Atrum Trado Visum pt.2

Ah..back again.

When I left off last, I was no longer a virgin...my world was now in fact, Christina. The next day I looked for an apartment with my mother and found one that, conveniently enough was right next to the Raleigh Hills Fred Meyer store that later plays a great role in my story. I thought all was well and for the first time in some 5-6 years, I was really happy. That afternoon I spent with Christina and her brother as my mom went job hunting...

The next morning my mom showed up and told me that she wanted to go home...back to Florida. This was the first time I felt angry towards my mother. She had gotten me this far and now was turning back. The one thing in life that I truly wanted was getting dressed in the other room and here was my mom telling me she was scared and didn't think she had made a wise choice by moving the way we did....I said no. In the end, I stayed in Portland for a month while my mother went back with the agreement that I would fly back after a short stay with Christina...wow...I convinced my mother to leave her 16 year old boy half a world away while she went back alone...all for the love and need of Christina.

Christina must have understood how I felt as well...she quit her job and moved back with me at the end of my stay...because she too needed me...and so in Florida we would wait...until I was of age and could live legally on my own...and we did. Some three weeks after I turned 18, we left on a plane to go back to Portland...this was where I look back to realize how much strength and will I get from Christina...I never would have done this on my own. Her drive in life truly created something in me that I never knew I had.

A month later, I became an employee at the Beaverton Fred Meyer...as a BSM associate, I cleaned the store with a group of loser men who were much older than I and enjoyed the simple jobs that they had to complete as opposed to what I would come to learn...I needed more...

Christina also worked at the Beaverton FM, before I did too...from what I've been told, many people thought I was not good enough for her...I would like to see these people now.

We became pregnant when I was still 18, only a few months after we came back here. I don't remember too much now about how I felt at that time, but I do remember crying when I found out my first child was a boy...I knew then that his name would be Damien.

The hospital trip for Damien's birth could've been better, but then again, I don't think they would've allowed it. Doctors lie and don't even know they are lying. Anyway, I remember that I had been working on the freight crew in the Variety Dept. at the Beaverton store at this time...this is where the seeds for my problems in life were planted. I started befriending the girls that I worked with, the young single types. I started trying to spend time outside of work hanging out with them and such, which while in most situations this is not a big deal, I had a very pregnant girlfriend at the time and was about to start a family and I was not very attentive to that...

I learned quite a lot about emotions and pregnant women after this experience...though it still seemed as though it hadn't broken through in my mind...I was friends with a girl of some sort during at least part of my wife's pregnancies...now if I could see this coming, I should know the way to go to stop it, but I tend to put a band aid on it and try to leave it at that. Crissy and Cindy were the twin sisters that started this problem with me. Both very young minded and bubbly, yet friendly and "fun". I started being too "nice" to them and it led me to so much trouble...the second time, I believe it was Tovah. She had a boyfriend, but worked the same odd hours as me and got along with me in conversation...so there again, more attention to someone other than the one who needed it, the one whom I needed. Why? This is something I apparently had still not made sense of. I don't recall anyone in particular that I did this kind of too friendly for comfort thing with when Christina was carrying Morgana...but oddly enough, for Gabriel it was Coral, the girl that sent me an email telling me she loved me some ten years before who I managed to start buddying with again. She was also pregnant at the time and had her son not long before Gabriel was born, but she was also very different than what I know...I have now caused so much heartache for this woman that I need, that needs me...just because my attention at a time when she truly needed it was on someone else.

It happened again with Peregrin's pregnancy, but this time something about it felt different. I realized it before it went too far and stopped it. I think the reason this time felt so different to me was because the person this time seemed to be doing the same thing I was and I saw that. I think that's what made it real, I saw it affecting someone else the way it had affected me and Christina in the past and I could see just how wrong it is. I think in the past, when Christina would tell me how she felt about me doing these things and essentially ignoring her, I became defensive because I saw nothing wrong...I wanted to see nothing wrong...so I got mad, bottled it up inside of myself and shut the people I was getting attached to away from me so that I had no temptation to worry about. This time, I've realized that my nature to be flirtatious is not something I can allow even though I am tempted to act as such to get attention from these girls. I don't need to do that, and more so I am now a manager at work (I typically meet them at work), and the repercussions even of being flirtatious with women at work are horrifying. What's worse is that they are horrifying BECAUSE this behavior causes breakdowns like the one I've been dealing with.

In the end of this given situation, I know what I knew 11-12 years ago, that Christina is here because she needs me as I need her, but more importantly, I need to show her that as often I possibly can so that she knows there is nothing for her to worry about. I love her, she is my world, and I will stop at nothing to show her that...I will post more about these parts of my life soon...I'm exhausted.