I made a mistake that costed a friendship twenty years ago. Events in my life led me to contact her again which led to an email I received from from her yesterday. Her response lifted years of regret and pain that I have been carrying. She forgave me. :)

Jean

It feels good to breathe again. The reason I say this is a long time ago I messed up a friendship and after 20+ years the buildup of stupidity finally got the best of me to the point I wrote a letter to her. I was taken aback a bit when after I mailed her the letter, I found her Facebook account. And then the pressure began about a day or so later.

You see I can watch science, history, stuff about Astrophysics and I can understand it as clear as a bell. But figuring out if she is still mad at me really goes over my head. Like the space shuttle in orbit. So I figured I would get my wife to help translate what appeared to be a cryptic message directed towards me on her Facebook account. But before doing that she wanted to know the whole story between me and Jean. So I gave her the complete story minus the secret I blabbed to Jean’s sister to which my wife proceeded to give me the evil eye, made a few comments in Japanese and reluctantly helped me out.

After reading the message and seeing Jean's Facebook picture when she was very young, my wife concluded that I was a jackass. No brainer there. But, my wife understanding my heart, gave me a little advise." Letting go of that anger takes time. It’s like a safety blanket that eventually will be to put away. But for now, sending her that letter is like an olive branch.The best way to deal with it is to back away, internet and all, and to continue living your life. If she forgive's you or not she'll let you know. Leave her alone to work it out but keep praying for her." A deep breathe late and I felt great. Then my wife told me if I had done that to her, she would have shot me.

And she would to.

Women in my Life

With everything that has been happening within the last 24 hours could be like living in the middle of a tear jerker drama movie. My wife, after getting an injection to burn the nerve endings in her lower back yesterday, was finally able to use her legs this morning. The pain is gone but with no feeling in that area of her back she's a little scared to walk.

While doing some housework while she was resting I did a quick internet check and received what some would say the second blow. A letter I wrote to an old friend from a long time ago responded. In shock and awe I became numb as a doorknob. An old picture of her was like the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ but the message hit me like the ‘Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come’. A general topic of discussion for all but cutted through me like Perseus removing the head off of Medusa in Clash of the Titans. In a way I knew it was coming but almost impossible to be fully prepare for it.

The major players in my life going through different pains with never enough ‘I’m sorry.’ to end the pain. Dosesn't mean I'm going to stop.

"Instead of regretting what we cannot do, it is better to do what one can. Even for example, what you do has nothing to do with results, you must forge forward."
-Yuuko Ichihara. Volume 9, P.157. (xxxholic manga)

or

(James 5:16)

Zero Point (part 2)

In regards to my resent post about my very first friend I ever had led me to a lot of soul searching and basically going to zero point. Its a little exercise I do whenever I feel like I’m stressing out. Basically I just mentally remove every little thing about me and everything around me until I get to the core of who I am. Then, just like building a Lego set, I put everything back into the order it needs to be in. Or another way is I just defragment my head until everything is back in its place.

The bottom line is that a huge barrier I am going through in dealing with my first friend is nearly over. It took a while and a lot of listening to the CD ‘Are You Fried Chickenz’ by Gackt . Hey I relax better listening to Rock music. Soft relaxing music puts me to sleep leaving me no time to think things through to whereas Gackt’s music keeps me awake and thinking clearly. But after several hours I came to an obvious conclusion.

I had a dear friend who never really knew that she was my first true friend. We had a great time together that ended when I got stupid and ruined it. I put hate into her and caused her to make major changes in her life. I ran away trying to forget everything but ended up burying all this unresolved pressures. She’s happily married for over 16 years now to where as I’ve been married for 15 years. She’s OK; the stress is of my own doing. And as the final conclusion presented itself was like cold water splashed in my face. ‘Just get over it.’

I love the life I have now and don’t plan on damaging it. The life I live is of my own making. No matter what life throws at me it is how I respond to it that made me; well me. A long time ago I ran away from taking responsibility of my actions and allowed a small ticking time bomb to slowly grow as it waited for an opportune time to explode and to force me to make stupid decisions. But instead I had grown up.  To be a mature person taking responsibility is tough when the kid inside wants to hide but no matter what tests might be thrown at me, it is not that important to destroy the life I have created with the family I have been blessed.

In all; I wish Jeanette the best for her. If she still holds a grudge against me then so be it for I deserved it. But I do not plan on going to her home and drag her through a mind field of pass memories and regret just to win her forgiveness. Nor do I plan to wallow in misery and sorrow and stalk her like some crazed psychopath. Like ships that sail through the night, in this case one’s life, she may have forgotten all about me. I’m willing to live with that. 

The past is doomed to repeat itself (part 1)

The past is doomed to repeat itself. I learned that a few days ago and I still feel like I’m stuck in the afterthought of a lost and forgotten time. Mind you I never forgotten them but kept them nice and safe so as to relieve the current stress of life with a joy of the past. I had to work in Louisburg, NC over the weekend where I met an old friend I use to work with at Winn Dixie back in the late 1980’s. We talked a great deal of all the people we worked with. About where they are now and how they got there. We caught up on each other’s lives and joked around like the past was the present.

Afterwards I felt all weird inside as many of those thoughts flooded back to the point that I felt like I was drowning to the deepest part of the ocean. And the only image I had was a young woman who is two years younger than me. Her name is Jeanette and she was the first woman I fell head over heels for. Her dimple smile, her tomboyish attitude loaded with a good dose of femininity. I could go on but truth to be told; she was the first girl I ever had a crush on. All through my school life I was never really attracted to any of the girls in my school. I did have a crush on Brooke Shields and Irene Cara but in my real life Jeanette was the first girl I really liked.

To be honest, I was 21, still a virgin and proud of it. Seeing that most of the people around me were making a lot of mistakes in relation to drugs, alcohol and sex I was glad in being me. After all the majority of my graduation class found themselves dead while a great deal others became parents before their 20’s while a few others stayed in their alcoholic/drug world. Many of us did go on to better things in life. Many others in my senior graduation class at school stayed the straight and narrow as other strayed from the path so to speak. I got through it by staying at the bottom of the social ladder. I’ll write more about that later on. But I survived it.

Jeanette and I over time started to spend time together. Depending on our work schedule it was mainly lunch or dinner. We talked and got to know each other more and more and a friendship was there. But it was only to be just that. She had a thing about dating people she worked with but if it meant that our friendship couldn’t go any further was OK so long as we were at least friends. Plus I didn’t know any dating techniques or try anything romantic on her but she did know I liked her a lot. I got a chance to spend time at her home meeting her sister and her son as well as the parents. Life was going great until I made a costly mistake.

One evening her sister and I were driving to Zebulon and as our conversation progressed I let slip a secret about Jeanette. The moment I said it I felt really sick inside me to the point I actually started having a cold sweat. The rest of the evening went OK but I felt dead. And sure enough the next day Jeanette let me have it. I didn’t get angry or defensive. I just kept quiet and as she spoke. From then on she hated me with every fiber of her being. She never smiled while I was near and seeing as we worked at the same store she eventually transferred to another store. Everyone kept asking what happened but I never told them. Never spoke about her again and tried to move on with my life.

Eventually I transferred to another store and eventually I did find a girlfriend but that didn’t last long. She was still in love with an old boyfriend that abused her. The next girlfriend was mental. Literally, the woman love to play mind games and kept testing and attacking me on trivial matters. Nothing like keeping a constant memory of Jeanette in my thoughts as I was going into train wreak relations one after the other. It got to the point that I left the state all together and moved far away. Even visiting other countries and just forgetting everything about myself and where I came from. It worked. All my past memories were locked away. They just became reference thoughts without the connections. But that personnel victory was soon to come to an end.

I was matched up with a Okinawan woman and our relationship was moving along pretty good. As we talked and got to know each other we found out that we had a great deal in common. She was perfect for me in ways I didn’t think of. She actually got me to improve myself without pushing or nagging. The real joy came when she became pregnant but that led to many unforeseen problems. My wife was having major back problems and she went through a depression after our son was born. Her mother came and stayed with us for a month to help her through this period but we had to make a decision. One I didn’t like to make.

My wife was having a difficult time while pregnant and handling being a mother. Her family lives in Okinawa and mine lives in North Carolina. A coin toss after days of figuring many options to solve our problems ended with the three of us leaving a lot of our stuff behind as we left California in a rented cargo van heading for North Carolina where my family would help her get through her physical and mental ordeal. I didn’t want to come back but I did it anyway for her and our son.

Eventually a got a job which led to a much better job which led me to Louisburg in a chance meeting with an old friend I long forgot about that opened up a floodgate of memories I tried so hard to forget. In all, I am coming to the end of my struggles and soon my self made crisis will be partly over due to another idiotic thing I did. I went and googled her name and within a few minutes I found her myspace account and sent an email. Can I make an ass of myself or what? But no reply and from the looks of her myspace account she hasn’t been there in a very long time. In time maybe she’ll find it and wonder who I am or she will be filled with rage and hate all over again. But never the less, she was my first true friend I ever had in my whole life. I can’t change the past but at least I can work on not messing up my future like I did to Jeanette.