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.