There are a few times in life that I call "fork in the road" moments. I experienced one of those moments after I walked in on Gwen. In my mind, I felt as if I had two choices. I could just never talk to her again and move on or I could get back together with her and make her life a living hell and try to get my revenge. (Looking back, I realize that there were plenty other options, but this was the classic borderline black and white thought process in full effect.) In this case, I chose to get back with her. I knew that I had the upper hand and felt like I was owed something, for her hurting me. It's funny how as I type this, I feel like such a jerk for thinking this way. Anyhow, we eventually got back together and within a few months, I was actually living with her. For some reason, I don't really recall too many details during this period. I know that things were definitely rocky and she was walking on eggshells. The next thing I know, we are exchanging wedding vows, a little over a year after the "wake up call".
2011
Note* I forgot to mention in part 2, that in 2008, after a failed overdose, I quit working in the IT field, went back to college for a while and ended up working in the fitness industry.
After a few months of marriage, Gwen was pregnant and gave birth to an amazing baby boy. Things were good for awhile, but before you knew it, I was back to my old ways. I would go out and party with friends, I cheated on her a few times and was in my typical self destruct mode. In 2011 she told me that she wanted a divorce. I moved out for a week or so, but then I convinced her to get back together. Once again, repeating the patterns that I have used for most of my life.
2011 was a shitty year for me, for a number of reasons. Since Fall 2008, I was working in the fitness industry, specializing in training individuals with disabilities. In the Summer of 2008, my best friend and coworker quit the gym because he felt as if he wasn't getting paid enough. Prior to this, we had talked about starting our own gym together and I was all in. After he surprisingly quit, I just assumed that we would be starting our own business. I was wrong. I ended up finding out that he was starting his own competing gym and didn't want me to be a part of it. This was the first time that I can recall being abandoned by a male since my father and it deeply scarred me. I took the attitude of OK, you are going to screw me over? I'm going to kick ass and win. It felt eerily similar to how I felt after the "wake up call"...abandoned, hurt and betrayed by someone that I trusted.
A week or so before Thanksgiving 2011, I receive a phone call. It was my mom's husband. Her husband said that she had passed out on the floor at their apartment and that he called EMS. He said that my mother was in the ER, so I rushed to the hospital and her in a terrible state. She appeared hardly coherent and her speak was unrecognizable. She had had several small strokes over the years, so I assumed that it had happened again. Over the next few days, her condition got worse and the medical staff determined that she had a tumor on her brain stem and that she wouldn't have much time left. To say that this shocked me would be an understatement...I was too young to lose a parent...it's not supposed to happen this way...she was the only person I felt who gave unconditional love and support to me. Less than 10 days later she passed away in hospice.
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