On the day that I realized that I had lost a good portion of my memory I decided that in order to get through this without having every member of my life hounding to remember certain events, that I just needed to keep this little bit of information to myself. I would just pretend that I was disoriented, "Oh, sorry grandma, I must have been having a bad dream" I said. My grandmother continued on reading scripture from the bible and how blessed I was that God had decided to give me another chance. It was clear to me that grandma, from my biological fathers side, was a bible thumper and for some reason it REALLY got under my skin.
Over the next few weeks after moving back home so that I could be looked after while recuperating, I was shocked again and again as to the events in my life that I could not recall from my parents divorce to friends and relatives and the most devastating to me at that time, the fact that I had told my parents that I was gay and I did not even realize that I was. The thought was foreign and I had no recollection of being gay other than, to be "that way" was taboo. I had no feelings for men at that point nor did I have the desire so I decided to move in the general heterosexual direction.
Among the few people that I had been carrying home on the night of the accident was a girl named Melanie Anderson. I met Melanie a few weeks before the accident and we had become pretty good friends. She was in the military and was stationed here while she completed her military police training. She was an outgoing person and loved to party. That night she was going to stay at my friend Jenny's house so that we didn't have to drive her back on base. She was around quite a bit after the accident and during my rehabilitation and I think she may have felt guilty about the accident since she was the last person that was dropped off that night. We became much closer after all of the events that had taken place over the last few months and it came time for Melanie to get her orders and was to be transferred and posted at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in Oceanside, California.
During this time of my rehab, I had discovered so many things in which I had no recall. The more I kept it to myself the more frustrating it got and with every passing day was new information that I somehow had to merge with the memories that were already in my head. It was like putting together a puzzle but not having all the pieces, it just wasn't going to happen. When Mel told me of her new orders I told her that I did not want her to go, nor did she want to. We had become such close friends and for me, had perhaps started to fall in love with her. One way or the other she was the most familiar thing to me after the accident and the only sense of normalcy that I had. We decided to get married so that I could go with her to California. It was the perfect opportunity for me get away from the continuing torture that I was having to live with every time a new event or memory was presented to me.
Mel and I married in December of 1988 and from what I gathered over the last few months my father was still very upset with my "coming out" so when this marriage occurred it was a blessing from above as far as my father was concerned. Evidently the reason that my grandmother was sitting next to my hospital bed when I came to, was because my father had "found Jesus" and was born again. I believe that his family were his followers or so he truly believed(TWISTED!) and that my "gayness" had no place with God or in this world and that I was to be damned to hell because of it. So when I announced the marriage, my father was pleased. He was so pleased that he would foot the bill for a small ceremony at my grandmothers house. We tried to insist that we would go to the Justice of the Peace but he insisted that "this is the Lords work and should be celebrated and shared with everyone"......and so it was.
On the night of the ceremony we decided to go out for a night on the town to share with her friends as well as my own, to celebrate our "marriage" as well as to mark the 3 month anniversary of my survival and rehabilitation from the car accident. My father had sprung for the hotel room(probably hoping that it was a down payment on grandchildren) as his gift. We spent most of that evening drinking but it got to a point that I just didn't want to drink anymore and not sure if it was just because I had not done it in so long or that I just lost the urge. Either way, I told Mel that I was going to go to the hotel room and that she should stay and enjoy herself with her friends as it was the last time she would be able to spend time with them before she left to California.
The next morning I woke up, looked around and didn't see Mel anywhere. I thought maybe she had decided to go back to the base so I went back to sleep. Later on I awoke to what sounded like someone moaning as if to be suffering from a horrible hangover and assumed that she did in fact come back to the hotel and I had just not seen her anywhere earlier when I first woke up. I get out of bed and walk around to the restroom and laying at the bathroom door is a woman that I had seen Mel talking to the night before and Mel laying with her head at the base of the toilet and legs out the door of the restroom. Both she and her guest were completely naked and it looks as if Mel had passed out after throwing up. The "friend" was laying passed out on top of Mel with her face nearly in her ass crack.
Among all of the thoughts in my head not once did I think that I would spend the first day of my marriage trying to figure out what was going on. Some part of my mind genuinely felt that this marriage was a new beginning and that perhaps we could have made a life together. That however, was not the case and I had to get it out of my mind quick that this was going to move into a completely different direction. Again, I went along with the situation, never talked about it or made a big deal of it and just moved forward.
Mel left just before Christmas so that she could make arrangements for my arrival and in February, I joined her. I was finally away from everything unfamiliar and my head was able to get the break it so badly needed. Although I went from one foreign place to another, at least this was the opportunity to create new memories instead of having to deal with ones from my past and trying to integrate them into my new life. All of the anxiety that I had been carrying around me until my departure had finally subsided. I had always wanted to go back to the state in which I was born. I was born in Los Angeles and when I was 3 my parents had moved the family back to Texas. Although I'm not exactly sure why we relocated to California in the first place all I had ever felt throughout my life was that I needed to get back there one day and there I was........Home.
To be continued........(Ok so perhaps this needs to be its own Blog....I'll work on that!)
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