Blatant Optimism

Wow that sounds like it must have been a complete drag! I TOO know how great it feels to have the curtain lifted yet once again.

Last year I had a really bad ending to a long torturous relationship. It was disgustingly tragic ending, and had a storyline fit for Jerry Springer; I'm not too proud it was me.

~~

I proposed to her with a ring I bought from Tiffany's in Beverly Hills. I rode across the North American continent via Greyhound for 3 days with just my wits, seeking to propose marriage to a woman I had known mysteriously for eight or so years, the last year or so of which had taken some strange twists.

I didn't really get my chance to propose. You see, she called the cops on me. The cop told me that she said she'd only known me two weeks.

It must have slipped her mind that she had flown out to Los Angeles a few months prior to marry me in Las Vegas and promised me her love and loyalty (and the list goes on...) It was one of those really long stringalong things that sometimes genuinely looks like true love.

I was arrested and called a "stalker" because the police tend to automatically have a "domestic" bias towards breakup cases, especially when the woman's attitude is that of a victim going into it. Now, you're probably reading this thinking, did this guy hit or "abuse" her? Well the answer is absolutely not!

I placed a sandstone carving of her name on a cement rise about waist high on the outside wall of the building so that she would see it when she arrived at home. I bought the carving from a busker in Detroit en route from California where I had been staying. Riding along the last thousand miles of my trip, I lamented my love for this woman whom I had decided I would want to marry while gazing into the letters of her name etched in sandstone.

A marriage proposal is an interesting thing. Before it is made, a man must be certain that he is willing to commit his life for better or worse, until death. It is a very beautiful and glorious commitment - one that goes to ones very soul.

I had arrived at her door mid-afternoon and lie there waiting for her return from work to surprise her. Being quite tired and rattled around from the three day drive across the continental United States, I decided to lie down, with the blue Tiffany box wrapped in a white ribbon resting in my hands on my chest should she arrive to see it.

I heard footsteps running up the stairs and as I looked up, she and a man scuffled past me and ran into the apartment, slamming the door behind them.

I stood up and knocked. There was no answer.

I knocked again, this time louder. Still no answer.

I knock louder still, considering the size of the apartment and that they may not be within reasonable hearing space of the door.

A man's voice speaks at a distance from behind the door, "she has nothing to say to you."

Baffled by this coldness (sadly not for the first time from her), I knock again, and again...

Nothing. Until I find that I am knocking desperately.

In an instant, a moment of realization came to pass that she had been deliberately messing with my mind, and had no serious intention towards me. The California visitation, the Las Vegas trip, the times at Santa Monica Pier, the walk down Rodeo drive, the lovemaking...

In Las Vegas, while we made love she stopped, looked me in the eye and said "enjoy it because it won't last." The remark puzzled me terribly.

I knock and knock. Almost pleadingly for at least some form of acknowledgement, getting none.

So there I am, looking at an armchair and some artifacts around in the hallway. I noticed a small ceramic frog in the corner of the room. I picked up the frog and threw it at the wall in protest for her coldness to my presence.

I left. Stormed out acutally. It was quite a distressing moment.

When I arrived downstairs, the police were waiting for me. She had called them either before she even arrived, or immediately upon going inside.

The police took away my passport, and I have waited over nine months to know if I will ever be able to travel to the United States again. On top of things, this "Iraq thing" is getting really ugly looking, and looks like it could affect a lot more than my own personal plans.

I arrive to meet with a businessman I had some dealings with, and am given an ultimatum under threat of reverse engineering my software and cutting me out of my contractual share of the profits.

My notebook gets stolen.

I fall into a deep depression, and try to recover from it, but it feels more like death that I could attempt to describe.

Somehow I make it through a historically tough winter, under the context of Iraqi War debates and rhetoric. I find a lawyer who will represent me with payment terms (I am self employed and am therefore not eligible for legal aid.)

Nine months of stop-and-go court appearances drag the experience out. Come back in two weeks. Come back in three months. Come back whenever, but it's not over...

Over the duration of this "cold war" I meet with some business and intellectual property lawyers that might be willing to help me with my case against my business acquaintance. I discuss the case with them.

I manage to pay my lawyer's fees, plus the $300 "replacement value" of her dollar store frog. I refrained from contesting it, because it could mean the difference between having and not having a criminal record.

Finally after nine months, my lawyer convinces the crown attorney to withdraw the charges. I am a free man once again!

The business lawyers agree to represent me under a manageable and acceptable arrangement. They sent the first letter to my former business acquaintance yesterday.

Today I went to the police station to pick up my passport. I am now free to travel to sunny California again... all I need now is some seed money and travel fare!

Nine months I endured enormous personal suffering. The causes for it were somewhat a combination of both my flaws and my virtues. It is not something I would choose to repeat, but must stand in awe of regardless in retrospect.

It has been a year of massive introspective and retrospective, pertaining to issues of conflict and standing up for oneself. Strangely I managed to come out of it alive. Have I grown? I certainly hope so!

Now that things are moving forward and the new sunshine is gleaming over the western horizon, I contemplate where I intend to work and live once I return to the desert, valley and mountain ranges of southern California. Watching the sunset over Santa Monica into the ocean, contemplating the mystery of life from amidst a desert patch of Joshua Trees, watching a mountain forest fire delicately illuminate the midnight horizon.

I remember wishing we would see the California sunset together, her and I. We went to the pier to look, but she was in a grey mood as it would swing way too often. Strange, how in the otherwise bright balmy climate, the sun was not visible, and a light misty fog blocked any view of the sunset. It were almost as though her mood had prompted a change in the weather.

Goodbye to the past.

Hello to the future!

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