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  • Writer's pictureStefan Neff

From Zero To Hero Chapter 13

What The “Fuck” Just Happen To Me?


I arrived back in Canada, feeling a sense of shame all over my body, thinking, “What the “Fuck" just happened to my life? I’ve gone from having a new wife and baby that I thought loved me, to a life of utter destitute and shame.” When anyone mentioned the topic of my wife, I created a store of lies and more lies.


The real truth was I was absolutely devastated. My heart was broken in half. I wanted to dive into the ocean and never return. This I couldn’t do because I was a coward deep inside. The lies that I told about what the real truth was, were all made-up stories to hide my guilt, so I didn’t need to get hurt anymore. Every time someone mentioned, “How is your son?” I would say very good, but what was real and what was fiction was all mixed up in my head.


I was hiding from reality most days, drinking all the time or smoking pot to mask the pain of life, and it was driving me crazy. Four months passed since I had been to Japan and the pain was getting worse by the day. I wanted so much to see my life change, but my mind was stuck in the mud, sinking deeper into a puddle of shit. I desperately wanted to step out of life so bad but I was too afraid to take that last big step. The only thing that was keeping me sane was the thought that I might see them again one day.


In the back of my mind, there was a glimmer of hope. I always thought that life was going to get better, but didn’t know when that would be or how long it would take. Then one afternoon I got a message from the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, Japan asking me some weird questions about my son and my wife. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I wanted to know more.


A few days went by and still, this thought was lingering in the back of my mind. All of a sudden the phone rang, like a message from above telling me something is coming my way. I quickly answered the phone with my cat-like reflexes, “Hello,” I said and what happened next was too

overwhelming for my thoughts.


They wanted me to send all my information to them so that my son could get his Canadian Passport! All that fear that was stuck in my head was for nothing. I couldn’t think about anything good in my life at that moment. All I could believe was that my wife was trying to hurt

me from a distance.


I really wanted my son to become a Canadian citizen deep inside my heart, but my hate towards my wife was so strong and I was so apprehensive I couldn’t take action. The moment that my thoughts cleared up from that feeling, I started to gather the information needed to

complete the process. I made so many excuses as to why I couldn’t finish everything they wanted, to ensure the paperwork was completed.


I began to hound myself, saying, “Get it done or else your son will be separated from you forever.” I felt a sense of guilt come over my body like someone was punching me in the stomach over and over again. Tears started to flow down my face and I had an overwhelming

fear of failure. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Am I a failure to my son,? Am I the biggest loser in the world? How can I be so cruel to my own son and deny him access to Canada?”


I wanted to run away and never be seen or heard from again. But if I did that, it would be in my soul forever, trapped. I would never see my son, hold him in my arms, or get to know his precious soul. I couldn’t believe what I was doing to his life. I started to get all the paperwork done that month and send it by snail mail to the Embassy and finalize the document.


I waited for months for a message back from her, to find out if everything was finished and see if he was now a Canadian citizen. I was so worried about whether they had received my information or not because I needed the original documents of my life returned to me.


Deep in my heart, I wanted to have some sort of connection with them. Almost six months went by without any communication from the embassy or any agents. I phoned Tomoko to find out what had happened with the application. I couldn’t wait any longer to see whether he was going to be Canadian or not. This became absolutely important to me.


I was so angry with her and I didn’t want to hold it inside anymore. I told my family about this, and they wanted me to fly over to Japan and bring him back to Canada because they thought that she was the evilest woman on the planet. I had fed them all kinds of stories about what a rotten person she was and they believed every word. I started to really believe it too. I could stop thinking it was the truth. What the “Fuck” was happening to my life? What did I do to deserve this kind of punishment in my life? Was I really the kind of man that hated the world and couldn’t accept the real truth about who I was? What was stopping my innermost desires to be happy? What kind of a miserable existence did I call my life? Who was there for me? Nobody cared for ME.


I truly believed that life revolved around me and me only. I didn’t think people loved me for who I was. The world was full of haters, and thieves all around the world, and all they wanted from me was my time. All I wanted was to be left alone with my drugs, alcohol and my cigarettes, that’s all I truly cared about. Everyone could crawl away and leave me alone to do what I wanted.


Could I really get the life that was meant for me? In a world where some get more than what I have, are they more deserving than me? How does this work? Why not me? Am I that bad of a person to have to live a life of pain and total anguish? How could I stop the world from hurting me? I just wanted everyone to leave me alone to live a life of servitude. This was edged into my thoughts every day I was alive.


I wondered if anyone could see that I was in pain. I yearned for someone to help me as I felt that my last days on earth were drawing near for me. I was filled with self-pity to be so alone on a planet that was filled with millions of people. I thought it was not fair to be living like this. It made me wonder where I belonged. I looked at my own life of disaster, waiting to crash and burn up to nothingness, only to disappear like I wasn’t even born at all. Was there more to life? Was life so cruel that a man with pain, has to live out his whole life crippled with pain in his heart?


In the Next Chapter, I will share...The Moment Of Truth



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