3rd November 2017
The probation office meeting was a quick quarter hour followed by the quarter hour drive back home. I caught up on the newest episode of Lucifer with the roommate. Lucifer told the woman whose body his mother had inhabited that he'd missed his mother; it was touching. During the episode that he cast his mother out of earth, she cried to him for how much she would miss him and he backed away in silence.
I thought about my own mother and father, but not for more than a moment. I imagined them or my brothers calling, what they might've seen on Facebook or Instagram that may have worried them, but then the thought fell to a dead end.
When Emily had taken my unconscious body to their doorstep they could've cared less and I couldn't imagine them having a sudden change of heart in my absence. It was like it had always been; things were better without me around. When I was around I brought lessons and insight but eventually diverted the constant fighting towards myself until I was seen as the issue.
I was glad to be gone and as much as I missed my brothers I couldn't bring myself to miss being home or missing my parents. Sure, I missed the free food (that I'd get bitched at for 'stealing') and the money or clothing that I'd have thrown my direction for helping absolve my mother from her self-inflicted loneliness in that home. I'd never miss the arguing, the fighting, the polarity of emotions and the sociopath tendencies everyone in the house had grown to emulate; it was a miserable, cold, dead end.
Emily had a pretty fair idea of my well being, and I'd recently gone through a anti-social stint so I wondered if maybe she had called. It didn't seem likely, though, because she wasn't one to get herself involved in other people's affairs.
Adam & Hailey were the next option, knowing Adam's custody of the girls had just changed gave reason for angst, and Hailey's name had highlighter all over it since she'd been listed in Stefany's lawyers exhibits for texting Stefany. Dillon was a good candidate too, considering he was now friends with Stefany on Facebook. I knew one of those three were to blame for Stefany deciding to no longer relinquish Amelia's care to me, but although it would've made sense the fact that none of them had seen me in months diminished the appeal of it being the case.
My therapist could've been concerned considering I'd missed an appointment or two, and it would make sense for a therapist to only suggest concern for one's well-being. However, it didn't seem like her to take such steps in a direction. The open-ended concern simply remained open-ended because I didn't want to dive deeper.
I wondered if someone from The Church Gang had done it, considering they were the main advocates for The Door of Faith which I'd declined. If it had been one of them, I didn't care.
I was just glad to know the two things I'd learned. First, that I had people in the 'community' who cared about me. Second, whoever those people were, they saw it fit to call somebody if they believed issues were arising.
Knowledge is power, am I right?
I spent the days fantasizing about singing, playing guitar and keys, drums, painting, all sorts of artistic shenanigans. It hurt to actually realize that art required a great deal of money behind it. I'd known when I lived with my parents that all art forms required a lot of money but at the time it had simply been money they deemed unnecessary. Now, it was money I simply didn't have.
Speaking of money poorly spent, I'd come to realize that cigarettes tasted a whole lot worse when you didn't pack them well. That, or my theory that packs marked to be fifty-cents off were truly from a worse batch of tobacco.
The weather on Friday had been nice enough to justify wearing only a light jacket and I was thankful for it. Thankful to God, yeah. I'd been falling off on my Bible reading and I wasn't proud of it. Proverbs had an intimate appeal simply by being named 'proverbs'. The other books, however, besides Genesis, with names that I'd recognized as simply common American boy names withheld a lot less appeal. I ought to do it anyways though, I thought, and figured I could fit some in out of at least one of the books before I'd go to work.
***
1500
I came back to the library and sat at the computer I always did; aside from the computer's position to the left of the widest open window, providing an excellent view with a slight right turn of the head, it boasted the (in my opinion) best feeling keyboard. Yeah, that's right, I chose that specific computer because I'd noticed the lack of stickiness the other keyboards possessed and a great responsiveness of the keys. It wasn't a different brand, it wasn't any cleaner than the other computers, but I could feel the difference.
I watched the first episode of The Good Doctor after Lucifer that morning. I was a bit jealous. Like the doctor I'd been diagnosed with high-functioning aspergers, the high end of the Autism scale, but unlike him I didn't have savant syndrome. Savant was a gift from God that I didn't possess. While I could've been jealous, I neglected the useless feeling.
I thanked God for the weather, again. I'd grown so used to walking from place to place in the last few years that it had grown to be one of my favorite things. Any day that was saved from grey skies and frigid winds was a blessing by my standards.
I cracked open the Bible app searching for inspiration. The verse of the day was Psalms 51.
"Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins." (NLT)
In Lucifer, the woman whose body had been inhabited by Lucifer's mother revealed that she'd 'been trapped in what felt like a never-ending nightmare where she relived the most terrible moment of her life over and over again', aka Hell, and sought redemption so that she might never wind up back there. Of course, being Lucifer, he never suggested she go to seek Christ, but rather suggested she clean her guilty conscience all the while she didn't feel guilty, Lucifer said that she might be concealing more guilt from herself than she knew.
I saw the truth in both. I often thought about how the feeling of guilt and living with it was a very close sensation to a living Hell, and the repentance from sin and absolution of guilt via Christ seemed like a conventional method to do such. However, thinking deeper, I found it harder to really clear your own conscience through Christ. Sure, he'd died for your sins but at the same time even if you'd truly repented from all sin, renounced all of your worldly possessions, and accepted that the son of God died for your sins, would one really feel free of guilt?
I didn't feel free of guilt yet, and while I felt better with Christ in my life, I still hadn't truly repented from sin either. Even when I didn't sin, I still longed for it, which I was sure wasn't part of repenting. For example, the other day I totally had the opportunity to sleep with another girl out of wedlock. Did I do it? No. Was there a very human, very fleshy and wicked inkling of me that had wished I would've? Yeah. Rather than dwell on it, I passed the thought.
I had good reason not to sin. I had good reason to follow God. There was one thing I was still struggling with though. (Among all of the other things I forget that I'm struggling with).
Love in regards to marriage. Sure, I was totally struggling with loving people as in being a loving, warm human being, but the marriage shindig seemed to be a lot more prevalent.
Why was it prevalent? Well, the woman a man finds is supposed to be his 'help'. I have a daughter. It was well documented that I attract promiscuous women and even the girl from the beginning of this account that I'd crushed on (without expecting anything to ever come of it, mind you) seemed to think I might've been a player for whatever reason. She wasn't alone, either; I'd been excluded from multitudes of relationships back in high-school because I'd a reputation as a player or a man-whore, two things I'd at the time thought, "Well if that's the case, where on earth are all of these women I'm supposedly sleeping around with?!"
Since the Bible had kicked sleeping around to the curb I was left to find someone to marry. Not that it was all about sex, but even companionship seemed reserved for marriage. I mean, The Church Gang's females were friendly at all, but there seemed to be a pretty clear divide between the young men and women. It also looked like, to me at least, talking to anyone in a one-on-one interaction meant something was going on, almost.
From time to time I thought about Stefany, but I quickly countered myself just based on past experience and what other people had told me. Even though they weren't God-loving people, their advice had still been based on the fact that after being with her my mental state had drastically declined. I couldn't blame her because I really wasn't living by God's standards. I couldn't ignore it though, either. While I'd loved her and wanted to marry her with certainty before, the times she and I had argued when she was pregnant still haunted me. The memory of her temper even while not pregnant still scared me, and how we'd fallen apart during the summer still really haunted me.
Saying I should've known better than to ask her 'whose girl she was' hoping she'd say me is an aversion to the real issue.
We'd been hooking up, going out and about, texting, sharing phone calls, and I was trying to feel close to her and, by my mistake because we aren't supposed to be reliant or dependent on anyone but God or Jesus Christ, I tried to depend on her for my own 'warm-fuzzies' and self-esteem.
When I'd asked her, she'd told me that I wasn't her girl and that she would rather be single because she liked the attention from being hit on by other guys. That day it struck in my heart like a knife. Even though I'd been talking to other girls before the March incident, since then I hadn't almost religiously, partly because bringing women over to Adam's house was a terrible idea and part because I'd rather spend money on Amelia and have things for her than spend money on taking someone out.
That day, the day she told me she didn't want to be in a relationship and for that reason, I consoled myself by guilt-tripping myself for being with her for so long when she was a solid two and a half years younger than me at least. She'd even told me I was her first real boyfriend, and for that I felt even more guilty. Sure, I knew how to take a girl out and treat her well, but I was emotionally nonexistent. It got even worse when I found out that some of those 'guys' were her coworkers and even her boss.
She'd told me her boss had said she could be his stripper, that he could relieve her sexual tensions, and among other remarks paired with her drinking and started to wear a choker to work, I lost it.
I lied to myself.
Of course I'm not mad, babe. I want you to feel beautiful wherever you go.
It doesn't matter what other guys say to you, I trust you and know you wouldn't do anything!
There was a hidden part to each of those sentiments. I even hate typing it now;
-because I know you're mine and I'm yours! That day she'd told me that wasn't the case and it was because she liked what was going on at work marked the top of a roller-coaster of my emotions that would soon plummet. I'd like to clarify that I'm not blaming her and her actions did not justify mine at all. I'm only stating what happened to get it off of my chest.
The of course babe, you look hot! Look at you, being all sexy! I'm so proud of you! 's quickly became more loathsome with each day. Suspicion grew, envy and jealousy's seeds were sown. I tried so hard to lie to myself. I'd seen her boss, a married man in his late twenties or early thirties; He's so handsome, I'd like him to hit on me, too! I'm not jealous of him, I'm jealous of you! In my head I tore myself apart. I imagined what I'd drink to kill the feeling, what pill I could take, anything to drown those sins that ate me alive.
Envy & Jealousy quickly ate the false fruits of the spirit that I'd created without God and left me starving. Driven mad with hunger, I took out my frustrations on Stefany and sinned even further through fits of rage.
I wish I'd had God in my life back then. I'm still ashamed of my actions, and I know if I were able to go back in time I could make the right choices by God. Even though I forgave Stefany in my own heart to move on and asked for her forgiveness for my wrong doings revolving that incident and many others, I knew that if I were able to go back that I still would've been terribly uncomfortable.
Matthew 19:8-10 NLT
"Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery- unless his wife has been unfaithful.' Jesus' disciples then said to him, 'If this is the case, it is better not to marry!'"
I had to search for the definition of unfaithful. Aside from having sex with someone that isn't your 'partner', it was synonymous to being hazardous because of presenting hidden or unpredictable dangers, insincere, and demonstrating a lack of loyalty. I was at least glad that I wasn't alone in my insecurities, no matter how petty they were, because for millennia men had been feeling the same way strongly enough for Jesus to comment on it in the Bible.
While we weren't ever married, the day I'd taken her to the hospital in February when I'd found the texts she'd sent her friends about only using me for sex because 'other dick made her nervous' and the screenshot of Darius, some giant black dude from Tinder, I'd felt like she'd cheated. At least the words demonstrating a lack of loyalty fell under the unfaithful definition, and after that day I'd started spending time and attention on Kendall briefly. For once, the Bible made me feel a little less like a dog, although what I'd done was still sin. I suppose I should say it made me feel like I hadn't been so alone in feeling so torn up.
It was the same as back in October when I'd been with Alyssa. I hadn't even considered being with her until I'd seen Stefany post on Twitter about having a new boyfriend. As soon as I saw that, I stopped holding out. I wasn't innocent, I'd given her plenty of reason to want to leave me between having a crazy family and developing a drinking problem.
Again, this isn't about pointing fingers or blaming. I'm just processing things that I've kept bottled up forever and this is the only way I can think to do it.
The reason behind all of the processing is because amidst feeling petrified around Merry, having my heart caught in my chest at times, being presented with opportunities around other females now and again plus daydreaming about Stefany and wishing she and I could be a family, I felt I needed to redefine my moral compass. It wasn't that I thought or even fathomed Merry looking at me like that, it was that clearly I was searching for something and I didn't want to chase after the wrong thing.
I didn't have plans to chase after anything, but I wanted to know what path I was walking in the back of my head at the least. I'd finally realized that you can't spend or give time and effort with and to people (especially of the opposite sex) without someone eventually wanting more. I had to narrow down who I spoke with for the literal sake of my soul. In addition to wanting to be a good Christian I was sick of hurting people.
I missed Stefany but I was cautious. It was a weird feeling, considering I hadn't spoke to her in weeks. I'd wanted her to come to Church with me but she'd declined and we'd hashed out even more differences during that time and I hadn't heard from her since. For all I knew, she thought I was in rehab.
I realized I had a direction to aim for: figuring out what the Bible said about marriage in a more complete sense, and after that what a Christian was supposed to do when the people around him lacked faith.
It didn't make sense to only go halfway, and I wanted to do things right.
<<<Previous ~2 November 2017~ ~5th November 2017~ Next>>>
Comments
Post a Comment