swooped from my myspace page: wrote this at the stag ~ a year ago...

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Aloha. I am the product of a home-schooled, right-wing conservative family, reared in isolation with my older brother and an assortment of pets, mostly cats. I attended grades 2-5, and was in independent studies through the San Jose Unified School District for grades 6-12. I made friends through my church youth group, including a best friend, Emma, who later married my brother, Jonathan. Jonathan and Emma reside with my parents to this day. I was able to engage socially for a period of time through my youth group from the age of ~ 14 to the age of ~ 15 when I was singled out by the pastor of our former church of nine years due to "political" reasons in which the senior pastors wanted my family to leave. my family decided to leave the church after my youth pastor called me personally to make me aware that my high school girl gossip was a "tool of satan."

I had my first panic attack when we left that church, and everything that finally felt like Home to me. I spent the majority of my adolescence hanging out with my brother, whom I have always shared a strained relationship with. When my brother and Emma became romantically involved I removed myself from my last relationship with a peer, and my best friend perhaps of all time, my beloved Emma. In my isolation I turned dark very quickly, and after so long, I was put in Christian therapy with a sweet man with very sincere, albeit Christian values. I was told I was loved by God, that I should pray, read the bible more, and of course, forgive. I did these things, and eventually decided I should have friends again, and enrolled myself at Central County Occupational Center (CCOC). I took Macintosh Business Communications. I made some friends fairly soon, and was the only person to cross every racial and "cliqual" barrier, because I have always loved people, regardless.

I went to my first party with friends for Superbowl Sunday of 1997. I had just turned seventeen. That day I met Victor. We became a couple July 4 of that year. He had clear braces. We dated until I was nineteen. I had to get married due to my religious beliefs and cultural tradition in my family. We broke up. I didn't eat for eleven days. I was married before I turned 21, to the neighbor boy down the street, Ferdinand. He was, and continues to be, a sweet and intelligent man who is a product of a life of his own. We were married to complicated circumstances for five years in which we engaged in a wonderful life, that felt more like roommates than lovers for a variety of tragic, but legitimate issues. I was working preschool, getting good grades, and readying to become a Christian counselor with a degree in psychology.

I had gained a lot of weight when I got married, and when I transferred to San Jose State University (SJSU) I had lost nearly 80 pounds, and never earned a grade below an A- for my entire school career. I began questioning my political and spiritual beliefs around age 26 and the process haunted me through year 27. I had everything I "wanted," having done everything "right," and felt nothing but misery. I left my parents church, left my 'straight' sexuality, left my marriage, and left my sanity when I was 27. I lost my political understanding of the world, I lost my religious understanding of the world, but mostly, I lost my personal relationship with my Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. I am Jack's Broken Heart.

I graduated with high honors, and flew to meet Gwen. I was a size 0, suffering anxiety so severe that I could not fall asleep or stay asleep. My mother and I were not speaking. I had fallen in love with a woman. My marriage (obviously) suffered. I started a new job working at an elementary school with kids in Willow Glen. I started Graduate Studies at SJSU and had to take a leave in October because my husband was up crying every night, grieving our lost marriage. I would cry with him, and the guilt was enormous. My struggle with suicidal ideation was incredibly intense, and I nearly ended my life three times that year.

I moved out June 1st, age 28. The summer is a blur of drinking, drugging, and who knows what else. I thought I had a place to live for a year, but in fact, did not, and have since moved at least four times. I'm currently homeless. I began grad school again anyway. I overcame a drug addiction half way through the semester and started to apply myself to my studies. I barely passed on class, and got high B's in everything else. My grad school grades are the worst I've had in at least five years. I started talking to my parents again. I lost nearly all my friends.

I can be overwhelming. I can be too drunk, too needy, and too dependent. You probably should just stay away from me. But if you don't, you should know that I'm a very kind person, I'm pretty funny, and if I had to do anything to save anybody, no matter who they are, I would do it.

One day I will "get" where I could be, I will reach the potential that I have in me. I will remember who I met along the way, who helped me, and who didn't. I will understand why you did or didn't. I'm not about grudges, in fact, in the words of Adele: "like the meaner you treat me, more eager I am to persist in this heartbreak and runnin around" but I won't always be this way. Like I said, I'm a product of what made me. But I make me now. In the words of Incubus: "if you let them fuck you, there will be no foreplay." Life is nothing but a cold, hard, hustle. You never get something for nothing. And for me, unfortunately, you never really learn a lesson until you learn it. I have a lot of learning to do to make up for the life that I lived. I find myself learning quickly, and hope my street smarts will catch up to my book smarts eventually.

Until then, I bid you safe travels along your journey. Even after the turmoil and the pain unleashed from Pandora's Box, one thing remained: HOPE. Hope, indeed, is all that remained. THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE. A person can have faith, hope, and love. I have found my faith lost, I have found my hope sustained, and above all, I have found this to be true: the greatest of these is Love. In the words of Bradley: "Let the lovin, let the lovin, come back to me." Namasté.