget issues and we struggled. I had a B.A. in Psychology from UCSD, but no clear picture of what other jobs I should be looking for. Because she had come from a privileged family (she had a $5,000 Rolex, $20,000 in handbags and god knows how much in her wardrobe), she had no point of reference for lean times. I took a horrible job at a computer shop, then tried selling cars and even insurance to get us established. I had wanted to go to grad school in psychology, but put those plans off because she didn’t want to be dependent on her parents for support. There were issues of culture shock as well as unrealistic expectations. In the end, it was so stressful for her that she told me she had lost all respect for me as a man and withdrew her affections.
Granted, we were fairly young (both 26), hadn’t planned things adequately and had the added challenge of not being able to communicate some of the subtleties we needed to express. Several months earlier, half a year before my teaching contract expired, we had to make a decision whether to live several more years in Japan (so she could complete graduate school in nursing) or whether to move to the US and dive into college, get her English level up and become an RN here. We decided to come here and in doing so lost the stability we had enjoyed in Japan, which would have allowed for us to settle into married life with a decent chance at success.
I was lucky to escape from the experience unmarried. Although I was terribly in love with the idea of being a married man, it would have been a big mistake. We had picked out rings! I was so excited about wearing one and being done with the search. But that idealistic vision can be dangerous. We fall in love with the dream and lose sight of the reality. Making the big decision is not something to do lightly. I’ve learned much in subsequent years about the kind of hard questions you have to ask each other to really investigate whether marriage is the right choice.
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