Life Is Hard

 I thought that in my sixties, things would be settled down. I would still be teaching, making enough to live on and maybe save for the future.

That is really a pipe dream. I have almost no income, and from next month it will be even less- maybe 10,000 yen, about £50 a month.

For the past couple of years, Mikey and I have been teaching together. Mikey got married in April 2025; he and his wife thought that it would be easy to find a place to rent and move. The reality was the opposite. Just finding a place was hard; then getting the deposit was another hurdle; then trying to get the basics to live there seemed very hard. Their combined income is about 20,0000 yen (I might have the zeros wrong on that), about £1,000. It's going to be tight for them; everything in Japan has gone up, except wages. The government wonders why young people don't get married and have kids; the reality is that they can't afford it!

I digress. Because of his situation, Mikey has been living here for the past 19 months. Not the best situation, but no choice. While he has been living here, the money we make from teaching goes into the house here. I give him a little bit, but not that much. 

This Sunday he is moving. I'm so happy about that; it's time he moved on with his life.

But, of course, there's a but: it means that most of the money from teaching will go to Mikey. He does most of the teaching; I only teach 3 students now.

The main reason I'm doing this is that my mother-in-law had Hisao work for her but never paid him. Occasionally, she would give him a bit but not enough to live on. That meant that I had to work to support our family. I enjoyed my work, but it meant time away from my kids, something I still regret now. Even now, I still feel resentful toward my mother-in-law; she was earning enough to pay Hisao, but just saw him as free labour. I don't want Mikey's wife to feel that toward me.

Which brings me to the real heartache in all this. Because I have no income, David and Christopher feel that they have to take care of me. I'm deeply grateful for that, but at the same time I feel like I've trapped them in this place. I want them to find wives, to have families, to have their own adventures. Not just work to support me. Even just travelling to see places- that's what young people should do. I don't want them to get to their 50s and regret their life decisions.

So, today, I feel so sad; I've been crying most of the morning, which I know doesn't help.

I'm looking for other ways to make money. My Etsy Shop hasn't worked out: 4 months and one sale!

Any ideas?

The disaster this morning. I'm so stressed and distracted that I managed to drop an egg!