I oft wonder if I’ll ever find true love or if the sense of a “true love” even exists. I know for mosts the answer is yes, and hell, even for me the answer is yes. There is no other option. Yet, if it does truly exist, which it does, why is it that most of us never truly find it? Is it that it’s been there all along yet our own skewed vision of it blinds us and keeps us from embracing the love we are missing?

In my quest of finding this true love, I stopped my life, abandoned my friends who’d been there for me in every possible way, and pursued a girl I’d only know for a few weeks. I gave my all to her. I gave more than my all.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love like never before. It was a feeling I am glad I got to feel but a feeling I now hate nonetheless. She obviously wasn’t the true love I’d been searching for. There’s no way.

What I now know is, I threw away my life pursuing a girl when if I’d had my eyes open, I would have realized the girl was already in my life. There was already a smart, creative, funny, and overall amazing girl in my life. Because of my male instincts I didn’t see that. It’s too late now though. I can’t possibly go back to talking to her without feeling guilty with myself for the feeling I’m only doing so because I am now I broken mess. I’m more of a man than that. I have the decency to admit I fucked up. In the end it seems as though I lost two things in life. “You only realize how much something means to you once it’s gone.” Yeah, I guess they are right when they say that.

I shouldn’t have to stop my life to find love. When it’s the right one, neither I nor her will have to sacrifice our ambitions. They will essentially be one, helping each other reach our goals. I guess that’s one thing I should have seen during this past “relationship.” I gave up on my ambitions to make her happy. I gave up on being true to myself. Please people, never follow in my footsteps and give up on being yourself!

So with this I say, “Keep Faith” brothers. Life is short and there is no use in crying over spilled milk.

Tomorrow I begin my photographic journey again. I’ll pick up the camera after having unforgivably set it aside in the outcast of my life for over four months. Tomorrow begins a new chapter in my life. I a new chapter I am going to share with you all along the way. A chapter of my life I want the entire world to see. This is the first post under the blog category I have created to share my feelings and thoughts with the world, but trust me when I say, it certainly will not be the last.

Lately I’ve been spending the
Best time of my life with you
And I hope I’ve somehow
Made your heart flutter too.
There’s nothing on this world
I wouldn’t do for you to see
You mean more than
My entire life to me.
I promise you girl
What I feel will never change,
Without you, my life
Would never be the same.

It may seem to be the shortest of time
Since I’ve known you and your love,
But already I consider you rightfully mine.
It may seen pretentious to say but our love is blessed from above.

I never want to know what it’s like
To be alone and apart from you.
Only by your side do I ever feel right,
Without you I don’t know what I’d do.

So please say you’ll never leave my side,
And I promise I’ll always be there when you need me.
I’ll never leave your heart vulnerable and open wide.
I wish I could make this fact easier to see.

You are the love of my life
And the only person I’d
one day consider calling my wife.

So I sing this song at the top of my lungs
Thank you for always being there.
You know you’ll always have that special place inside my heart
And when this song is being sung
I want you to know i’ll always care
About you even though we’re now apart
I’ll miss you dearly my dear departed friend
We had the best of times until the end,
My dear departed friend

So won’t you please come home
I’ve been missing you for far too long
Every night that goes by, the sleep gets harder
And I can’t help but feel I need more of you.

So many times I’ve felt a burning heart
The last thing that I would ever want
Is for you to feel the burden of a broken heart

I promise, I’ll never leave your side
Cuz baby, even in the darkest light
You’re the only one I want in my life
(you’re the only one I want to spend my life with)

A woman calls to complain about her newly bought television set. I try to tell her she’s called the wrong number but she insists she’s got the right number. She says her “smart-phone” told her that number, my number, was the number for her local Best-Buy. The Best-Buy where she just left from buying her new television, she says. I want to tell her that a “smart-phone” is only as smart as the person using it. I want to tell her that by what I’ve heard over the phone so far, I’ve come to the conclusion she’s missing half of her alcohol deceased brain. Yet, I keep my calm and try to help her with what I can. I know if I hang up she’ll call again and demand to talk to the manger—the non-existent manager that lives in the Best-Buy inside my house.

At this point I’m sitting in the living room with my MacBook Pro in my lap, ready to peck away at the keys in effort to find out what’s wrong with her television set. Hopefully somebody’s had the same problem as her and looked online for help. I ask her to slowly and clearly explain to me what the problem is and she replies, “First of all, this stupid goddamn television didn’t come with a remote. How in the hell do they expect people to operate this thing? While I was hooking it up I realized it doesn’t have those connecter thingies to connect my DVD player. It says right here…” (I can hear her fingernails tapping on the box over the phone and I can almost see her in my mind; red curly hair, thick red lipstick, bubblegum being chewed erratically and the smell of cigarettes hanging in the air.) “…on the box, ‘Watch your entire movie collection from the comfort of your couch with no need to get up to change disks.’ If it doesn’t even have slots for me to connect my DVD player how am I supposed to watch my entire movie collection?”

By now I already know what television she is talking about and I’ve closed my laptop, setting it down on the floor next to me. I ask her if she’s turned it on yet to which she responds “Did you not hear me when I said it came with no remote? Where do they hire you guys? You’re supposed to be helpful not a bunch of idiots.” I consider hanging up but I’ve already been on the phone with her for over 10 minutes and would rather it just be over with once and for all.

“On the back on the television, next to the power cord, there’s a switch. Flip it. Once you’ve done that say ‘Siri, TV on.’ The television will start up on its own. At this point it will guide you through setting up the rest of the system. It doesn’t have connections in the back because it’s all fully integrated. By movie collection they don’t mean you’re old DVD’s. They are talking about movie content you buy in the iTunes store. Everything is integrated with the cloud, iCloud. So whatever you have previously bought on your iPad, iPhone or iPod will automatically be available for you to re-download when you get the system setup.”

There’s a long silence on the line at which point I wonder if she’s hung up on me but I don’t hear the dial tone so I stay on the line. A minute later I hear a chuckle and her voice saying “ooh, that’s nifty.” A smile creeps on my face knowing she finally realized how the television set works. She finally comes back on the line and says, “Thank you for all your help, I’ll call your manager and let him know what a wonderful worker they’ve got. Maybe you’ll get a promotion.” She hangs up leaving me with the phone held to my ear, wishing she could have aided me in getting a promotion.  Too bad I didn’t work at Best-Buy.

I look at the clock and it’s already two-thirty-six in the afternoon. Being a Friday, I didn’t have to get up early for class at the local community college. I’d been able to sleep in late, well past midday before getting up.  By now I’ve drunken my fair amount of coffee, one of my only bad habits, and feel the need to get out and do something before going to work; my real work. I put on my running shoes and change into some gym shorts. Outside it’s still warm for an early September day, so I decide to go jogging for a little bit to clear my mind. Ever since I was a young boy I liked to go running long distances. My mother used to call me Speedy Gonzalez because she could never keep me from running. Sometimes I would start off running with a clear intent to stop within a couple miles and turn around but minutes would turn into hours and I would keep on jogging. More than once I’d had to call home from a stranger’s house because I’d forgotten my phone at the house and needed a ride back. She said I reminded her of grandpa a lot when he was a young man. He used to run to clear his mind too, I guess that’s one reason me and grandpa always got along so well. We had stories to tell each other of our jogs and adventures through the countryside. Usually his stories would be more exciting than mine but I think that’s due to how crazy times were when he was younger. Either that or he embellished the truth a bit to make it more enjoyable to hear.

I jog to the end of road where it becomes a gravel path and turn instead into a trail off to the side made by off-terrain vehicles. At the end of the trail, there’s a pond I used to frequent with my grandfather when I was younger. We used to fish in the afternoons and camp out at night. I can remember many great memories at that pond.

When I get there, I wipe the sweat from my forehead and looks across the pond to the other side where two cows are grazing in the field. Sometimes I wonder if they know they are destined to be eaten. Wonder if they realize they will one day become food for some hungry chap at a restaurant. I wonder if they knew they would die in the coming days, would they be happier cows today. Would they eat more grass, run around more, care for their young better? Do cows even have feelings like humans do? Do they care for their offspring the same as us? Mid-thought I am interrupted by the vibration of my phone and a woman’s voice in my ear-buds. “Master Perez, one hour before you have to get ready for work.” I hold down the button on the side of the remote on the ear-buds cable, activating the voice control and say “Siri, remind me in fifteen minutes.”

The Middle

I pull into work the same as every other day, riding the clock to the last minute before I am officially considered late. I swipe my time card with little time to spare and head towards the back on the edifice where my work area is located. The guy from first-shift is finishing up his work and preparing things for a smooth transition into second-shift—the graveyard shift. He informs me of everything that went wrong throughout the day of which I should be concerned about or at least thinks I should know of. Half of the time I simply nod my head in agreement to the meaningless words flowing from his mouth, going in one ear and out the other like the breeze of an autumn night. Finally he picks up his paperwork and leaves the computer for me to begin work. Unlike my first-shift equivalent, I don’t keep track of the product being produced the old fashioned way. I’ve set up an excel spreadsheet that keeps up with quantity needed, produced, and totals for the day, displaying percentage of each. I simply login to the terminal—juperez 1234, and begin work. I’ve established that by doing all the tracking via the computer instead of manually, it eliminates errors more efficiently. It’s easier to keep track inventory with a computer program than it is with pencil and paper. It also minimizes time consumption of actual work I do. In a typical day at work I’m here for 10 hours. Of those ten hours I probably work an actual amount of three. I want to say less than two but for a maximum three it sounds fairly accurate. The other seven to eight hours you can find me playing on my phone, writing poetry on note cards, talking to coworkers or simply walking around wasting company money with my very valuable time—yeah, inside joke. I really can’t complain much about my job other than the fact it’s boring as fuck.

My phone vibrates on the work desk in front of me and I see my sisters name flash onto the screen.  I open the messaging app and in a nice Helvetica Neue font I see the words, “Grandpa passed away.” At that moment I think to myself, how do you even begin to write a text like that? I mean, what thought process does one go through when typing that out? Does it even occur to people to wonder what you’re doing before they break the news to something like that? What if I’d been doing something which required my full attention? A single distraction like that could have caused me my life. Then again you would argue that if a single distraction could cause my death I wouldn’t be checking my phone to begin with and with that I would have to concur.

I’m not the type of person to cry over things in public. Hell I can’t remember the time I genuinely cried in general. So I simply put the phone in my pocket and kept working. Perhaps the sadness was visible on my face or maybe some people can sense the pain on ones inside and leech onto it to make themselves happier in their pathetic lives? Whatever the case, I soon find myself being harassed by coworkers who want to know what’s wrong with me. I tell them it’s nothing but the words don’t come out as clear and strong as I’d hope. Instead I’m half choked by a ball in my throat and a wretched hand squeezing my heart.

At 9:56, 31 minutes after I received the text from my sister I ask to leave. My thoughts aren’t on going home to support my family. I’ve already talked with my sister and she’s told me my mother is handling it just fine and that I should probably just go ahead and stay at work. There is nothing I can do in her eyes. Sure my support would help, she says, but it’s more important that I keep my work record clean. I leave nonetheless.

Leaving work, I head towards the only place I know where I have total peace of mind. A place I’ve retreated to time and time again. The windows are down and a heavy Asking Alexandria song is playing on the radio. Inside I feel anger and fear.  Where is it that we go after we die? I refuse to think we live our entire lives accumulating all these feelings and knowledge for them to one day disappear like they never existed. I refuse to believe life is like an off and on switch where things simply cease to be the second the switch changes position.

I’ve had the same conversation with myself many times before, every time somebody close to me has either passed away or came close to the hands of death. And though each time I come to the same conclusion, I feel as though I am further away from the answer. Why is it that the harder you try to explain something, the further away from the true explanation you get? I had the same difficulty trying to comprehend the idea of a God when I was younger and though I still don’t understand it completely, I’ve learned to just have faith in that situation. Though I’ve often tried simply letting go and not worrying about life after death, it always bugs me that I don’t completely understand it.

Closing in on Elkin, North Carolina, I take the exit to get on US 21. I stay on this road until I reach the most serene of places.—the scenic overlook right before the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. When I pull off the road, I kill the motor and step outside. I lower the windows and leave the radio playing a mix of Beethoven and Bach. I climb onto the roof of the car and lay flat on my back watching the stars dance a tango in the sky.

The End

I stared off into space aimlessly searching for answers for well over 3 hours. When I look at my clock, it’s past one o’clock in the morning.  The radio stopped playing a long time ago, probably when the car sensed its battery was getting low. Climbing inside the car, I raise the windows and lower the seat. I’m not ready to go home just yet. I don’t feel as angry with life anymore but the empty feeling in my chest still prevails. At the moment, I don’t think I’ll ever understand life or death and I guess that’s one of the beauties of it.

I hear a car approaching before I see its headlights in the rearview mirror. The tranquility of the mountain makes it so you could hear a pin drop 100 feet away. I watch as the car approaches the outlook and parks about 50 feet from me. Slouched down in my seat, I doubt the driver saw me. To their eyes my car is could be an empty shell left overnight by some random couple. Hell, I don’t know their mental process. Surely something is going on in their minds because the driver sits in the car for minutes that drag on into hours.

At around three o’clock in the morning, a darkened figure steps out from the car and walks towards the rock barrier surrounding the scenic outlook, protecting out lookers from the rocky decent down.

The darkened figure steps up onto the barrier. I watch as the light from the moon outlines the small figure against the night sky and realize it’s the silhouette of a girl. As the wind blows, I see her medium long hair sway with natures hands. She stands still looking out over the distant skyline, motionless for an eternity. Motionless as the world turns around her.

I watch in shock when the girls figure finally moves and the black silhouette of a gun is outlined against the starry night. I watch as the girl brings the gun to her head and my jaw drops in disbelief. Am I about to witness this stranger off themselves on this of all nights? I lower my window and can hear her sobs in the air. I can feel the tension in the air. Somehow I know I must do something to save this poor girls life.

Slowly, I open the car door and step out into the night. The darkness engulfs my body as I step towards her shaking body moonlit against the September night sky—a shaking figure with a black object pressed against its temple.

I hear the gun cock and I know it’s now or never. “Excuse me miss, are you sure you know what you’re about to do?” I say it clear and precise, cutting edge words piercing the stillness of the night with razorblade sharpness.

She turns her body around and instantly stops sobbing and is screaming, “I’ve got a loaded gun and I’m not afraid to use it!”

I keep walking closer to her and say, “I’ve been watching you for the past couple of hours and I know you are afraid to use it.” I inch closer until she raises the gun and fires a shot above my head. Perhaps she was shooting a warning shot or maybe her aim is that perfectly awful.

“I told you I’m not afraid to use it! Back the fuck up.” As she says this I can sense her body move back a little. Ironic.

“Listen, why don’t you get down from there and we can sit and talk for a little bit.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“For one, there’s what you’re about to do.”

“What I do with myself is of my concern and mine only.”

“My grandpa died tonight you don’t want me to have to deal with two dead bodies today do you?”

“You wouldn’t have to deal with it if you would just leave. Get in your car and drive away. No one is making you be here. In fact I would much appreciate it if you drove away and didn’t think twice about it.”

“How could I do that and not feel guilty? I won’t let you kill yourself.”

“Don’t you see? To die is to live. It’s the only thing I have left. The only real thing.”

“What are you talking about? If you shot yourself you won’t be alive. You’ll be a dead cold lump somebody has to clean up.”

“I’ll be free. That’s all that matters.” She raises the gun to her temple and without giving me a chance to scream STOP, pulls the trigger. Brain matter silhouetted against the brightness of the moon behind her.

I stand in disbelief, a barely audible croak escaping my mouth. My eyes are fixated on the lifeless body of the beautiful girl in a purple dress that seconds away was full of life. Blood’s forming a puddle around her body, glistening in the moons brightness and I watch as it inches closer to my feet. I can’t move.

The ring of the gun is still resonating in the air, resonating in my ears when I snap back to reality and scramble to get my phone out of my pocket. Fumbling, crying, in shock; I tap on the bright green buttons on the screen and press call. I don’t recall my words with the operator, I must have been speaking in tongues because I hear her say “Sir, calm down for a minute and slowly explain to me the situation. I am trying to understand but you’re making it hard for me.”

The paramedics arrive. The cops arrive. It’s a shower of sparkling blues and reds illuminating the once peaceful scenic outlook. My once peaceful meditating spot. Surely not anymore.

I’ll never understand life and death and I guess that’s one reason I’ll never fully understand the mental process behind the girls thinking. Perhaps she struggled with the same questions I ask myself and found the answer.

Thereafter 

I dream about the girl in the purple dress for two weeks after her death. I keep thinking what I could have said different to stop her from blowing her head off. But I guess that doesn’t really matter, no matter how much effort I put into hypothetical resolutions, in the end it won’t change the fact she’s now laying in a casket in the cemetery on Third and Valencia.

Her name was Olivia Reynolds and her profession was that of an artist. I learned this from an obituary I read a couple days after her death. I went to her funeral as a sort of closure where I met her mom and dad and some relatives. I was introduced as “the guy who saw Olivia kill herself” to most of them and then towards the end of the funeral simply as Carlos.

Her sister, Jessica Reynolds, took a particular interest in knowing every last detail I could recall of that night.  Maybe in a sick way she got some sort of closure from knowing exactly how her sister blew her brains out. Maybe she was trying to comprehend why her sister had done it? Regardless, she got my number and we talked almost daily for a couple weeks. At first it was all about her sister but then later about her and me. Then the calls and texts stopped all together. I didn’t hear from her and I didn’t see her for over 6 months, during which time I figured she’d moved on from the event and was ready to move on from the longing, leaving me behind. I was fine with that idea. I never really expected things between the two of us to go nowhere. I mean, when I thought about it as, ‘oh I saw your sister die and now I’m going to date you,’ it just seemed like an odd thought.

I did hear from her though, it was on the anniversary of her sister’s death.  I received a simple text from her which read, “Can you please come over, I feel bad and need someone to talk to.” I told her I would, just to give me some time to change into more suitable clothes, it’d been late into the afternoon and I had already called it quits for the day. Along the way she told me she was staying at her parents’ house. When I arrived at her house and knocked on the door it was her mother that answered. I introduced myself to her but I could see it in her eye, she remembered who I was. I was the guy who saw her daughter die. She told me Jessica was upstairs in her room, that Jessica was expecting me.  Shyly I walk behind her as she leads me up a wooden staircase lined with family portraits and to the door of her daughter’s room.

I entered the room and Jessica was sitting on her bed going through old family albums. She told me to sit down next to her while she told me about all the memories she had of her sister growing up. The entire afternoon we talked about the past and at times about the future. When it was time for supper her mother called and insisted I eat with them. It was a delicious meal I won’t be forgetting in my lifetime. Her parents were wonderful hosts. We shared some laughs. We shared some frowns. That night was also the anniversary of my grandpa’s death and as we all reminisced upon our losses, we shared some tears.

Soon enough it was time for me to leave. I thanked them for their hospitality and again shared my remorse for their lose. Jessica escorted me to the door and as I was about to leave, she said, “thank you. I owe you my life. Something I’ll value more than anything.” I didn’t quite comprehend what she was talking about and the look on my face gave it away. She added, “There’s a reason you didn’t hear from me for such a long time. It’s not that I didn’t want to; it’s that I felt embarrassed. Before you give me that quizzical look again, let me explain.” She motioned for me to follow her to the porch swing beside us. There she continued, “On my sisters birthday I tried to kill myself. I tried to kill myself by overdosing on Advil medication. I must have taken over 60 of those damn pills. Somewhere along the wait for them to start kicking in, I found one of your poems and it made me realize life is worth living. Though I don’t understand why things happen, I shouldn’t use my affront to God to prove a point.”  She looked up at me that night and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave her side again. Somehow we shared a link together.

There are a lot of things I still don’t understand and this link is simply another one of those things I won’t question anymore. I’ll let life runs its course and things will work themselves out over time. What’s the use of knowing the answers to all your questions if you’re not prepared to take the simplest of words as an answer; Faith.

I know the pain never stops
But I’m here to put a mend to your hurt
I’m here to catch all your tear drops
And show you pain can be invert
I’ll be here with you through it all
Just let my love in

Runaway with me tonight
I’ll show you things you haven’t seen before
And if at the end things don’t feel right,
I’ll make my way out of the door.
Just let down your wall
And let my love in

I know it’s not always going to be easy to see
How in this darkened world these feelings were found
But I promise I’ll always be there to surround
You with love when I am with you, I am with you.
And even though some days you may end up mad,
I’ll always make it my first to make it up to you.
I’ll prove the solid ground I stand on.

When I am with you,
I stand on solid ground.