With the necessity to move comes the opportunity to see new places & things. I began working for an ISP after just turning 18. I never thought I’d be en route to Tennessee a little more than a year later. Yet lo and behold, that’s only where my adventures began. Be it because of profession or health, whether fortunately or sadly… I’ve seen more corners of the country, and WORLD, than most ever will. there came times when “movement” was necessary. In more comfortable instances, opportunity knocked. At times, love beckoned. Though, in each & every case, nothing worked out… defying promises & guarantees, and sometimes going as far to abandon long-standing allegiances (even involving family).

Trust me…… they all want to “see you win.” Who in the hell even actually knows what that MEANS anymore, you know?

One thing I didn’t appreciate…… the “slut bag” that my 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 denied her every advancement.

Moves throughout the country followed, over the next several years. On tour, one romantic relationship lasted three & a half years & went nowhere. Another after that lasted for only less than a year. In some cases, I even made special out-of-the-way trips… only to eventually be met with rejection & cynicism, once my neurological “malfunction” revealed itself. By the time I found a relationship that I was ready to “emotionally contribute” to… she wasn’t as ready as I was.

Though that relationship spanned nearly half a decade, bypassing each other in life was a sad inevitability. She’s helped me tremendously since such a consequential division, and she’s now married (as am I)… though if it weren’t for her & her husband, whether he knows it or not… I wouldn’t even be alive, let alone “hitched” today.

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

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, and with haste.

I just wasn’t genetically engineered to withstand those types of conditions…. psychologically, OR physically.

Even then, their football team sucked, their roads were more dangerous than California’s, and most of their people talked funny.
Plus all their “modern” music sucked. Add-in that 90% of their women were “morbid,” and 85% their men were former lumberjacks/auto mechanics enduring arctic winds.

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

She definitely tells stories to this day about her horror story of a “Vegas Adventure.” She’d never honestly include details about her own ignorance of my medical condition… or, her prioritization of a cat above a sickened husband. In all likelihood, things like this will sum up to why that one dies alone.

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-to-state-to-state for more than half a decade. Only upon “western relocation back home” was I mailed confirmation of its finality.

I knew that this woman would, in time, actually SEE me “malfunction”… and I walked into this arrangement outright wondering how she’d handle it. I had no idea how it’d go, and I waited for the answer to that question, for around 5 months…… to end 2018, then thru the end of the first fiscal quarter of 2019.

In the course of my time there , not only were all my gathered belongings from leaving Vegas “stolen”… but she preemptively filed a restraining order, then kicked me out. All I’d done was experience a neurological emergency in her apartment/town home/condo. Suddenly, police were arriving after days of her having disappeared, and they were telling me I had to leave immediately.

Irreplaceable hand-me-downs, family heirlooms, souvenirs of bloodline achievements… several generations’ worth of over-time family belongings… all gone, because I ever-so-momentarily trusted the wrong promiscuous, dishonest deviant.

In time, fate will surely handle her type’s deservings. On this, I have no doubts whatsoever.

Though it all went great socially at first, 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, I walked out of my room, I unconsciously/deliriously fell down their staircase… and landed with a broken left arm in two places, four stairs from the bottom. Aunt & uncle panicked, instantly called 911 & had me hauled to the hospital.

Within days of ER/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 a brief, handwritten note I wish I’d kept. Despite two attempts to call them, no answer… absolute silence. To this day, years later, we still haven’t talked. Before all this… I’d been “informed” that they had intentionally disconnected MY internet access, aiming to “usher me out” of their home. In the end, my “almost dying” in their home may have done my relatives a Satanic favor of sorts.

Yes…… that’s the family I call “mine,” un-fФϴking-fortunately.

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, via my mother. I never saw it coming. After experiencing it first-hand as an adult, friend-to-friend, and then QUICKLY remembering hating it… I was outta there as quickly as possible. Two-and-a-half months, maybe.

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

They are collectively one of the most loving and held-together families I’ve ever known personally. And though everyone has their issues, I’m no one to speak on anyone else’s. I can only speak honestly in regards to what I think, feel, have experienced & hope to achieve. My time with that family was loving. caring, safe, sincere and genuine.

Yet, even then… my time there came to an end. Eventually, the urge to persist on my journey was within me once more.

A teenage drinking habit of my friend’s had grown to not only overtake his mind, but also his body… his physicality, AND his psychology. He’d spend days, going from wake-up to pass-out, slamming twelve-packs (at least) in-between. Having watched my mother effectively “go out” the same way, it was influencing. I needed to get out of there, but I had no other options.

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 split… yet, sad to leave, knowing what would figuratively be “behind me.”

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. At just under a month into it, 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 a professional reject whose thought process lacks detail. He qualified back then as that reject, at that time.

… and yet again, here I was with nowhere to stay, go or rest.

By all means… the place I stayed in Los Angeles was miles from where the Rodney King Riots of the 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.

We’ve been alongside each other the entire time, and are only just 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.

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.

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 incoming 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 may be ahead worldwide, as far as war weaponry… 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.

Dream the Dreams of Others Then You Will Be No One’s Rival

Finding your “other half”…… not just a partner, but the one you belong with, makes such a difference. Whether in sickness or in health, that extra supportive leg can be crucial when least expected. Love doesn’t cure everything, but it does aide in a lot of processes throughout life. Love doesn’t make life easier… but it DOES make adjusting to the hard parts a little less “harsh on the head.” Or “heavy on the heart,” even. Either way, pairing-up with the one you belong with is a lot more fun than taking it all on alone. Find yourself happily encumbered, take comfort in your security, and go forth. The world awaits you. That same world would love to see you two happily together.

“A Distant Time, a Distance Space… That’s Where We’re Living… A Distant Time, a Distant Place… So Whatcha’ Giving?”

~Eddie Vedder