STEAMPUNK4

An Angel in the city of Angeles – I got married about 11 years ago. My wife, my angel, my demon, my reflection. But it happens so fast. I need to take you to the beginning. All you need is ass, grass, or cash. But no one, rides for free.

We met on Craigslist. Prior to finding My wife, I had at least 8 suitors. I can admit, though no pride on my part, it was a dark time in my life. The dark side, that bad boy image, the thrill of the chase that brought out the beast in me. I took away their most sacred purity for sport, which is not something I am bragging about. It was the same for everyone I dated.

As a pubescent in high school I was your typical horny teenage boy. I was dating my hand. Loneliness never entered my mind, and yet, if I would ever date anybody, I would never allow myself to be loved. By graduating time, I couldn’t associate any feelings, love was only a word. This is porn.

Porn was a drug for me. It was instant gratification. I could literally, feel my body chemistry changing. I was high until ejaculation, then release. I came down from the “high.”

Marijuana was used with masturbating, and it took the body high to new levels of consciousness.

Flash forward in my college prime, an important life changer was my first serious girlfriend, I met on Craigslist. She was an angel who brought in my life “acceptance.” I was dealing with a lot of serious mental health issues when we met. I also had a serious health condition with a diagnosis of “Fistulating” Crohn’s Disease.

I lived day by day, of not knowing that I could die the next day. That my body could shut down. I needed surgery The type of surgery I needed was called a “Resection.”. But only later did I find out that my health was gravely deteriorating and taking me closer to the end.

She loved me and said so. I was told by a few girls that they liked me. I even made a girlfriend cry, just to see how far I could get away with. However, no one had ever said, “I Love You,” to me after we had sex. She was odd just like me and had a killer personality. I was almost a sleep when she uttered those words, and in a stoners stupor, I said back in a whisper, “you don’t know what love is.”

Why should I claim to know what love is and call bullshit on everyone else?

I had dated models in my heyday. I was a model too. I was not ignorant to know that I was a catch. It was the prime of my life. Smoking pot, climbing trees, going to Raves, drinking until on the bathroom floor. Not knowing that being irresponsible was my responsibility. No one else’s.

My integrity was my lack of integrity.

I don’t have a great self-esteem and pathetic as it might sound, I feel that I let everyone down. I didn’t want to be anyone’s loser. By breaking up with them, I beat them to the punch. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was told at an early age, I would be a heartbreaker. It was the women I was saving, from my twisted self. I hurt. I am a codependent seeking my muse.

I was a loser. Everyone of my relationships said so. I have been called many names. I was saving them embarrassment. I was making up their minds for them. So I tricked them into thinking they were dating a “Dick!”

My girlfriends were in over their heads, and they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. It was a metamorphosis of epic proportions. My decent into madness was as real as the reflection in the mirror.

I got married 14 years later (to someone who I’ve known for 6 months before getting engaged), and within two years, we had a beautiful daughter, settled down – and – I must say that it was the first time I indeed felt responsible for others. I feel semi responsible for my wife’s depression. I was her mirror. Does that mean something is wrong with me? How should I feel when she looks at me and wants to kill herself?

Instead of seeking knowledge from within, I believe she looked to me for validations. I hope I am wrong, but did I bring this on her? Did I build her wall? It’s showtime.

I wasn’t afraid of dating, but I was afraid of falling in love too quickly. I guarded myself from hurt. (Fuck the one who will crush me. Only I can do that job. I can’t let anyone shame me. That is my job.)

As complicated of a person as I am, I left the ghost behind me. I took away the indifference, I guess.

In the long run, marriage either worked, or it didn’t. I couldn’t possibly know, (and I later discovered), that the odds weren’t that simple.

She wasn’t like the other girls I dated. From my perspective, we were in the right place at the right time. God was shining bright rays of sunshine and happiness, glistening through the oak trees with a late morning spring haze.

At this time, I worked at a library in a Japanese University. Every year, the campus was rented out to this private music society who celebrated music and folk art. Every year for one weekend, the organization produced a folk music and art festival and had a musical instrument consignment booth to raise funds to the underserved youth.  Locally, this was a big deal.

Since I worked at this university, I got a couple of free tickets. On the first day of the festival, I invited my future wife on a date. We had talked a few times before, now it was time to reel in this fish.

She wasn’t a model, but was beautifully plain. She dressed in black, with a skirt that craved attention. The widest part of her body was her hips, which I felt was stylish in a way that modern rock or alternative rock, fused malaise with high quality fashion.

Like most of the girls I dated, once sex was out of the way, we had many months of pleasantries. And I was quick to get sex out of the way. My favorite thing to do with my girlfriends, was to take her out for coffee and bagels at a local bagel eatery, and share the newspaper. To me it was so simple, yet there was a touch of French impressionism by going out in the morning (somewhat early) and sipping on a cup of coffee with someone you just had sex with.

The next 6 months were incidental. Her and I basked in the bliss of lovers forged in utopia. Then something extraordinary changed the rules of the game.

We were dating for 5 months before the job offer came to me. It was fate and I felt the time has come for me to settle down. From my perspective, it was the offer of a lifetime.

She blew my mind the way that serotonin is secreted in an empty mind. I began to feel wanted, normal. I proposed to her on New Year’s Eve, about 6 hours after getting a blessing from her family and mine. I proposed on the top of the Hollywood hills at this restaurant called Yamashiro. I chose this place because I remembered the ambiance was something very special. In the 5 months, that year, I became engaged to my wife.