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What a mind blowing experience...

What circumstance has entangled into this sheer irony...

I can't believe what finally happened today.



Eight years ago,

I met HER.

I had been diagnosed with Bi-Polar.

And the medicines always seemed like they would never work.

My hands shook so bad from the medicine,

And she, this beautiful stranger,

Fed me.

Food would not stay on my spoon,

I was shakin like a martini.



She was there for treatment,

With her heart half in it...

Simply because she hadn't reached her bottom yet.



I remembered that moment for a long, long time.

Not because I was already married,

Not because she was strikingly beautiful,

Not because I felt as if we shared something more

    Than that place in time,

But I remember her act of kindness.



She dated a friend of my wife and I's.

Then, due to my own failing relationship,

I kissed her.

Her relationship had never had a future,

And mine had been dying in the oceans of my partners mind.



I'm not proud of it,

But I cheated on my wife....

Two years of bliss,

Five years of cohabitation,

The death of her brother and sister,

The death of my grandmother,

Filing her disability,

Filing for my disability,

Her drinking and smoking while afflicted with Asthma,

Six or seven mental hospitalizations collectively,

And for myself, 32 different drug cocktails,

Then finally, I had had enough.



Even though my life wasn't wonderful,

I was satisfied with sixty percent of what I had had,

IF it meant that I could stay awake

Without fish in my head swimming,

Without bells in my bones ringing,

Without the weight gain,

Without the sexual side effects,

Without the constant thirst and disassociative behaviors.



SHE came into my life when I was tired...

Tired of my marriage,

Tired of my life feeling as if all hope was gone.



Later, SHE told me...

"I never meant to have a relationship with you,

I just wanted you away from her.  

She was killing you with her health problems."

At first, I felt hurt,

Who was SHE to play God?

Who was SHE to decide what was good for other people?

But it was true,

My wife was 25 years older than me.

Twenty five.



So I moved in with HER,

After I had tried to committ suicide.

People break up over petty things,

And I knew that they'd blame the each other,

No matter whom my allegience went to...

But they could ban together in my death...

And remember the best I had to give.

If it could bring peace, I was more than willing.



The first night,

After I moved in with HER,

SHE and I argued,

UNTIL THE MORNINT LIGHT.

I thought she was trying to control me.

I needed to leave, to get some air.

I wanted to regroup and not feel the anger.

Nine hours later, it finally it came out...

"I can't have you leave!  

I don't want you to go off and kill yourself."

But I had never said anything like that...

SHE just feared.



That first time,

Her kids still with us,

And me being in a new culture

So foreign from what I new of my own...

I tried to organize this new family into what I thought

A good family should be.

Like my family at home,

With my grandparents values.



SHE fought it,

And little did I know how bad her drug abuse was.

And there entered the rub.



I had called the state on her children,

I had called her probation officer,

I had stole to feed her children...

And got caught up in an addiction myself.



One night she left,

I couldn't look for her,

I had no car,

Nor did I know where to look.



We had went to Louisianna to bury her sister,

We came back and battled her breast cancer,

We went on,

With each of us filled with so many problems,

We could not see the other with objectivity,

Let alone treat each other fairly.



Many times the police came,

And several times I filed restraining orders,

And each time, I backed down.



She kept saying,

"Don't do this.

I do love you,

I just don't know how to be what you need me to be.

I will always love you,

But I love dope more."



My heart always sank,

But my eyes, and that voice inside my head kept saying...

"Look for the good,

Not for the bad.

You will always have a reason to leave if you look at the bad.

The bad will always be easier to find.

Look inside her, look at what she herself can't see."



Just when I thought I'd give up,

"Yes, I will marry you.

I want to come back home.

I don't want to do this anymore.

No one wakes up in the morning and says,

'I want to be a junkie when I grow up'."



Every month, I think I proposed to her.

Then with each heartbreak, I became more resolved and said no.

We eventually parted ways.



I thought,

"Anything could be better than that crazy life."

I met someone whom I thought could love my heart.

She fulfilled my every want,

And kept me running to protect her...

Her image...

Her family...

My reputation.

She broke up with me,

Because of my Bi-Polar.

She had said "It doesn't make me love you any less."

I had hope of love,

Without being a victim of my illness twice.

Then bam, without warning,

She left.

Less than a week later,

She pulls me into a legal battle.

And I cannot believe that all those rumors

About her

About her family

WERE TRUE.



Everyone came out of the woodwork to tell me the same thing.

She isn't pregnant, never was.

She isn't educated, never could have happened like she said.

She can't do that in the military, not possible.

Maybe she was a stripper, but doubt it.

A professional?  Ha!

Any position she probably had probably came from

Her fucking her way up the corporate ladder.

This woman told me she made love to a client of hers...

And she was his mental health worker.



I thought I would die,

I wanted to.

I spent a year,

In disassociations,

Into personalities, LUKE, ABBY, J.T., RYNNE...ALEX.

I spent my Christmas's with family who could care less of me.



Then I finally got my life in some kind of order...

And SHE crossed my path again.



I didn't want my heart to fall again...

I wanted to be callussed and cold.

I wanted only to be in it for the physical.

I could not afford another relationship

    AND SHE FELT SAFE.

I knew what to expect.

I knew her habits.

I would keep my home a boundary, and just let her "VISIT".



Before I knew it,

In the midst of tears,

Old hurts from the time before, got addressed.

We forgave, but forgetting could not be possible.



The first time we were together,

People said we shouldn't be together.

We both felt torn,

Our best friends saying one thing,

When our hearts wanted another.



This time,

Things started out fresh and new.

I had not disassociated in a long time.

She had been sober for over a year.

Before I knew it,

She asked me,

"Will you marry me, I'm for real."



I said "no",

Or that I'd think about it,

Or that things were just happening to fast....

Anything but "yes".

I had remembered the instant hurt from our first time.

I knew she had not had a clean life for too long,

And had pressures of memories consuming her every waking hour.

I too did not want to reveal to her about "My condition".



Oh, I had always known, I think.

She had been so consumed with everything the first time,

She had no time to notice.

This second time,

Had to be slow and deliberate.



The first time,

We had one gandchild.

This time,

We watched the fourth and fifth be born.

Not to mention the other four in Louisianna.

I felt all that time, I had to watch my grandbabies from afar.

It felt empty, haunting, lonely.



Now, I had more than I could chew.

Slowly, she moved into my home.

The noise of home, staggering.

The demands to babysit, overwhelming.

The temptation to use, flooded her...

And she succumb to it's power.



For a year,

I watched the progress.

I intentionally wrecked my car...

I hated driving in neighborhoods of crack houses.

But I never condemned HER for it...

Not this time.

How would she truely know I cared for her, about her.



She went to jail,

Made promises I felt she couldn't keep.

Then she found God,

And I wondered,

Is the addiction just changing?

Crack for Jesus?



She asked me to marry her again.

I said "no".

She knew that I had became involved in a school for ministry.

If she knew God, loved God,

Why wouldn't I marry her.

I had full faith in the Lord,

Just not in her sobriety.



I ran again.

Into these arms of a beautiful woman...

Whose insides were ugly and tarnished the outside.

It would have been better just to view her as a mirage.

Instead, me and my drive to see things through,

Allowed her to bring me down,

To make fun of all my ex's looks,

To throw my mental illness in my face,

To be reduced down to just being a "booty call",

WITH NO FAMILIAR NAME OR FONDNESS.



I lamented.

I cried to God.

SHE had even said she had her eye's on a man.

Why?  Why say that if it weren't true?

Because I hurt her.



I sat back,

When would we just see each other for who we were,

And not cast stones?

Should I have expected her not to hurt?

This woman, my best friend?

The news would have hurt my best fried...

And it would have hurt my lover too.

Somedays, I saw her as one and not the other.

Somedays, neither.

Somedays, both.



My heart sank,

I yo-yo'd in my head,

My heart hurt more than SHE ever could hurt me.

I didn't think people would see me as such a good lover,

But now, I had stalkers that proved it.

They wanted their cake and to eat it too.

However, I was more than cake, more than icing,

And they never saw my heart...

Only wanting lip service.



Still, SHE was my friend.

I read her book...

The one she said resembled her life.

She asked me to marry her, again.

I felt so broken.

I knew I could do a lot worse than not marry my best friend.

And after the run of women I had been with,

She knew more about me than I did,

And had respected my mental illness.

She respected my heart and feelings.

She held me in my broken-ness.



Without a chance to give her any word,

I broke inside.

No longer did I have as much control over my personalities.

I would not marry her,

I would not saddle her with this splitting all the time.

It was hard enough for me to take,

Why would I want that on anyone else?



Finally, she said,

"I never understood why you had that poster on the wall.

Now, I understand it totally.

Stacy, I love you, and you can't stop me."



"But you don't understand.

I can't promise to be this person you can handle all the time."



"Yeah, and who was there when my sister died?

Who was there when I had breast cancer?

Who has been here for my while I'm in treatment?

Who has came to visit me?

Who has been there for me every time I NEEDED it."



With that,

I cried...

And said, "YES."



Today,

In the hospital where we met our first time,

In it's chapel,

I took her hand...

"This is where it began.

And this is where it will end."

She looked at me bewildered.

"I don't want to date you anymore.

I promise to love you, cherish you,

BE FAITHFUL TO YOU.

I may not be everything, all the time,

But I pledge to be all that I can give you."

And I kissed her ring.



She spoke her vow,

One I had heard many times before...

"I love you,

Promise to be only with you,

And all of your personalities.

I can't say any more than that,

Because to know you,

Is to do nothing else but love you."



We opened the Bible there at the pulpit,



"From whence comes my strength?

My strength comes from the hills....

The Lord will protect you,

He will make clean your path,

He will steer you away from evil,

And never forsake you."



The result of Love,

When Love Loves Hard.