During the first half year after the initial 12-14-90 mental breakdown, things went very slow. Time seemed to aggregate slowly and steadily. Most of my thoughts were like; "It's been one month since THAT happened, when will I get over this, when will I be myself again?" then, "It's been two months", and so on and so forth; you get the idea. It seemed I could never be that person I once was; it wasn't going to come back to me with the snap of a finger. Oh, how I wanted it to though.
I kept my job at Walmart, though being there was hard. I was a stockman, and neared the end of the night part of my job was to sweep the floors with a dust mop. I remember sweeping up and down the isles and between the clothing racks, mindlessly; like a part of the programming that told me this had to be done. The lighting was hell. Those fluorescent lights, god! You know, things weren't real as it was, but that damned fluorescent lighting just made it ten times as bad. Everything seemed like a cardboard cut-out, no essence. Fake.
I quit Walmart in the middle of August of 91, and moved out on my own for a little while. I didn't have much money saved up, but enough to rent a little rinky dink trailer in Compton; the town I had lived when I attended my last year of high school (well, I lived there the first half of the school year, anyway.). I had a bond with Compton. It was supposed to be the beginning of a new start for me. Things were going exceptionally well when we had first moved there in 90. I thought that by being there, breathing air in the same area that some how, possibly, I could breathe in my old air and regain some of that sanity once again. Don't take that literally. I thought that if I was around those same places, it would remind me of my past, and if I could remember the past and OWN it, perhaps I could get back to my own self. It's like that Radiohead song "Karma Police" that has the lyrics "I lost myself". Well, I had lost my soul then, my essence was in Compton. I was bound to grab hold of it.
After working and living in Compton for a couple months I went back home to stay with my mother and the kids. I stayed there until about March or April of 92. Then I stayed with my ex step grandfather Rudy. He was my ex step fathers estranged father. Rudy's brother Roy had been staying with them for a couple of months. They sent for him from a nursing home in Eloy, Arizona, where Roy's wife and young daughter also lived. He was non compliant with his meds and got too sick to stay at home. So his wife had to do what she had to do. Roy was a stubborn man. Rudy had sent for Roy (most likely due to some foreseen financial gain). Roy had died in March or April of 92 at Rudy's house. Roy's wife and daughter packed up and traveled to Compton so they could attend the funeral.
This wasn't the first time I had met Roy's daughter, Tabitha. Since she was essentially an ex step cousin, we had met when we were small, about nine or ten years old probably. She was sort of tom boyish at the time, but a lot of fun to play with. At the funeral, she was wearing jeans, a blue top and dark sunglasses covered her eyes when I first saw her. I was immediately attracted to her. I think it was her innocence. It permeated my soul. I could feel her.
Tabitha and her mother, Shirley, rented a house next to the house Rudy and his wife lived in. At this point, I lived at home again, but I would ask Rudy if I could stay over their house often, so I could visit with Shirley and most of all Tabitha.
We talked all the time, and got to know each other very well. We became best friends, always doing things together. We were inseparable, no one could get between us. She helped me through that situation so much, I will always be grateful to her for that. In fact, if were not for her, I would probably not be here today. She was surely my angel, if I ever had one.
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