4 P.M. in the afternoon my phone rings. It was my older sister. My older sister calling in the middle of the day was never a good sign. It was pretty much always bad news. “Hello Jessica,” I answered. “Hi Gregory,” Jessica replied. “We need to talk about Mom,” she continued. Immediately my entire heart sank and a chill came over my entire body. I knew this was bad. My mother had broke her hip a year earlier, and even though my younger brother, Johnathan, and my older sister Josette lived with her Jessica and I were always the decision makers. The last hour of work dragged on as I was not looking forward to my family meeting at my mothers home. Driving home I tried to let me thought float to other less serious matters as I took a few hits of some weed I picked up the day before. It worked it’s usual magic numbing my mind. Sooner than I liked I arrived in the driveway. Everyone’s car was here. I took a few minutes in my car to gather my thoughts. Walking to the door I felt a sick hopeless feeling overcome me, but I pushed that down deep inside as I walked through the door. “Hi mom,” I said and I gave her a kiss hello. She was sitting on the center couch. “How you feeling mom,” I asked. For the first time in my life my mother admitted she wasn’t well. I didn’t even wait for any discussion. Immediately we all new, she had to go to the hospital. I hadn’t been around much for the past few months except for the occaisional weekend visit. 10 months ago my mother had broke her hip on my birthday. This event was also preceded by an afternoon call from my older sister Jessica. That is an another horrible day burned into my memory. I still remember walking in to her house that day, just like this day there she sat in pain, could hardly move. Except for that day we had to call 911 to get her to the hospital. The sadness of the moment almost made it surreal, there I stood standing watching two paramedics carry my mother out on a gurney. It was the eve of my 34th birthday, but that was the last thing on my mind. We checked into the hospital around 8 P.M. It was a busy Friday night in the E.R. so we spent most of the night in the hallway. It took me over an hour of my complaining to get her morphine for her pain. My sister Jessica was with us at first, but she left around 1 A.M. We didn’t see a doctor till about 3 A.M. He quickly diagnosed the situation as a broken hip. That night we spent 7 hours in that hallway surrounded by heart attack victim, car crash victims, feverish infants, and one gun shot victim. The latter part was an blur, but I do remember watching the sunrise out of her room window. So based on the time of year it must have been just after 6 A.M. Exhausted I knew I had to leave soon but I waited till my mother’s her next round of morphine knowing that she would at lest sleep for the next 45 minutes. Before she drifted into her drug induced sleep I kissed her goodbye and told her Jessica would be in the check on her in a few hours. As I walked out, “She said happy birthday son.” I joked, “It’s been 34 years since we last spent the night in this hospital together.” I drove home numb and emotionally drained. Marie was still sleeping when crawled into bed. Without a word I collapsed into a dead sleep. That morning I had a dream that haunted me my entire life. It was a women draped in shadowed. Her hair dark and silk, full lips and dark eyes. She has several tattoos but any real detail is a blur. What is most pronounced is a warm compassionate glow that surrounds her. It’s always the same. There I am looking up at her spinning in space above me, filling my skies. After I wake from this dream I’m always sad. Sad because I never thought she existed, except this morning. Still exhausted having only a few hours I jump out of bed with electrified intent and purpose. “She is real,” I tell myself silently. I love these divine moments of clarity. You might think I’m crazy, but I always loved. I loved her before she step out of my dreams, and now that she’s real…lets just say the beating of her heart is all that I hear.The night Marie and I had a small cake to celebrate my birthday but there weren’t many reasons to celebrate that night.

Monday I returned to work since we were still waiting for my mother’s hip surgery to be scheduled. My mind wasn’t on work, but considering the situation I thought I’d conserve my days off. I wasn’t looking forward to my conversation with Dyanne, my miserable boss. I’ve seen her talk shit about a fellow worker for missing time off from work for a family illness, so I knew not to expect much compassion other than that she was taught in her online HR training course. We had a team meeting that morning, just me and team tampon. I loved our team meetings. Dyanne’s leadership style always reminded me of the queen from Alice in Wonderland. That meeting we were discussing new projects coming down the pipe. Of course all the choice projects were given to her two favorite pets. Sarene her favorite, the real work horse of the team, always was assigned to the most challenging projects. Second in the chain was, Priscila, she was the youngest of the team but Dyanne had a strange form of respect for her. Maybe she saw a familiar sensibility…the hatred of all things loving and fair, or maybe it was the hatred of all things with a penis.

Morning in Edison. How can I describe it? Don’t get me wrong we get paid very well and for what we do. I’m not going to dare complain. For the last 10 or so years I have had it very good, sheltered from the economic downturns the rest of the nation has been dealing with. We are very lucky, I know this, but at the same time I feel day after day that I am alone in my awareness of the absurdity to life in this place. Millions and millions of dollars come through the veins of this beast and at the end of the day you have to laugh at what we have to show for it. Once we spent $150,000 just so one of our executives could have wifi connection from his mistresses summer home. We have actually flown a technician out to Florida overnight so his daughter would be able to print her book report. My team maintains the companies web and mobile applications. This means that we are the face of every error, glitch, network error, and security breach. We are the face of this whole mess. Let me walk you through a typical day. I get in around 9 am. Usually high from my drive in. I login and my soul logs into the sound of her heart. It’s best tells me nothing is impossible and …

Life definitely is full of surprises at every turn. The irony is that these surprises are entirely predictable if you listen to your heart. I should’ve known she would never let me love her. In some ways I felt I would never deserve her, but at the same time maybe she didn’t deserve me. Let me back up a bit and catch you to this story of my life. Last night was the first time I laid it on the line with Ivy. I invited her to dinner last night. It was an amazing night. We talked, we laughed, and for the first time I felt we really connected and crossed that line to intimacy. I have always been in love with this girl. From the moment we met I knew she was going to change my life. She’s quite beautiful, although she would disagree with that statement. I don’t understand why she would disagree, false modesty, low self esteem, or just pure blindness. It was obvious she has no shortage of male admirers. She is pure beauty in a classical timeless sense. Deep beautiful brown eyes, silky black hair, soft brown skin and round full sensuous lips. She slender with modest frame, but had elegant curves flowing from her face, down her neck through her low back all the way those delicious thighs. I have never used that word to describe a women, but she was…delicious to the eyes and mind. She stands only about about 5′ 4″, but her attitude adds about 10 feet. You would never know it by looking at her, she had a gentle almost unsure gait, but once inside your heart you would realize this women is a lion. I swear I could stare at her for hours and never blink, but it’s not the outside that made fall so hard. It’s her heart that amazes me. I could fill the rest of this book describing that heart. Strong, vulnerable, determined, warm, selfless, gentle, but at the same time so lost, scared, and confused. So strange that all that could combine into one amazing woman. She makes it work, and I was hooked the moment our eyes met. She worked downstairs on the first floor. I was oblivious to her existence until my friend asked me to be his wingman on a double date. She is not quite typical for my department, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. She is not as technical as the rest of us, but she makes up for it with common sense, a tenacious work ethic, and never ending desire to do what is right. Anyway back to last night. It was a climax of our relationship. I finally confessed my hearts desire to her. We feel asleep in each others arms watching the moon trail across the sky. I thought it was the start of a new life, but instead I wake up to find her gone without a trace except for one stray bobby pin on her pillow. She didn’t leave a note, but she didn’t have to leave one. As always her silence speaks volumes. For hours I sat here looking at the window thinking she’d pull up with coffee, but my heart knows better. She’s gone. She a runner. It’s what she does best. I’m not sure if it’s the threat of happiness that scared her, or if it’s the morning after that made her run. Either way she’s gone and I know she doesn’t want to be chased.

My name is Gregory. My life has been full of love, family, friends, travels, and in no way have I been denied anything. Let’s face it I have had a great life. Great parents. Great education. Loving childhood. There really isn’t much to complain about, but on the other side of this coin is another story. Despite everything I just said I have always known there was more to be had. I have felt there is a hidden world in me that has slept like a dormant volcano. I believe there is hidden potential in all of us. It’s true most of us live lives of quiet desperation. If we are lucky one day something comes along and changes us. Suddenly the desperation get tired of being quiet. For me this catalyst was a women. I know it sounds so cliche. Boy meets girl, girl loves boy, and boy changes the world. What can I say? There is nothing a man can’t do when he has the love of an amazing women. I work in what’s called information technology for a large utility company. Having come from crazy internet start ups I thought I was come to boring corporate life. Little did I know this boring stability had its own insanity. This company is fucken nuts. Management here doesn’t think like you or me. Logic has no place in these halls. Take my boss for example. Middle aged, fat, miserable, drinks a gallon of diet coke a day, and excels at one thing, complaining. If it was an Olympic sport she would be god damn Michael Spits. She basically has the personality of a rabid hyena with PMS. So does rest of my team. You see despite working in the realm of IT my team is an anomaly. It’s all female except for me. I swear some days I feel like all the estrogen in the is going to give me Cancer.

Life around here was the full of mind numbing days as you would imagine life in a huge corporate entity to be. We spent our days on multi-million dollar projects that targeted ends that never seemed to be reached. There was nothing spectacular about life around here, that was until that one bright day in June. It was a warm summer Friday and little did I know my life was about to change. I’d never be the same after that evening. I sometimes wish I would of passed on the invitation, but I know this was fate. My world would definitely be different, but who am I kidding some events in your life have a relentless gravity. You can fight it but it’s still going to flood your world. Kind of like fighting a tidal wave. It’s a futile attempt. Most days here at the corporation were filled with a blissful ignorance. Countless mind numbing meetings that left its attendees more confused, pointless exercises of even more pointless methodologies, and leadership whose only goal was surviving to retirement age left me jaded and full of sarcasm. My only escape were the happy hours at our local watering hole. During these drinking sessions we lamented our wasted days, licked our wounds, and pretty much fantasized of breaking free of the golden handcuffs the corporation used to cripple our souls. These social events peppered my days, giving spice to these my wasted days in corporate IT. My home life was for many years a wonderful escape. I lived in a small Spanish bungalow about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. I loved my house, and share it with my long time girlfriend and three dogs.

My girlfriend, Marie, met in the early years of high school. She was an only child raised by her mom, Martha, and step father Gus. Martha was a bit neurotic but made up for it by her friendly demeanor and warm presence. Sadly she passed on many of her neurotic tendencies to her daughter. Gus was an artist and funeral director. I suppose all artist are a bit quirky, dare I say strange. Ok lets face it Gus was his own kind of person. A conversation with him was kind of like being in a car with no steering wheel, fun at times, scary at times, but always an adventure that left you confused. Both of them were a good people, but there were times I felt they burdened their daughter more than needed. My heart always went out to Marie during the holidays. You see among her mothers numerous neurotic tendencies she was also agoraphobic, and it took an event of monumental proportion to get her out of the house. Never did they visit for a Christmas, Birthday, or any type of holiday. Regardless Marie and I has many wonderful years together. Over the years we always shared a deep passionate love, passionate in all the good and bad ways that passion can be. I loved her, still do, but during the final years of our time together we let go of each other. I hid behind weed and happy hours, and she hid behind her anger and lies. I never thought we’d lose each other the way we did, but this unhappiness ate away at both of us. During the height of this unhappiness we would break out into fierce ridiculous argument’s of simple innocuous events. The moment I took notice of the ridiculous nature of my behavior was during a night at home as I was cooking dinner. She actually gave me a compliment, sweet and simple in nature and I almost bit her head off. These were lonely times for me. Sad profound times when the world would momentarily stop spinning and I’d be alone with my thoughts. My vicious thoughts would feed of my damaged heart as I felt sorry for myself in a haze of alcohol and smoke. I truly regret those days, mostly for the selfishness and anger that plagued my mind.

Then there were my dogs. The trully only innocent victims in this story. I have nothing but love for all animals, especially mine. They are, they were my family. As we split I let them go live with her. I knew it would be harder for her in the beginning, living alone, and I knew they help keep her strong. We had four dogs. The smallest one, was a “chi-weenie”, Jules. She was Chihuahua and Dodson mix. She was a mischievous, lovable, warm, 16 pound bundle of joy. Jules was found roaming the streets of Montebello. She died a few months before we officially split up. Roxy, the pack leader, was a German shepherd mix. The shepherd in her made her smart, inquisitive and loyal. Roxy was rescued from a K-Mart parking lot in Rosemead. Bruno, a stray we found abandoned in a industrial park with another dogs, was a pit bull boxer mix. He was the smartest of the bunch, surprisingly obedient, and extremely loyal. Jules and Bruno were my favorite. Last there was Lola, a large Rottweiler, and the only non-stray of the bunch. Lola, as all Rotts, is a large rude mass of dog. She is lovable but only seems to respect your words when you are yelling them at her. For years we all lived in our home happily. There were lonely times, but in the beginning we were happy.

Mornings for me were busy. Let me run you through my typical morning for me. I get up at 5 a.m. to help Marie get ready for work. You would think a 30 year old woman can get ready for work by herself? Did I also mention that this is 4 hours before my start time. She jumps in the shower while I cook her breakfast, and make her lunch. Breakfast on most days consisted of an omelet, but lately we have been juicing so this adds thirty minutes of washing and slicing vegetables. Once our juice was ready then I would make her lunch, and fill her water bottle. This usually would consist of chicken and vegetables, or on days I was lazy a sandwich. Once out of the shower everything would be waiting for her by the door. You would think she’d appreciate this as any normal human being would, but no. Somehow she this became expected and unappreciated. Would you believe once she complained that there was too much avocado in her sandwich? She even had the audacity to complain to her friends about this sandwich. Thank god among her friends there were actually some sane ones. She later confessed to me one of her good friend said, “Oh my god Marie stop complaining. You think anyone gets up early to make you breakfast or lunch?” I didn’t want a badge for my actions I just wanted a tiny bit of acknowledgement and appreciation. Once she is out the door I then feed our dogs and put them out for the day. After all of this I then get myself ready for work, and make my lunch. Yes, unbelievable I know, I actually get myself ready for work just like a normal adult.

I usually smoke weed on the way to work. It’s the only way I am actually able to get through my morning and deal with boss. I could take the freeway, but I take the streets. Taking the long way to work gives me more time to enjoy my morning smoke. During drives to and from work I smoke, it helps pass the time. Once I arrive to work I put a couple of drops of visine in my eyes to get the red out. I get to work around 9 a.m., but this actually makes me the early one from my team. I’m lucky to have a 20 minute commute to work. The rest of my team commutes either from the valley or Orange County. I guess their horrible commute could complain for 2 percent of their bitchiness. Once at my desk I eat my breakfast and get ready to waste another day of my life.

It was an unusually hot summer in Irwindale. The City of Irwindale is mostly industrial littered with rock quarries, which somehow made the city eternally dusty. We’d joke it was the armpit of Southern California. There was a wave of fitness that had taken over our facility, and there were two after work workout classes that divided our facility into two camps. On one end there was the boot camp and the other there was the cross fit class. Both took place down the street for our building. Initial Dan and I enrolled in cross fit, but the. For the second round he decided to enroll in the boot camp class for some reason. At first I did know why because honestly it really was his cup of tea, and I really didn’t think anything of it.

He sat across the table secretly terrified as watched her ordering their meal. He sat their terrified knowing if he stared too long his world would start to fade away. Anytime he was with her this was a danger he faced. Despite the obvious danger he would sometimes play a game and stare long enough till the world around her was just a blur of meaningless shapes. Really he couldn’t help it, but he knew if he stared too long she would recognize the look hopeless love. Who wouldn’t stare, women like her have a gravity of their own, and it’s so easy to fall into orbit around them. He never really tried to define this attraction, and it wasn’t until this very moment that he realized how perfection could be a burden. Sometimes she fought this relentless avalanche of never ending desire and affection that always seemed to follow her. He acknowledge and accepted the fact that he wasn’t the only one that would fall into orbit around her. He knew he wasn’t the first or last that would fall in the trap of loving her. She never tried to hurt anyone. He knew she’d break many hearts, even his, but he never blamed her. It was due to no fault of her own. Her only crime was existence. He could see the moment they met that she found her existence exhausting. He watched time and time again as she tried to fight it. Sometimes she fought with words, sometimes with silence, sometimes she turned the fight inward, but nothing, not even her, could stop him from loving her. No matter how hard she pushed his love always found a way to secretly grow. He was far past the point of no return, he past it two seconds after he met her, and it was never a thought to look back. Their food came in a cloud of delicious aromas. The sizzling meat, the steaming rice, and the endless assortment of sides over loaded his senses. Things were always bigger and brighter in her presence. Reality took on a whole new meaning in her eyes. These are words he could never tell her. The truth of it all would be too much for her heart to handle. She’d run back into her shell,and all these wonderfully decadent moments would fade to memories instantly. She had him living every day on the edge between his dreams and reality, and it was terrifying. Her beauty split his reality in two, but somehow this love, a love deep and ancient kept him strong. As they ate and talked about the random moments of life that surrounded their day he eventually gave in and let his world fade away. He knew he was crazy for loving her the way he did. He couldn’t deny sanity and reason would tell him to run far and fast, but he was never one to choose logic over love. They eventually finished their meal. He walked her to her car and said his goodbyes. He stood their watching her drive away, the silhouette of her car framed by the setting sun and he stood their until her car was just a shapeless shadow on the horizon. As he walked to his car he promised himself one day these two realities would fade to one.

I still remember the first time I walked into our current building. It was a converted call center with two floor, and each large room seemed to be the size of a football field. It was an open floor plan, as all call centers are, with diagonal rows of desk streaming across each floor. Myself and a few coworkers had stopped by on our lunch break to get a preview of our new facility. It was freshly painted with color coded columns to identify the location of each team. Our team, the portal team, was identified by the color beige. I guess we didn’t show up the day they were picking colors. Beige always seemed to me as a non color. I always had the desire to throw a football or frisbee across the room, but regrettable never did. Walking in I would never think I would be here for six years, and I had know idea that my life would change so much over these few years. I spent most of my time on the second floor, although I did spend time working in a small support room on the first floor during a short temporary work assignment. That was the same room Jadie now worked. It is kind of funny she ended up sitting in the same desk I sat at during that year. Looking back over those years I can’t regret much I had an opportunity to learn many new skills, work with a diverse set of teams, learn the insane logic of corporate America, but out of all these things not many things would come close to have the impact of the little brunette working on the first floor. Ironically during the last years in this building I thought I was fall off course with no direction in site, but little did I know I was only now headed back to my true self and was about to rediscovery my passion and purpose in life. I can’t say it was all Jadie. Of course she will be forever be the shining beacon reminding me the way home when days get dark, but I pull myself up out of this downward spiral. I was a mess during the last of the years in the building, if you ask her she would say I am still a mess, but the truth is I’m not. I still love her with an insane passion that is defies reason, but she will never understand that’s just the nature of true love. Some call it infatuation, some might call it delusion or madness, but I know it’s now. Infatuation fades, madness and delusion leaves you lost. My love has never faded for her, and loving her has always brought me back home. I’m not saying there weren’t torturous times, but I could never turn my back on the fact that I was meant to love her. I’m still not sure where this will all end. I still don’t know how our story ends, but I am alive and loving her fuels my passions. Maybe one we will each other again.

Somedays you just know aren’t going to end right, but this day wasn’t one of those days. It started no different than a thousands of other days. Breakfast, work, and then a happy hour. She set up the happy for the birthday of a co-worker. Being at one of our favorite local watering holes and this being an opportunity to see her I knew wild horses couldn’t keep me away. I was laser focused on my tasks for the day to be sure nothing delayed me from today’s birthday celebration. It’s amazing what a man can accomplish with the right motivation (that motivation almost always being a women). My team was in the middle of a project and as always there were a long list of unforeseen tasks that came up, but nothing was going to keep me from her today. I handled each task the way a medieval knight slayed dragons. Before I knew it it was 5 pm. I quickly and silently undocked my laptop and packed up for the day so not to alert my team of my on time departure. It never failed anytime I wanted to leave early someone would have an urgent request or my team’s lead would need to have a conversation with me, but not today. I stepped away from my desk with the skillful stealth of a ninja. I even took the back stair case to avoid any possible obstacle. Finally I was at my car, I quickly threw my bag in the car and drove to the bar. I saw her car as I drove in the parking lot and quickly parked in an adjacent park spot. Seconds after walking in an unconscious reflex led my eyes to her. Walking up I made sure she was the last person I greeted to be sure I wasn’t obvious in my reason for being there. (in progress will be back later tonight to finish)

Gregory’s mother was never the same after his father died. His father and mother were high school sweethearts, and married just out of high school. For about 20 years they were happily married, but just before turning 50 his father had an affair. Gregory’s father briefly moved out of the house. The other women was a friend of the family. Gregory was only 17 and reacted with anger and resentment for his father. He was angry not only because he felt betrayed by his father, but also because he was the last to know. Everyone, it seemed, knew before him. The night he left the house his parents called all his siblings into the kitchen. Even his older sister, who now lived in her own house, came over. His parents calmly announced they had been having problems and they would be spliting up. After the talk his father went to his bedroom and packed a small bag of clothes. It all went very well until my father physically walked out the door. This where his mother had her break down. She ran after his father crying, begging him not to leave. His father was barely ten feet out the door. Gregory and his sisters had to pry their mother off his father. “Let him leave mom,” Gregory pleaded. It killed them all to see her like this, their mother, having grown up with an abusive mother had always been strong for her loved ones around her. “Don’t leave, please don’t leave,” was all he could remember he saying. There he stood in the patio of his childhood home, holding his mother as she continued to cry and calapse into a broken version of someone he had never seen before. It was very surreal, a few days prior he thought his life, his family, and his parents were perfect. Both parent were the eldest in their own families and there was certain pride Gregory had always felt knowing his parents were respected and admired by his entire family. This was now over 20 years ago, but every detail has been burned into his memory. His father eventually came back to the house, but Gregory always wondered why he came back. Did he come back because he loved his mother? Did he come back because he loved his family, or did he come back because financial it was impossible for Gregory and his brother to stay in private school and their father live separately? Maybe it was a mixed of all three, but Gregory always felt his fathers love for his mother was not the main reason. He was happy to have him back, but on some level his family was never the same. Sadly his father died of cancer two years later. It was not almost fourteen years later and his mother now had cancer. Just like that night she still leaned on Gregory heavily for many things. Gregory was not spending his evening, and every free moment he had at the hospital with his dying mother.

Gregory woke up just a few minutes before 5 a.m. The morning was still thick with darkness from the previous night. Off in the distance he heard the trains whistle. This triggered the memory of his father. His father was a truck driver and he always left early. As a child he’d always wake up early to see him off. Ever since he died these early hours felt lonely, at least until he met Jadie. He never realized that until this morning. There were many changes coming up in life for Gregory. All parts of his life were changing. He had breifly moved back into his parents house to sell it. A year prior he had ended his long time relationship with Christina. He layed in bed thinking of all the tasks for the upcoming day at work. Finding it hard to concentrate today he turned on the TV hoping to find distraction. He was finding it hard to fight the desire today, the desire that was always in the back of his head. The desire to love her. Loving her always led him to reach out to her, and he knew he had to embrace these cold lonely nights. He knew he loved Jadie too much for this life. A thought that he always felt strange. “How could you love someone too much,” he thought to himself. Somehow the dark early hours of the morning always smacked him in the face with this fact. At this point in this life he felt stronger than he ever did, but still he felt helpless because in the back of his mind he knew he would never love anyone as perfectly or completely as Jadie. Forcing himself to get up he went for a run. Knowing he would selling the house soon these morning runs felt nostalgic. He tried to memorize every house, every tree passed because he knew he would be passed soon. As an exercise of self control he forced his mind to focus on his upcoming date with Karla. He enjoyed his time with Karla, but unfortunately she didn’t still the deep emotions Jadie did. It wasn’t that Karla wasn’t beautiful, or intelligent. She was educated, and in fact was more closer to the type of women Gregory was attracted too. This weekend’s date was set for a French restaurant that Karla had been wanting to go to. Just going through the motions he had reached out to Karla and set this date. Today Gregory’s legs were sore from the week’s run. His feet pounded with a steady cadence. Running was never easy for him but he learned to use his hidden pain to fuel his runs. He ran his usual 3 miles and returned to home to get ready for his work day.