The first time I left California was at age 19. I took a business trip to Tennessee & loved it. Time spent with work colleagues made for an exciting trip to a new city. It was my first time leaving California. Seeing Nashville was like being an adult-sized kid in a new, city-wide theme park. Even though I can’t stand country music, I happily tolerated it while there.

One thing I didn’t appreciate was the “slut bag” that early-on girlfriend had become, and on my watch, no less. In my absence, she promiscuously went “cock-hunting,” which saw her evicted from my own premises quickly. Hojak tolerates no dishonesty, and absolutely rejects disloyalty. Though she tried to stay involved, I rejected her every advancement.

Moves throughout Southern California followed, over a little more than the next half-decade. One relationship last 3 & a half years & went nowhere. Another after that lasted for only less than a year. By the time I found a relationship that I was capable of “emotionally contributing” to… she wasn’t as ready as I was. Though it’d spanned nearly half a decade, bypassing each other in life was an inevitability. Though she’s helped me tremendously since, she’s now married… and if it weren’t for her & her husband, I wouldn’t even be alive, let alone hitched.

Once that last relationship broke down, I left California. And it took strength.

Though the scenery some days was nice, and the neighborhoods were clean… I quickly realized that the entirety of Michigan was this cold outside. I’d never felt anything like it.

Though I found a job within a reasonable timespan of actually looking for one, commuting in those conditions was inhumane. Simply put, once I experienced a “Feels Like” temperature of -37º Fahrenheit for the first time, I knew… I needed to leave Lion Country with haste. I wasn’t genetically engineered to withstand those types of conditions…. psychologically, OR physically. Even then, their football team sucked, and their roads were more dangerous. And their people talked funny. And all their music sucked. And all their women were fat. And all their men were former lumberjacks.

I wish I’d foreseen sooner that temperatures would jump from the minus twenties, into the one-hundred-thirties. Oooooof. Even then, when presented with such a radically alternate climate to Michigan… nightly casino food court photography, alongside daily, progressive web development, became my days & nights.

Meanwhile, my “wife-back-then” sat in front of her Xbox at home, all day, smoking the entirety of my stash. She’d contribute occasionally…… monetarily, once every few months or so. The reminder she persistently presented of how useless she was eventually demanded too much of me emotionally. At first, she offered me synchronicity. In the end, it was nothing but outright indifference.

By the time she up & disappeared, part of me was relieved. Still, it took just more than 5 years for our split to legally see finality, from start to finish. Talk about a wide-awake nightmare. It followed me from state-to-state for more than half a decade. Only upon western relocation was I sent confirmation of its finality, via mail.

A “local” Uncle & I talked. At first, I had done my best to recover it all on my own. After my return to California took an unexpected “twist,” I was in no position to beg or choose. Uncle’s it was… and I hated it from the start.

Though, it all went great socially… even then, I spent my time there “waiting for the bomb to drop.” Finally, *that* night came, where I (apparently) got out of bed, mid-“episode”… then walked out of my room, unconsciously fell down their staircase, and broke my left arm. Aunt and uncle panicked, instantly called 911 & had me trucked away.

Within days of hospital admission, Uncle Fester & Aunt Ursula packed my things & delivered them to my room. I was informed that I was no longer welcome to stay with them, via handwritten note I wish I’d kept. Despite attempts to call them, no answer… absolute silence. To this day, years later, we still haven’t talked.

One friend from my teenage years that I’d stayed in touch with was sympathetic to my efforts to stay housed. He & his wife offered up a spare room for me almost instantly. There was only one technicality…… his own drinking. Just years before this crisis-driven offer of his, my mother had died from alcoholism, the hard way. My effort was simply to get back to my home state, so I took the offer… then, within a handful of months, I figured I’d be outta there. Man, did that change upon arrival.

His own drinking became a by-the-minute reminder of the hell I’d endured as a youth at home. I never saw it coming. After experiencing it first-hand as an adult & quickly remembering I hated it… I was out of there as quick as possible.

He’s tried to contact me since. When he did, he sounded drunk. I don’t want to piss him off by noticing it out-loud to him.

One long-time friend had a heart for me. I ended up staying with her for about a year & a half. We were neighbors as children. Then, suddenly, we’d be live-in roomies.

If not for their family, I would’ve ended up on the streets with no friends locally. They saved me collectively. They included me in their events & did their best to make me “feel at home” while with them. While within their line of sight, they provided me with every concession they knew to. They are collectively one of the most loving and held-together families I’ve ever known personally.

Yet, even that came to an end. Eventually, the time to persist in my journey was upon me once more.

With an old friend happy to hear from me, asking him for some “aide” was no issue. I found myself in Texas as soon as I had a way to get there… which a beloved friend helped me with readily.

Upon arrival, I saw that a teenage drinking habit of my friend’s had grown to not only overtake his physicality… but also his psychology. He’d spend days, going from wake-up to pass-out, slamming twelve-packs (at least) in-between. His significant other was wracked with misery and body pain, due to her health. As well, here he was destroying himself from the inside.

When after a year, he suggested that I’d been there long enough, I was no one to argue. From yet another friend’s home, after seeing how they really lived now, I was eager to oblige… yet, sad to leave, knowing what would be “behind me.”

Upon departure from Texas, one particular reject I’d encountered prevously reached me… almost synchronously with when I was “interested in housing.” Also being “interested” in my internet services, he attracted me out to Rosarito, Baja… a city south of the California border. It was my first time technically leaving the United States.

Granted, I arrived with a task-list in mind. I was ready to go, step-by-step… then came the wait. First it was a few hours. Then a day. Then a week. Then more. Eventually, I gathered that the guy who’d invited me to stay with him was as sharp as sand. Almost a month in, he “suddenly” told me I was “off the hook”… whereafter, relief became me.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a “groundbreaking” idea that never sees any throughput… oft provided by some reject whose thought process lacks detail. He qualified as that reject this time.

I hadn’t lived in a neighborhood where I was one of the only “white boys” since childhood. Spending my time inside wasn’t much of a choice, either…… everyone surrounding me had a criminal record. Some were on parole. Some wore anklets. Some couldn’t leave their own homes at all. By all means, this was just miles from where the Rodney King Riots of the early 1990’s took place.

I absolutely loathed it… though, it was the best that my friend was capable of doing to help me. Truthfully, her generosity right then saved my life. Homelessness on Los Angeles streets would have claimed me. Instead, she happily exchanged that “cost” for a potential argument (or thirty) with her husband. God bless that woman. As soon as the love of my life & I talked again, for the first time in nearly a decade… it was as though I had a new home, without it even having to be “spoken.”

I was asked by my friend to keep the money she’d intended to pay my rent with… then, to put it towards my new home life.

Since seeing this area, efforts to make me comfortable at home have gone unrivaled, unlike any I’ve seen before. And within months of my arrival… a sudden medical emergency of mine proved to me, beyond any doubt, that this one’s mine till I die.

To know her as long as I have, then to come as far with her as we’ve trekked, is unimaginable. We’ve been alongside each other the entire time, and are only now exploring the facets of such a friendship… nearly three decades into knowing each other. Suddenly, everyone else feels like a total waste of time. As much as I’ve loved them… I can’t help but wonder how “different” it’d all be… if only I’d have asked her to be at my side, through some of these times earlier in life.

Make no mistakes, though… since reuniting, we’ve gotten right to it on making up for lost time.

It only seemed proper that we have a “fantasy” wedding, since we’ve always “wondered,” and now the reality was ours. No more wondering anymore. The dream wedding we’d always wanted was going to be ours… and I had no idea.

With personally authored vows in hand (I wrote mine while there), we married in Hawaii in 2023. Right then, It felt to me like we should’ve done it decades ago. We enjoyed every detail of our stay… whether we stared out any given window, walked the beach, visited a shop or sat down to eat. Even if an effort to had been active, nothing came close to ruining any part of such an amazing week. I mean, hell, our island even caught fire & delayed our homeward-bound flight for two extra days. We had each other. We didn’t care.

Well, maybe we cared a little.

Our most recent “trip” took us a fraction of the way around the world… from here to Scotland, to attend a friend’s wedding. Our time there was amazing.

We sight-saw, we went on drives, we saw the country. For my first time ever, I had a friend introducing me to his homeland. I’d never seen that courteous, considerate treatment moving from state-to-state back in the US. Hell, if you drive wrong in the United States, it’s safe to expect gunfire. None of that in Scotland. There, everyone was just so happy, so “at ease” with their day. Whatever their secret is, I’ve got to do some studying.

The United States maybe ahead of the world as far as war weapons, but when it comes to living well… we have so much to learn. Scotland leaves you thinking & feeling that no one back home loves one another anywhere near this much. My happiness for my Scottish friend, and his Mrs., is at its utmost. They’ve found each other. Mission accomplished…… just like with mine & I.