When I Get a Little Scared

There will be stories of New York after I somehow do 20 hours of web writing and 20 pages of fiction in the next two days – Jeezus. But for now I have a bit of brain phlegm that needs to be hawked up.

A big part of this trip has been trying to master my fears, but there is one fear that trumps all. That's the fear of losing my remaining testicle. I thought this fear would be the Ace up my sleeve, the one idea that would put all my other stupid fears into perspective. To some extent that's been true.

But as I've faced some of those fears, I've realized that this one fear has started to loom larger. Pretty soon it could just be me and it – not good. What will I do if that comes to pass? Could I still consider myself a man? Would I slice-shoot-splat myself? Would I have the not balls to do just that? Not a chance – I plan on being around for a good chunk of time.

I've been thinking a bit about God. Is He out there? Is this a test, a punishment? Are there some actions that I need to atone for? The fear has grown to the point that I have to lean against the toilet when I check myself and wait for the dizzying waves of panic to subside. Other times, I wake up with heavy breathing and wetness on my cheeks – what a way to start the day.

And is that what it's come down to – constantly feeling sorry for myself and defining my entire life by one measly orb that's not even the size of an egg? I can't hold on to this fear any longer. I have to let it go and wait patiently for my next check-up. It's time to put my fears aside and focus on the joys of being alive.

I've come up with a little prayer to help me do that: Please give me the courage to find happiness, and please let me keep my SuperBall for many years to come. If you must take it, then so it goes. Amen.

Take it. Take these, those, this and that. I have friends, family, lovers, places to go, people to meet, stories to be shared, memories to be made, experiences to be created.

Take what you will because I have plenty.

Stride

I felt the shift on a mountain trail in Lake Tahoe. I had been jogging rather slowly down a steep hill as part of the daily run that made up the unofficial college cross country summer training camp. I felt my left hip sway out to the side and my right hip spasm and pull in toward my spine. I looked down and my left kneecap was sticking out to the side like a gargantuan tumor that had somehow gone unnoticed. I screamed, my left leg locked up, and my kneecap snapped back into place. I fell backwards and a fellow runner caught me and held me up – I could feel his arms shaking, and when I looked down, his legs were trembling.

We limped down the mountain, and I shook my head ruefully at the antics of my body that would probably put me out of commission for the next few days. I was 19 and still thought that I was invincible. Two days later, my ankle and calf of my left leg had swelled into a cankle. A week or so later, I was running the track during cross country practice with an uneven stride until the coach called for me to stop. I went to see an overweight physical therapist from the school; he told me that my days of running hills were over before putting me in a leg immobilizer.

I wore the immobilizer for about a week before starting physical therapy sessions outside of the school. My thigh muscles had atrophied considerably by then, and the professionals there told me that wearing the immobilizer hadn't been a smart decision. I went through the therapy halfheartedly and wasn't diligent about doing my exercises at home. At that point, I had already taken the injury as a sign that I wasn't cut out for running any longer. After a month, I could walk decently but I had lost my stride.

And that's when I first encountered the fear of being broken, a gimp. Have you ever watched someone with a hip problem stagger asymmetrically through a crosswalk or perhaps observed an old man shamble down the sidewalk back bent impossibly low? The usual reaction is a twinge of sympathy followed by a thankfulness that isn't you. But think about this: at one point, that person you're observing was probably whole and healthy, observing past gimps and feeling glad that they would never be like that.

Remember my Dad on the Segway, the Doctor who helped me through the hospital corridors? He has broken both ankles multiple times – one is surgically fused to help with the pain, and the other one hurts but can't be fused for walking purposes - sports injuries, a motorcycle accident, crackity-crack snap! At the same time, he's in excellent shape for his age, he does not take any sort of heavy pain medication, and he very rarely complains. He will never run again, but he's not a gimp.

I ran sporadically after my injury (it was actually the second time my left knee had been dislocated – the first time was in high school, but it was minor and I was even more invincible back then). But in my mind, I was a gimp.

16:42 – 3 miles, 2:01 – 800 meters, 4:55 – 1 mile. I kept remembering those times and swearing while I struggled to run a 10 minute mile with my now uneven stride. There's not much more to that story other than feeling past my prime. I developed the habit of cracking my knees whenever they ached – if I stretch out my left leg and keep my knee loose, then I can wiggle it from side to side, a treasure treat sliding along a jelly foundation. My favorite part is walking up stairs and hearing my left knee keep time in cricks.

The nice thing about getting both surgeries over the past few months is I finally feel that I have the excuse to start slow, to not feel ashamed by my uneven stride. I've been running about five days a week since I started this April trip. I had forgotten to pack running shoes in my haste to leave Chicago, but my favorite Floridian park had a rubberized track for barefoot running.

No such luck in Richmond, Virginia. The paths were steep and rocky, so I settled for a pair of cheap running shoes. Bell Isle in Richmond is a runner's dream. I stayed a few blocks from the park and went there nearly every day. The park is a 54 acre island set in the middle of the James River – the quickest way to get there is by walking over a hanging bridge, suspended from the highways above and set over the rapids.

Bell Isle is a collection of lovable historical ruins (used to be a prison during the Civil War), hilly paths surrounded by impossible green, secret lagoons, and rock beaches set in the rapids. For the first few visits, I'd jog lightly across level ground and prance fearfully down any sort of incline. I noticed other faster runners with level strides and perfect knees and tried not to stare. By the time I got into the forest paths, imagination had taken over fear.

There were wooden posts arranged in such a way that the site could only have been a training ground for kung-fu monks. I pulled with all my might on a metal pin stuck in the path before realizing that it could be attached to a enormous, buried grenade. I found a wall covered in crooked portals and kept walking through them, not knowing if I'd ever make it back to my world. The best experience by far was walking across water – dozens if not hundreds of Virginians do it every day since that's the only way to get to some of the better rock beaches in the rapids.

Signs set around the park listed the water as 9 feet high, and a small asphalt damn had been overrun with about 2 feet of that water. I walked unevenly along this underwater sidewalk at first, but after several visits, I knew where to place my feet with a smooth, well-timed stride.

The Red Love house where I was staying had an impressive collection of magnetic words. I tried to make a poem without messing up any pre-existing lines:

Ask calm fire why

almost amuse nature but

bring that wish past names

I'm not sure what the means, but that's how I feel when I think of getting over my fears. I know that I want to face them, but other than a vague sense of possible happiness, I'm not sure what comes afterward. I've considered making a list, but so far I've just been doing what feels natural.

Some of the best friends are the ones who help you find that natural path. Four years ago, I told a friend who I hope to see in Boston that I really wanted to run but was scared that my knee would pop out of place. She simply said that I couldn't be afraid of that. My friend that I was staying with in Richmond, who looks like a druid and is also a poet, told me about his past fear of running hills. He soon realized that the best way to get past that was to run down the hill as fast as possible. He became the fastest downhill runner on his cross country team. I remembered that my knee had crumpled to the side while taking my hill very slowly.

I tried to combine these pieces of information on the day that I placed my magnetic poem, but all I could feel was this joyful rage. I went to Bell Isle and ran instead of jogged. I threw myself down hills and tried to stick behind an aggressive biker as he burrowed through people walking the hanging bridge. I ran and ran and stopped when I came to the underwater sidewalk on the other side of the island. I walked to the rock beach, sat by myself, and let my feet trail in the water, remembering this recurring dream I have of my feet floating, hovering over the asphalt. I wanted to do something, I needed a challenge. I looked across the rapids and thought about fighting the current and crossing before realizing that'd be a pretty dumb way to die. I did realize that I wanted to cross that river in some way though.

On the far side of Bell Isle is about five stories of stairs leading up to the street and back to civilization. I put my shoes on and jogged up. I found the highway above the hanging bridge, the one that crossed the river. It had a sidewalk along the shoulder that seemed very narrow once I peered over the rail and saw ground several hundred feet below. I felt dizzy, breathless – the way I used to feel before a race.

As I jogged along the sidewalk, I estimated which light pole corresponded with the start of the river crossing. That'd be the starting line. Not...yet...not...yet..not..yet.not.yet.notyetnotyetnotyet – GO!

I sprinted and felt the wind rush past my ears. In my peripheral vision, I could see the rushing waters far below. When it became land, I went back into a jog and congratulated myself on crossing the river.

Thirty seconds later, I heard the rapids again. I'd forgotten that I'd just passed over the island and that there were essentially two rivers to cross. This section of the river looked much wider. GO!

I felt my knees pounding into the pavement and this weakness in my shoulders and chest that meant I was nearly spent. I held my breath (Valsalva acceleration technique), leaned, and felt the second burst of speed come before my feet floated over the sidewalk and broke off into a gasp. I had to repeat this breathless floating several times before making it across the wider stretch of the James River.

I slowed to an exhausted jog back on land and collapsed, gasping in the grass. I had almost forgotten that dazed happiness, but for an instant, maybe even several seconds, I had found my stride.

Hold

Miami was wonderfully sexy, and now I'm in Richmond. Time moves more slowly here, people sit on porches, they make eye contact, which is mostly a godsend. However, there is this ever-present air of climax nearly achieved. I had a great night in Miami (also got my first blow job in a public bathroom), but I want to keep going. I don't want to wait.

Sexsexsexsexsexsex. I haven't got off on my own since the beginning of my trip. That probably has something to do with not having much of a private space and not wanting to jerk off in a stranger's shower. But now it's become kind of a conscious vow; I will only get off if it's with another human being.

It was a beautiful Thursday in Richmond, and I felt restless. Let's not sugarcoat it – I wanted to fuck. I'm one of those guys who tends to overthink things, including natural urges. I think about the reasons behind the urge, if those reasons could somehow manifest themselves into other urges, how those urges will shape my life, how I can shape those urges, how my childhood has influenced these urges, if I'm remembering my childhood correctly, and if there's a best way for me to act on those urges. It probably doesn't help that I'm writing an article about career in the animal reproduction industry for my web writing job.

Should I go searching in the bars around Richmond? That could be a good area, but I'd be going alone, since my friends here don't seem ecstatic about the idea of bar hopping. We are all alone in some ways, but the idea of being a stranger drinking silently in a crowd and overthinking pick up approaches for pairs of girls already surrounded by three or four guys who they already knew didn't feel pleasant. How much better if I already had someone to meet for drinks? I went to Richmond's CraigsList.

I responded to about five posts in fifteen minutes. Some were more family friendly than others. In a few that asked for a guy willing to go down, I gave all the details. I told the real or imagined girl how I'd start slow, kiss the inside of her thigh, and lick her lips to taste her. When I could feel her wetness and spread it around with my tongue, I'd suck her clit and finger-fuck her. I wouldn't stop until her legs clenched and quivered around my face – oh yeah, and please pull my hair while I do all that. For other posts that seemed to be looking more for intellectual stimulation and company, I gave a quick snippet of how I was a clean 23-year-old traveling up the East Coast. I didn't have any expectations beyond being able to take a nice, cute girl for drinks and possibly dinner, which was also true.

I got a response to one of my family-friendly posts within about 15 minutes. She was a 26-year-old named Kayla B. - she asked me to tell her about myself. I told her everything about the last few months in a few quick paragraphs. I told her about my love for running, my first tattoo, my dreams of becoming a writer. She responded back, saying that I sounded cool and that she'd be down to meet for drinks. However, before all that, I'd have to go to a site and give them a credit card number to ensure that I wasn't a sexual offender.

Hmmm – my SuperBall and my brain began to battle. I looked up the site, determined that it definitely could be a scam. But what if Kayla B. was a real girl determined to rock my world? I finally emailed her back and said that I wasn't comfortable with giving out that information, that if she was worried for her safety, then we could meet in a public place and have her judge me for herself.

In about fifteen minutes, she responded back, suggesting another site that didn't require a credit card. My SuperBall threw a mean left hook at my brain, so I created an aol email and signed up for that site using that email and a false name. The site promised to send an email that never came, and my brain elbowed my SuperBall into submission. Kayla B. had always responded to my emails somewhat indirectly, and she had never told me a thing about herself or sent pictures. I called her out for being a spammer and never got a response back.

A few days later, that same feeling of horny restlessness, I respond to a 27-year-old's post that says she needs to get laid “like yesterday.” Fifteen minutes later, I hear back from Kayla B. Here is that conversation:

Kayla B: hey,

thanks for emailing me about my ad.. let me know a little more about you and i'll tell you more about me..

kayla.

Me: hi hi hi no problem? That me - are you bot? Hmmm that me. Sound interestings?

Kayla B: hey again,

you sound pretty cool and i'm definitely interested in meeting up with you.. i gotta work tomorrow and will get home around 3-4 and it would be awesome to meet up after that.. we can grab a drink and see how we connect.. to get my number just go tohttp://www.casualmeetup.com and look up
"sexcbebe5940" .. my number will be right on the first page.. they never charge you or anything, they just verify to make sure you aren't a rapist or anything, you know a girl can never be too careful

Me: Good little bot - will you poop on my face real nice? Poop in the mouth!

Kayla B: hey you haven't phoned me were you able to get on the site i gave you, the last guy i met from craigslist used it and they never charged his card or anything..

if you really don't have a credit card or something, i guess we can usehttp://www.amateurmatch.com/?ainfo=MTY3NjV8MXwxNTU2&atcc=11988&skin=38, my account name is the same there

Me: how many times will you thwart my poop in the face? I demand brown! you betta eat ya fiber gurl.

Kayla B: unfortunately if you can't verify on the sites i gave you i really can't meet up, you know a girl has to be safe and a guy without a credit card doesn't seem very safe..

And so I had to let Kayla Bot go. She, a painfully polite girl who talked to all guys in the same way, couldn't give the kind of love that I was looking for. Perhaps one day she would find her Bob Bot, and their back and forth spam explosion would be beautiful. I also realized that I had spent over an hour arguing with a spam program, an hour of my time in beautiful Richmond. I had spent too much time worrying about whether or not I'd get laid and gradually becoming blind to my surroundings. The weather was fine, people were friendly, and there was an amazing Island park a few blocks from the house (more about that last part in a later post).

The house I was staying at was called Red Love to honor a gang of friends who had first started the place. The back yard was like a cracked out artist's studio – stones, wood, bamboo, leaves, tools all waiting to be rearranged again and again. I learned about bike chariots, stilts, and dumpstering (the last one involved “expired” bread and raspberries for the best damn French toast that I've ever had). Most of all, I learned how to sit and enjoy – no book, no computer, no cell phone, nothing in my hands to fiddle around with. I can still only do it for about ten minutes at a time, but it's a start.

This became evident when I tried out a board swing in the back yard – it was just a plank with ropes hung from a tree branch and lashed around either end. I was just in a yard, swing back and forth, staring at the sun-dappled leaves above, and not getting laid. And yet millions of years of evolution had conspired to produce this perfect event. Photo tropism, climate, elevation, wars, elections, births, deaths, architectural blue prints, the combination of nutrients in that patch of soil in Richmond, Virginia.

Similarly, nature, nurture, the interaction of genotype and environment, and your unusual, sometimes stupid fears combine to make you you. The conditions or events that you worry about may never come to pass. It's almost always the unexpected that will knock you on your ass. Still, you can't decide on your fears – spiders, snakes, snipers, strangers, suffocation... spicy foods? These fears will shape you whether you like it or not. Pick your shape.

It's not a mystery why I've been so horny. It's not so much that I haven't jerked off in a good while or that I recently got out of an exclusive relationship. It's the fear that in the not-so-distant future I won't have anything left to work with. It's that imaginary or real, dull ache in my SuperBall. It's that real or imagined lump in my vein that I do my best not to feel for every time I take a leak.

Hurry! Find a different woman in each town – hell, why not every night? Sexsexsexsex – but when it really comes down to it, I think I could be happy with learning how to sit still and maybe just being held.

PW

There's a peacock that lives next to the pink mansion where I'm staying. He can be seen strutting about, plumage folded behind and neck bobbing, but more often he can be heard – oooWHAAooo oooWHAAooo oooWHAAooo. That's his proud mating call and he's always looking for more ass.

The pink mansion is next to a high-class catering company, a place that hosts weddings and other expensive functions. The peacock frequents their back parking lot and can often be seen swaggering along one of the limestone coral walls.

The peacock is introduced to me as Winston, since that's what the catering company calls him. A blonde bombshell in the house vehemently told me that the Peacock's name is Pierre and always has been. I am in a dilemma since Winston sounds very manly to me but Pierre taps more into that peacock flair. I decided to call him PW.

PW gives me a few pointers about the art of mating. You have to throw yourself out there, human. You need to flex what you got and be flashy, boy. You must have genuine confidence, dude (this last point was reinforced by overhearing a conversation among girls in the kitchen talking about some guy that I didn't know – it went somewhere along the lines of “I'm so attracted to him. He's a jerk, but he's just got this confidence!”)

I had underestimated how much ladies like confidence. I think it partially explains why nice girls sometimes end up with jerks. I don't want to be a dick; I want to use it. I want to cultivate a quiet confidence that will attract the right kind of ladies.

Before I thought I could just be quiet, fade into the background, and wait for a cute girl to telepathically pick up on all of my endearing, winning qualities. Bullshit. I had always scoffed at people who were too aware of their appearance – the guy who works for half an hour to get his hair to flip just right, the girl who tries on dozens of jeans until she finds the one that sculpts her ass just right. As a rejection to these endeavors, I developed an already naturally disheveled appearance. I wouldn't comb my hair, wear nice clothes, trim my nails or even shower every day. At the same time, I was being disingenuous – my hair had to be not combed perfectly and such. All this time, the people who were working on their appearance were being honest; they were working at the mating rituals that humans as animals can't avoid. I was doing myself an evolutionary disservice. It took a peacock to help me see that.

I stumble upon PW one day, and his feathers are unfurled. He is facing a fence and no females are in sight. Whatcha doing Winston? I don't think he likes that name because he folds his feathers back down and struts off. It takes me a few days to realize that he was practicing.

My good friend from college set me up in the pink mansion where his girlfriend lives. That is one hell of a friend, setting up a guy who he hasn't seen in a few years in a house with his girlfriend for two weeks. That sort of trust humbles me and reminds me that I'm damn lucky to have such great friends. His girlfriend turned out to be as awesome as he is, and she showed me around the grove, making me feel like not a burden. When I told her that I wanted to go to the bars on a Friday night, she obliged and introduced me to tons of people.

Now Miami is a bit like Los Angeles to the extent that being beautiful is highly desirable to the point of being big business. I saw plenty of boob jobs and even learned that there was such a thing as a butt job. I've always been one of those guys who loves big, natural tits almost to the point of worship, but I started to appreciate the artificial breasts beautifully done. The Almost Palindrome City is a place of headturners – nearly every 15 minutes I was looking at the women around me and going Goddamn!? I wouldn't say that there are more beautiful women here in Chicago or anywhere else – well, maybe a little. But it was also about presentation, what they wore and how they carried themselves. I would jog further just to get a glimpse of the perfect ass in front of me or sometimes slow down to watch the boobs move in perfect stride. I wondered if the women had practiced their movements in front of a full length mirror. I couldn't scoff at this type of beauty – it had to be appreciated. No, more than that, it would have to be acknowledged. I would have to flex my feathers.

So back to the bars on Friday night, my friend's awesome girlfriend introduces me to handfuls of people at Scotty's landing, an open air bar overlooking the marina. There was a blonde who looked kind of like Heather Graham – I couldn't tell whether her awesome chest was real or fake. There was a cougar artist – definitely super-cute with fake boobs. I also got to meet many latina women – I don't think any of them had boob jobs, but some of their butts were perfect, natural or not. I also met some cool guys and didn't feel that edge of manly competition that sometimes arises – there were plenty of beautiful women in Almost Palindrome City.

Boobs! Butts! I know that I sound like I'm 14, but I probably have about 10 years of catching up to do in terms of taking care of my appearance. Anyway before I went out that night, I put on an actual button-down shirt, took a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair – motherfucking gel and everything. Despite all this, I still wore cargo shorts because I've always felt uncomfortable in pants. Guess what – that style is completely fine in Miami! I tried to feel genuinely genuine and bought several drinks for several women. I was also reminded that there are personalities attached to those boobs and butts.

I bought one latina woman with a great personality the most drinks. I wasn't trying to hit on her; I was more interested in talking at that point because she was a nurse and told me that one of her ex-husbands had testicular cancer. When I showed her my scar and added the usual disclaimer that everything still works, she said something along the lines of “I know, honey – the husband I was telling you about – he was the best, could go forever, rough too.” We smiled and started talking about tattoos.

My original idea for a tattoo was to get a separate part done at each of the stops. I would have these winged fins arranged at the same angles as the Sprint symbol, except it'd be a mirror image. The tip of each fin would have protrusions – the biggest would have 5, the next 3, 2, 1, 1. It would be the Fibonacci sequence (nerdy chuckle). I would only be visiting four places that I knew of, so the two, smaller fins would be done in Boston. Yeah, I still was new to the idea of tattoos. Each place usually charges a minimum service fee around $50, whether you want to get a dot or line. Also, each artist has a slightly different hand, so the winged fins may not look proportional. I decided to keep the angular arrangement, but get each artist to sketch something that stood out to me wherever I visited.

I've since abandoned that idea, because 1) I'm really happy with my Floridian tattoo and 2) I don't have that sort of money. I may try to add some glow-in-the-dark ink to my tattoo in Boston, since a lovely awesome lady who I get to see there gave me the suggestion, but for now let's get back to the Latina and our tattoo talk. She started showing me her finely done tattoos, and helped me reach some of the conclusions detailed above. She told me that if I found a great artist and there was a long waiting list, then I should wait. I didn't have the option but will keep it in mind for future designs. She also told me that she had an awesome tattoo on her back. When I asked to see it, she said she'd show it to me later. I wasn't sure what that meant, but we smiled at each other again.

I closed my bar tab at Scotty's landing and grimaced. The group of people who I met were moving on to another bar, but my friend's girlfriend who is now a good friend unto herself had to go home. I looked at the Latina pleadingly, and she offered to give me a ride.

At the next bar, I was taken care of by her. I didn't have to buy a single drink. She used to be a bartender in several places and frequented the last bar so much that she was a special customer. We talked and talked I can't remember what about, and then we were kissing. She took me back to her place and took even better care of me.

I was too drunk to do anything that night – we took a shower and I ended up knocking over her shower curtain and tumbling to the phone. The next morning after a few glasses of water was a different story. I got to see her back tattoo, part of it was a geisha who looked to be blushing since a birthmark was underneath. About three condoms and several positions later, I asked her where she wanted it.

“In my face,” she said.

“Haha, that'd be great, but where do you really want it?” I asked.

“In my face, please,” she replied.

“Oh uh, well...cool!” I said.

We found the lube as I titty-fucked her (they were real) and stroked myself. If you're a guy and you're reading this, then you probably know that you can stroke yourself off better than any stranger's hand, but give the following a try if you haven't already. Keep stroking until you're almost there, guide your partner's hand, and have them deliver the finishing blow. The Latina did it perfectly.

At first, I felt like I was cumming but nothing came out. For a split second, I worried that one of the possible side effects of my previous surgery had come to pass, but then my SuperBall shuddered. Most of it landed on her face and hair, but some of it shot over and hit a painting that had slid down to one end of her bed. The part near where it hit had a young woman holding an umbrella – oooWAAooo yes!

We smiled at each other again. This was the first time that I'd had one-night stand in the real world outside of school. I liked that outcome. The Latina I was with was also an avid reader, so she showed me a few books that she was reading as we cleaned up. She was searching for this perfect sentence to share. She knew that part of it had the phrase “without the disorder of love.” The phrase was all I needed.

She drove me home, and I didn't hear PW the peacock outside. He must have had a busy night too.

I had decided on my tattoo – the blonde bombshell drove me to a tattoo parlor that had caught my eye. The first artist had the quiet confidence that I want to develop. We were on the same page and set the date.

The day of the tattoo was after another long night out partying. More headturners and drinks. I tried very badly to hit on the blonde bombshell out of my league. She was very nice about it. Nice enough in fact to lend me her blue BMW so I could drive myself to the Green Machine Tattoo parlor.

The artist showed me his sketch, and it was perfect. It was a proud peacock feather with no frills. I smiled and grimaced as the ink needle hit my sunburned skin and jolted me from my hangover.

An hour and a half later, I had slipped back on my ARMY shirt and covered it with an open button-down. I drove aggressively and haphazardly in the blue BMW with the windows down and Spanish music that I didn't understand blaring. I grinned at people on the sidewalk, unafraid and unashamed to be just the littlest bit flashy.

Duel

There was one more fear that I had to take care of before I left Miami. It's been with me for five years now, and it's this sense of dread, of doom, a bullet meant for me. I'm not constructing metaphors; I literally mean a bullet that will find me when I am at my lowest. It's waiting for me, and from time to time I can feel myself in the crosshairs. I may be riding the El train in Chicago or just waking up on a futon in Miami – it doesn't matter. They visit when they please. Who are they? Well a team of elite snipers of course.

I promise that I'm not completely insane – let's get in some background here. Sophomore year of college I tried smoking some rock given to me by a very sketchy guy who worked at the school. Now that I'm not quite as innocent, I think that he wanted to sleep with me. Thankfully that never happened. Instead I ended up buying the rest of the rocks off of him and setting out in the California wilderness to smoke on my own. Wilderness is a bit of a stretch; At the tip of my school, there were a few acres of undeveloped land known as the Outback. I wanted privacy. I wanted to consume my chemicals in peace. I crawled under a bush and was there for about half an hour before I got my first visit from the snipers.

I didn't know who or what was there at first. I just felt watched. I crept out of the bush and moved further into a shaded part of the Outback and crouched behind a tree and listened. Rustling footsteps, perhaps a black figure moving through the trees about 30 yards distant. I was so intent on keeping my eye on this shape that I didn't hear the footsteps behind me until they were very near. I did not look back – I bolted and climbed up a ten-foot tall chain link fence that separated the Outback from a public sidewalk. I dropped to the pavement and stumbled – my only foot gear was a pair of blue crocs. I was also wearing a pair of gym shorts and my threadbare ARMY shirt – yeah I didn't look like a tweaked-out college kid at all.

I kept walking along the sidewalk and wondered what the fuck that was that I had felt in the Outback. Was it still following me? I crossed the street and looked suspiciously at a big, black SUV with tinted windows as it passed. Where the fuck were they? I knew there were at least two, since one had snuck up on me as I was watching the other one. What the fuck were they? I continued these thoughts for three miles as I jerked forward to the mountains, to the real wilderness.

I had never felt so up, but I couldn't really enjoy it – not as long as those bastards were on my trail. They had this spooky habit of flitting in and out of my peripheral vision. When I turned to face them, they were no longer fully there. I didn't have my glasses on, so I wasn't sure if I could see a black foot or elbow poking out from the shadows, attached to whatever was waiting there for me. When I tried to approach one, it would fall back and another one would begin moving at the corner of my vision. By this time I felt sure that there had to be at least three of these beings. Their movements were perfectly coordinated. I would have admired their precision if I hadn't been the one being hunted.

And that was just what they were doing – I wasn't familiar with their tactics and I didn't know what weapons they possessed. I couldn't even get a full glimpse of one, but it was painfully clear that I was their prey for whatever reason. My blue crocs pooled with sweat in the afternoon sun. I had left the sidewalk for a nature biking trail that ran parallel to the mountains. My only possessions were a small, scorched pipe, a Bic lighter, and the small plastic bag filled with the rocks.

The rocks were yellowish crystal cubes. I had assumed it was crack or meth but wasn't sure, since I had never done either before and the guy who provided them didn't speak great English. I tucked one against my gum, since the hunters wouldn't let me smoke in peace. The rock tingled and tore at my mouth, and I broke into a jog. If these beings wanted to keep shadowing me, then they would have to work for it.

A No Trespassing sign hanging from a chain grabbed my attention and I jumped past onto a trail running perpendicular to the biking path and leading up to the mountains. As the trail grew steeper, I tucked my head and pumped my arms, breaking into a blue-croced sprint. The trail flattened out as I reached the crest of hill. Had I lost them?

I looked back and focused on a distant peak several hundred feet away. One was standing there for me. I was seeing it because it wanted me to see it. I believe that it wanted to give me the purest form of terror before continuing the chase – it worked.

The black figure was about six feet tall with a slim but powerful build. When I say black, I mean head-to-toe darkness. Black combat boots, gloves, pants, and jacket. Its face was covered with a tinted reflective surface shaded by a visor, a cross between a paintball mask and a motorcycle helmet. It was holding a short-barreled rifle with a pistol grip and collapsible stock – guess what color it was.

The rifle barrel was pointed down, and I could see that it had no scope. The black figure's stance somehow gave the impression that it wouldn't deign to use a scope, that it could nail me through the eye with a one-handed shot if it so pleased. All this was conveyed in about two seconds. The black figure stood in partial profile and turned its masked face toward me ever so slightly.

I couldn't handle it. I turned away for a second and then looked back. It was gone.

I spit out the crystal in my mouth and hustled into the deep underbrush that was taller than me and covered the mountainside. I moved very noisily, so I stopped periodically to check for sounds of pursuit. There was just the sound of my breathing, so I moved forward a few more feet and stopped – still just my breathing. A few more feet forward and then stop. This time I heard movement. The owner of the steps knew that it had been heard. Instead of quieting down, it abandoned stealth and I could hear it crashing toward me. I scrabbled through the plants and broke out onto another path, another crest of the hills gradually becoming mountains.

I couldn't decide if being blind in the undergrowth or vulnerable in the open was the better option, but I left the path, in too much of a panic to look or listen for any approach. The other side of the mountain was covered in dry brown grass that only came to my knees. I hit the ground and started crawling through it.

Were the beings tracking me even human? Could I grasp their intentions? When I tried to sense them, there was this incomprehensible wall. The snipers were unreadable. Perhaps the aspect that I came closest to sensing from them was grim amusement at my attempts to elude and understand them. But death is efficient – it doesn't have time for emotions or feelings.

My thoughts weren't nearly this coherent in my tweaked-out state, but I did have the presence of mind to stop when I crawled near a massive brown rock. It had an overhang that I was able fit under. I stayed there as the steady set of footsteps surrounded me.

I felt that there had to be four snipers by then – Jeezus, would their numbers just keep moving up by one every five minutes? If the brown rock shielding me was at the center, I imagined them forming four points of a square, boxing me in. Boxing me in! Trapped! Flee flee!

I grabbed a small rock from under the overhang and threw it as far away from me as possible. It made a good amount of noise when it landed. I thought it was a stupid, desperate trick, so I was surprised when I heard the snipers running towards that area. I rolled out from under the brown rock and ran in the opposite direction, never daring to look back.

I don't know how far or fast I ran through the mountains. I remember zig-zagging and sliding around in my sweaty crocs – it was miracle that my left knee, which had popped out of place that summer, didn't crumple on me.

I had somehow made it back onto a path in the foothills, and an elderly couple was heading towards me, out for a stroll. I was exhausted and jogging by that time. The man smiled and nodded at me. His smile faded when he took in my appearance. I wondered if I should warn them about the snipers. I ended up continuing past them and not saying anything. I didn't want them to call the police on a crazy kid harassing senior citizens in the mountains. Plus, I felt instinctively that they weren't part of the hunt. For whatever reason, this was solely between me and the snipers. With the presence of actual human beings, I knew that I was close to civilization once more.

I hadn't seen the snipers at the edge of my vision for a good five minutes. But I got the feeling that they would stay hidden when others were around. This ability to remain unseen was part of their prowess. They were in complete control. I was powerless. As soon as the elderly couple vanished from view, the snipers returned. One trailed behind me on my right, another on my left. The location of the other two was unknown. The sniper on the right sped up, so I went left. The sniper on the left moved incredibly fast, so I went back right. They were herding me – off a cliff.

I grabbed a small tree near the precipice and it saved me from falling face first. The cliff was steep but not a sheer drop, so I tumbled down and slid on my ass for part of the way. I had momentum, I somehow still had my blue crocs sticking to my feet, and I saw houses! The only problem was that I'd have to run through a partially forested valley to get there. The opposite side of the valley was smooth green manicured, a way back into suburbia where unfathomable beings with guns didn't decide to make you their personal prey.

Branches and thorns tore at my arms and legs, and then I was out. I realized my mistake after a few steps on to the green. I was completely exposed on an incline. I tried to zig zag up, but it was hopeless. Halfway up the hill, I turned and backed up as I looked into the forested part below.

I could make out three figures separated from me by the trees – where was the fourth?

“Stop, why are you shooting people?” I screamed.

One of the beings below shouted something. So they could talk. How would their strange language of death sound?

“It's just paintballs!” The voice was young and came from one of the figures. I noticed that they were much shorter than six feet and not entirely black. There was some dark blue, brown, perhaps even white.

My mind did a back flip. I was near the top of the green by then, and there were some small rocks there. I yelled and threw a few. The young paintballers scattered.

To this day, I don't know if the snipers or paintballers were real. Perhaps my tortured mind had to come up with something to fill in the gaps, when I expected to die on the green and no projectiles came my way. It's very possible that some kids playing paintball in the mountains noticed me behaving strangely and decided to have some fun. It's also very possible that I was completely alone in those mountains, running from imaginary snipers. I don't even know if the elderly couple that I passed were a hallucination.

As I left the mountains and found the sidewalk leading back down to Foothill boulevard, I kept jogging at random intervals and ducking quick peeks over my shoulder. Rather than pure terror, I had moved into incessant paranoia. My mind temporarily accepted the paintballer explanation, and I thought the kids would follow me to pop off their shot.

I was very lucky to run into a friend from my school once I made it to more crowded parts of the sidewalk. He was buying groceries and chaperoned me back to school. I kept startling at the movement of black outlines and running up to trees to check behind them for those no-good, dirty paintballers.

My friend told me later that my agitation was so genuine that he almost began to see these figures as well. He took me to a dorm that was built nearest to the Outback. I had come full-circle, except now the sun was setting. I had been on the run for close to five hours. I asked a group of friends, the closest thing my school had to a fraternity, to let me borrow their BB guns so that I could defend myself. They were smart enough to say no. I didn't tell anyone that I was on drugs.

And when the sun set completely and the darkness came was when the real fun began. Shapes that had been suggestions before became living things.

I was escorted back to my dorm by other friends and kept in the care of one of my best friends, who was also sort of the dorm mom. She made me lie in her bed and couple of other friends kept watch over me. I let them know that I was on drugs but didn't offer to hand them over – the small bag, pipe, and lighter were still in the pocket of my gym shorts.

I covered myself completely in blankets and tried to turn off my mind. The room was on the second floor and situated against a window. I thought that I could feel gun barrels pressing in through the open window. Those shitty kids with their guns were taunting me, aiming the barrels at my back, my crotch, and my face. I would growl and swat at the barrels, but there was never anything there when I did.

In the end I gave up. My thoughts were please shoot me with whatever is in those guns. It's the thought of waiting for that shot and feeling my nerves unravel further that is unbearable. Please just shoot me and prove to my friends that you are real, that I'm not insane.

Keep in mind that there were actual people in the room with me at all times, so it was very unlikely that barrels were coming through the window without them noticing. The next day, when I looked behind the dorm, there was a tall stack of wooden crates that looked as if someone had placed them there to climb to the window. And that's the dilemma – not being able to trust myself or my perceptions.

My friend thought I had wet her bed because the blankets and sheet were soaked – it was all sweat.

I spent the next day in the Outback still smoking the mystery rock. I had decided to conquer it and get past my bad first experience – fucking stupid. I didn't end up running from snipers during the day. I actually spent the time frolicking with two highly imaginary and highly beautiful girls in the undergrowth. Two days later, I had the worst poison oak that I've ever had in my life.

That experience was fine. No, it was when the darkness came that the snipers returned – not the possible paintball children but the seasoned hunters I had first encountered. That was the last day that I ever smoked the rock. I gave the rest of it to my friend – she is a chemist and wanted to analyze it, since she has some experience in that area. She said that it was like no rock that she had seen before. I don't know if that question will ever be answered. I believe that she lost it, although I wasn't in the habit of asking about it. Two days had been enough – I 'm still dealing with it five years later. I can't imagine what a week on that would have done.

And the snipers have come back on dozens of occasions. I started dabbling in coke Junior year, and by the first semester of my Senior year, it was a regular problem.

The ritual was this: sculpt my exclamation point (a fat line for one nostril and a bump for the other), lick the end of a cigarette and use it to pick up coke residue before lighting up, another exclamation point but switch nostrils, another cigarette, repeat, repeat, repeat, and wait for the snipers.

As the paranoia became terror, the snipers would gather outside my window or anywhere just out of my reach so that we could start our dance. I would try to sit motionless and then turn really quickly to catch a full glimpse. They might mimic my movements or just take lazy aim. It would always end with me staring at the window waiting for a shot to come or for my mind to shut off.

Occasionally there'd be a new element to the synchronized sniping. I ripped open an air vent when I thought a small, flexible sniper had set up shop there. I broke a piece of mirror to give myself a portable rear view for the bushes outside my window. I arranged pistachio shells just so on my window sill just so. I tried to escape on a skateboard during the day and rode through neighborhoods, wondering at the strange stares (it turned out that my nose had been bleeding the whole time). I bought a hunting knife and slept with it under my pillow on the couch (I had already tucked pillows under my bed sheets as a decoy). I was fucking losing it.

I quit coke halfway through the first semester of Senior year, and the snipers were a prime motivator there. I believe that it's been almost three years since I've touched it. I haven't seen a sniper since, but I still feel their presence at random times and places, that remembrance of powerless fear. Are they real or imaginary? To still be asking that question is a sign of trouble.

I don't think I've been explaining the nature of the snipers quite how I want, so I will compare them to bed bugs.

Bed bugs are one of the worst pests to have. Their bites are extremely itchy and painful, sometimes leaving scars. A single bed bug with a batch of eggs can infest an entire mattress. Here's the thing - they only come out at night. They also sometimes develop a taste for a certain person's blood. For example, my ex and I had a light infestation, and they would bite only me at first. She thought I was imagining the sensation of being bitten until they moved onto her about a week later and left me alone for several days. They will gorge themselves on blood and sometimes go into hiding for several months.

Replace blood with fear and you have your sniper that started it. And that's why I had to challenge it to a duel.

I had it all planned out. I would look up the douchiest-sounding paintball arena in Miami, the kind of place where people have matching uniforms and turn up their guns up way past the max fps levels. I would then walk out in the middle of the field during a game, close my eyes, and wait for the shots to come. Somehow that would heal me, and I'd write a snappy blog post where the ending sentence would be somewhere along the lines of “move along, peashooters, there's nothing for you to feed on here.”

That never happened. It didn't feel right as I was looking up paintball places. It got to be my last full day in Miami, and I still didn't have anything set up.

There's a small park across the way that I went to nearly every day. It had a rubberized track perfect for barefoot running and plenty of cool corners from which to people watch. One of those corners was right at ocean's shore. Fossilized coral rocks and red mangroves made for the perfect setting to watch the sunrise. Three hundred feet across the water was a small island – that would be where I would go for my final visit with the sniper that started it all.

That morning, I started the swim. I could take no electronics and I would be bringing no weapons. I no longer own a pair of crocs, so I would have to go barefoot. The mud and silt at the bottom of the water was surprisingly deep and covered in some type of underwater grass. I thought of sting rays and sea urchins; an animal planet show that I had seen earlier that week had recommended shuffling one's feet so as not step directly on one of these. The deep mud made it impossible for me to do this. The entire swim was actually a walk, since the water never got deeper than four feet, an awkward depth that turned most attempts at swimming into an underwater crawl.

I made it to the island in ten minutes and looked for the darkest patch in the red mangroves, the one that gave me the greatest sense of foreboding. There was a big log for my bench with a smaller log running parallel to it for my foot rest. This perfect arrangement felt prepared. I sang a loud song, and there was a splash in the water nearby. I closed my eyes, sat and waited.

I don't know if I waited for two, five, or fifteen minutes. I listened. I could hear a distant boat on the water, wind passing over the mangrove leaves, sounds of life. I never heard the footsteps behind me. It revealed its presence by pressing the rifle barrel right behind my left ear. It held steady. We waited.

Keep your damn eyes closed. Sit still and sit straight. Love this moment. BE.

Click.

It took five years for me to figure out that the gun was never loaded. I suppose that's not a bad joke.

The pressure behind my ear vanished. I stayed seated for awhile, just breathing. Finally, I opened my eyes. I noticed a white stick stretched across some mangrove roots. I rose and picked it up; it was a 10 foot section of PVC pipe. A gift?

I took the stick back with me across the water. It was a perfect, flexible support pole, allowing me to sweep the ocean floor in front of me, testing for sting rays. Halfway across, I spotted a green canoe rounding sniper island. The man paddling it precisely was white haired and had a slim but powerful build. I couldn't tell from his seated position, but I guessed that he was about six feet tall. He was wearing a strange hat with side flaps and a long visor that covered the back of his neck. As he passed near me and my sweeping pole, he turned his head ever so slightly, the briefest form of acknowledgment.

There are times when real versus imaginary can't matter. How else does pure terror turn into cautious respect?

Closure

I've been realizing that my past mentions of my relationship with my ex-girlfriend have been too many and too sparse in detail to do over a fifth of my life a justice. I've been too whiny; I've been playing off the fact that a one-balled mutant had to find the gumption to end a long-term relationship. The real fact is that we were unhappy and didn't want to be together – it could easily have been her who ended the relationship, but, given the circumstances, it was better for me to the be the one to start the process.

We first met when I was a freshman in college. She was intimidating – sexy in a sophisticated yet slightly curvy sort of way. Imagine a skinny, well-rounded, black girl with perfect dreadlocks and blue contact lenses. I had this premonition upon meeting her that she would teach me about unrealized parts of myself – that I would connect to parts of herself that she never before knew existed – oh, that our limbs might one day be wrapped around one another in existential, unforgiving, honest bliss. I somehow knew this within six seconds of meeting her.

She lived in the same dorm as I did, and I made my first approach during a party. She danced with me, and we broke down into a violent kiss before she pulled away and said that she could tell that I was a horrible lay from the way I danced.

I tried again in the dorm lounge a few weeks later – not quite a party, but a gathering that wiled away until only the two of us remained in the dorm lounge.

“No, you're not experienced enough for me. I don't need that,” she said.

I had heard that same argument many times that night, so I finally asked what experiences she'd like me to have and with whom and where I should have them. I also asked why someone as experienced as herself was saying no to one more experience.

I was very inexperienced; I hadn't had any sort of sex in high school and only a few seemingly natural but sometimes awkward acts in college. I had thought that women were inaccessible; unless I knew some secret code coupled with an impeccable technique, I would most likely have to find new ways to rhyme 'wait' with 'masturbate.' No one wanted an amateur but then how could someone gain worthwhile experience?

“Well, I'll just have to find my experiences somewhere else,” I finally said. I went to my room and tried to pass out so as not to have to deal with the teases and taunts of that night.

The faintest of knocks at my door - I thought it was my imagination, but I opened just in case. She was peeking around the corner of the hallway, looking very adorable and innocent instead of experienced and intimidating. I followed her upstairs to her room but was too nervous to get fully hard.

I went down on her instead. She tasted perfect as I licked and sucked and marveled at how warm and smooth the skin of her inner thighs felt against my cheeks when she clenched her legs.

“Well, I guess you're not a bad lay,” she said. Those words made me wonderfully hard.

I had left my ARMY shirt in her bedroom. It wasn't as threadbare and raggedy as it is today, but I wore it more back then. Our first night together was a little before Spring Break, so the shirt remained there for over a week while I went to New Orleans on a community service trip.

Getting back, I was irrationally terrified of climbing the stairs, speaking to her, and reclaiming my ARMY shirt. I kept trying to think of excuses that would take me up there. Knowing what I do now, I would've asked her out to dinner and casually mentioned the shirt as a way to go back to her room and see what the conversation turned into. Instead, I jogged up the stairs when I saw her door open, didn't make much conversation, and asked hurriedly for the shirt.

She had folded it and put in one of her drawers. She was always very neat and organized.

There were more parties, and the nights spent together became a regular thing. A lot of our sex was her tipsy and me stoned – good fun.

Even then, the issue of whether or not I was in her league came up occasionally. Some of her friends weren't impressed by me. When I asked why, she told me that I had potential. We left it at that.

Summer came and, as a freshman, I was staying for summer math while she was going back home. We never made any exclusive relationship demands, but we had been seeing a lot of each other and no one else. It was a weird, distant arena with many unspoken implications, but, to make a long story short, I woke up with another girl naked in my bed about a month later. I had had a mild acid trip the night before and had played Edward 40-hands as I was coming down, so I how I got to that state was a bit of a mystery.

I had a very fun morning with that girl. We also hooked up a day later in the Outback, a few acres of wilderness at one end of campus, on a beach towel. It was fast and exciting. I told my semi-girlfriend about the first hook-up, and her first question was “how was the acid?”

It was only a month or more later, after summer math, that I guiltily told her about the second meeting. She blew up (she kept asking me to tell her who I had slept with – I never did) and we “broke up.” It was more a parting of ways. I hadn't thought of us as boyfriend-girlfriend but friends with benefits who happened to be exclusive – she felt differently. Yeah, I was very inexperienced.

I used that inexperience as an excuse and said that I didn't want to spend all my college years, which were supposed to be some of the best years of my life, with just one person. I needed more experience.

She was very chill with that, and my first semester sophomore year (junior year for her) was spent seeing other people. At the start of that semester, I had also dislocated my knee in cross country. I could no longer keep up with the mileage and strain the sport required. Running had been important to me all through high school and freshman year, although my unhealthy lifestyle didn't support it. Without it, I felt broken, depressed.

I ended up asking her to get back together, although I was the one who had claimed that we'd never been together. But I was doing it for all the wrong, selfish reasons. Luckily, she refused. I went on to meet two or three girls, some nice and some crazy. Looking back on it – it wasn't a bad semester.

Next semester, same year – we somehow got back together after I hit on her in the same drunken lounge environment. We gave each other hickeys; we marked each other.

First semester, junior year – she said that she wanted to hook up with other people. I said that was fine through gritted teeth, when I should have said I didn't want that and gone my own way. Instead we started seeing other people – I met more girls this time, some nicer/crazier than a year ago. I was also a mess, doing too many hard drugs.

We still hooked up from time to time, but I was disgusted with myself for doing so. The worst time was near the beginning, when I was in a synergistic, drunken state. I knocked on her door and it took me a good while to realize that she was in there with a person that I knew. I came back later that night, downtrodden.

“You can either spend the night or leave,” she said. I stayed and fucked her in the morning without making eye contact. And that night is where I should have left, where I should have worked more on becoming who I wanted to be. I've had situations with other girls where we see other people, and it hasn't been a problem. With her, there was too much history, too many emotions, too much time. I should have realized that and left. Instead, I stayed for awhile and resented her.

There was an HPV scare during all of this, and I had to hear it from one of the guys that she'd been hooking up with rather than from her. I had been about to spend a night with another girl but told her about the possibility and slept alone that night.

When I confronted my ex-semi-ex-girlfriend about it; she said that she wanted to know whether or not it was just a scare before telling me. I said some nasty words, and we stopped hooking up.

By second semester Junior year, we were back together. Starting to see a pattern?

It happened gradually this time – coffee, back rubs, and tearful sex. I told her that I loved her. She said the same.

As she was getting ready for graduation, she told me that she still wanted to be together. I was hesitant about being in a long-distance relationship but agreed. Before she left, I gave her my ARMY shirt to take for safekeeping.

The distance was dreadful, another worry to an already stressful senior year. I worried about not being the young professional guy that she seemed to crave. I worried about her always going out to bars and looking so damn good so damn far away. She was honest and faithful, but it was still a strain on the both of us.

After my graduation, I had no real plans. I had applied and been accepted to a low-residency MFA program that would allow me to have a job if I wanted to. I worked part-time jobs and wrote part-time – a little bit of everything and nothing all at once. I didn't smoke as much or do other drugs, but I gradually started drinking more and more, shying away from full-blown alcoholism but still drinking unfortunate amounts at inopportune times.

In short, I was an emotional man-child and felt like a disappointment to my girlfriend. We lived together for two years in Charlotte and Chicago. We had good times, but there was also a sense of inferiority and of impatience, the feeling that she didn't want to be with me but was somehow putting up with it.

Instead of being too whiny, I may be getting too depressive now. We had wonderful moments – a sushi picnic in snowy mountains, a bonding 3-day journey across the states when I helped her move my senior year, a surprise connection with our airplane seats right next to each other when she flew me out to see her, a psychedelic trip where her almond-shaped eyes widened at every little flower in a two mile radius, jokes, tickles, dates, dinners, love-letters, sweet-talk, and on and on and on – please don't stop.

But it had to stop. I should've been happy with getting to date and hook-up with a beautiful girl, moved on my Junior or Senior year, and still remained friends at a distance. I shouldn't have been a weak, dependent person who kept coming back even when I realized that I didn't like that way I felt or was being treated. I should have been happy to be myself and felt happy that she was herself.

And that's the thing – I was realizing that, looking beyond my own passivity and low self-esteem, I didn't want to be with her. I could have left at any time, but I didn't. I was afraid of being on my own or never finding anyone better for me. Empathy leads to understanding, but understanding doesn't necessarily lead to happiness or some type of greater love. I realized that there were parts of her beautiful personality that wouldn't change and that I plain didn't like, just as parts of my own nature drove her crazy.

A few days after my first surgery, I broke up with her. I could see that same pattern starting to emerge – me giving into weakness and trying to prolong my time with her/regain dependence even though I was very unhappy. Her feeling sorry for me and my predicament and perhaps bearing my company for a bit longer. I couldn't stand to see that pattern take place a third time. I was done.

As the two months and two surgeries went by, I tried at first to send a few longish emails to her; I was foolishly trying to recreate the love emails that we sent during the summer of my freshman year. She sent back a nice, short response about how she'd always love me, regardless of how many balls I had. The other responses were disappointing, so I stopped sending emails.

I also realized that I liked not being stuck in the same apartment with her. I was reading to my heart's content, writing at odd hours, getting my stride back for my web writing job and not feeling guilty for wearing shirts she thought was ugly, for not having a schedule that better fit her work day, and feeling stupidly disappointed when I tried but failed to explain an interesting moment of my day to her.

She was supportive in her own way during this time, but I didn't feel like it was the support that I wanted or needed. It was a soft break-up, since all of my stuff was still in our apartment and I paid half of the rent while I was gone. During my absence, she kept saying that she was in a funk, and I asked if it was because of me. She said no. I believed it. Yeah – still not that experienced.

We were on OK terms, but I made the mistake of coming back to the apartment for a week and a half before my travels and overstaying my welcome.

I helped rearrange furniture and prepare for her bachelorette pad and tried to keep everything clean, but I was definitely still in the way, just by my very presence. I hadn't given her exact plans of what I was going to do after my travels (I was still figuring this out for myself and trying not to panic), and it had disrupted her life. We tried going out to dinner a few times, but the talk always came back to our past relationship, and it usually wasn't an uplifting conversation.

I told her that she was making me feel like an unwelcome burden when I'd be out of her hair in a few days. She told me that, to be entirely honest, I was that burden and my poor planning had made these past few months very hard for her. The sad part was I knew it to be true.

My second to last night there, she threw a party for friends and coworkers, a party that I wasn't meant to be there for. I could feel the resentment building as I drank more and more and eventually went blackout. Later that night, with only the two of us remaining in the apartment, I told her that she was a fucking bitch and I had wasted three years of my life with her.

I was being verbally abusive; she called 311, Imed a mutual friend, filmed me, and had me leave my parents a voicemail. She also barricaded herself in the bedroom. I don't recall any of this, but she said the voicemail I left was very cruel. When I called my Dad the next day and asked about the voicemail ashamedly; he said it didn't seem cruel, was mostly coherent, and seemed to fit his impressions of our past relationships. The film was sent to me as a private video on youtube – it was me stretched out and slack-faced drunk on a couch spouting nonsense while she wheedled away with questions. The only coherent sentence came at the end of the video (“I should've broken up with you in college.”) I don't think I constituted a threatening figure, but I'm not sure what to believe anymore. I learned all this from an email that she sent to me that morning as I woke up on the couch.

The sad part is I realized that what I said about wasting 3 years of my life felt true to me. In the next ten minutes, I'm hoping to write a few more paragraphs and have this finished. I don't want to devote any more time or emotional energy than I have to while I enjoy my stay in beautiful Miami. The first week here was paradise, but a homemade mojito triggered a memory. I was grinding up limes and mint for my drink and talking to a girl at the house I'm staying at. It came up in my conversation that my ex-semi-ex-full-ex girlfriend didn't like pulp of the texture of fruit, so she'd have a bartender mix the mojito and strain it. I started remembering other quirks about her and felt unhappy for the next few hours. I don't want to waste any more time than I already have, so this mediocre summary is a way of storing those memories, a way to remind myself that I'm free and could've been so all along. It's a way to acknowledge that any unhappiness was ultimately my fault – closure.

She was out on a date that day after my drunken tantrum, so I replied to her message via email apologizing for my actions but not for how I felt. Here's an excerpt from that response near the end:

I have to thank you. I've realized that some of my anger stems from being afraid. I'm sorry for directing some of that anger at you. I've been a fearful person for most of my life, and these past few months have really scared me. The reason behind my travels, poorly planned or not, is to face as many of those fears as possible. Even though the cancer didn't spread, I still feel as if there is something horrible growing within me. I want to face it, accept it, and eradicate it. You've helped me face one of those fears, the fear of being unwanted, not desirable, a burden. It's a subtle fear, a constant nagging doubt that I will never be the person that I want to be. For the past few years, I've been trying to be the man that you and other people want me to be, and that's no way to live. I can't give a shit that I'm unlikeable to some people if I ever want to be myself. Thank you for helping me see that.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Florida, but I've already overstayed my welcome. After I get packed, I'll be spending tonight in a motel. I know that it's better for us not to be around each other; right now, it's like a scab that only looks worse the more you pick at it - perhaps that will heal over time. Wish me luck on my travels, and I hope you have a beautiful April. Jeezus, who knew that our last couple of days would be like this - but at least we can say that they weren't devoid of some type of passion?

She replied with an even longer email that detailed how she had felt these past months. Many part were painfully true to read – others I just couldn't agree with. Much of it was about communication and how I didn't listen or truly know her, how she didn't kick me out of the apartment despite the advice of her family, friends, and coworkers – something along those lines, since I wasn't really paying attention. Just kidding, parts of her message helped me understand that I have been really selfish. I thought the fear and pain was mine and mine alone. But all this time family, friends, and my ex-semi-ex-full-ex girlfriend were upset and suffering as well. Thank you all for your support, and I'm sorry for being blinded by my experience.

All the same, I copied points from her email that I felt to be false and came up with counterarguments. I would send a long email back to defend myself against these misperceptions. I planned, read, and re-read as I sat in a Floridian airport waiting for a delayed flight. I did this... until I realized that I was in Florida. Poor planning or not, I had started the first leg of my journey. I had recovered from cancer. I had reconnected with old friends. I had countless options before me that had been invisible to me several months ago. Why was I wasting my time writing a stupid, huffy email that would only lead to more arguments? I sent her a short email that thanked her for her response, promised that I would give her at least a week's advance notice before I picked up my remaining boxes, and said I'd send her a post card.

I would say the moment of closure was leaving for the motel on my last night in Chicago. I stuffed my ARMY shirt into my backpack, and I triple-checked everything in my bag, wondering if I would break down and spend one last night in the apartment. I kissed her once and hugged her, not making eye contact, not wanting her to see all of that anger, shame, and regret. I didn't speak a word because I knew that I'd start crying. What else was there to do? What else was there say? Nothing – and so it was time to finally move on and accept the terrifying responsibility for my own happiness.