The beginning of the end post #7

The beginning of the end

January - June 2000

My life was perfect. Except for one thing. I was losing tournament after tournament. I wasn’t even winning my division anymore. It wasn’t because of the girl. It was more that I didn’t have the creative drive that I once had before. I was trying to win tournaments with forms I thought judges liked. I wasn’t doing that before. I did them because I loved performing them.

I hurt my knee really bad at the first tournament of 2000. It was the biggest and most idiotic injury of my life. After I finished my division my knee felt loose in the joint. But I wasn’t in any pain. I went to the medic and asked for him to look at it. He told me it looked fine and since I felt no pain, I was probably ok.

It still felt really strange. So I decided I would try to remedy it myself. Usually when my joints feel a bit out of place, I can pop it and it feels much better. Here is where my stupidity is unbelievable.

I was standing there with all my weight on the leg that felt loose. Moved my arms and waist to one side. What I will say next I think on a scale of 1 to 10 on the stupid scale is an 11 or 12. I threw my body to the other side with force while having my one leg planted to the ground and pushing off the other leg. An intense pain erupted from my knee. I fucked up. I hurt my knee bad. I now had a limp in my step. I went to my room and spent the rest of the night there.

I woke up the next morning and planted my feet on the ground to walk to the bathroom. I collapsed and fell to the floor. My knee was totally gone. I couldn’t even put a couple pounds of pressure on it. I spent the whole weekend in my room.

The first month I was miserable. I couldn’t do anything. I had no hobbies to keep my mind active. My girlfriend tried her best to take care of me. I was just lost. I lost the passion and drive I once had. We were together but the passion was starting to fade away. It would only get worse from here.

This is where the addiction that would take over my life began. I was introduced to a game called Starcraft. It consumed me. I didn’t have health insurance to go see a doctor. Without knowing what was actually wrong with me my knee, I had only one option. Not do a damn thing for a long ass time.

Over the next 6 months I played Starcraft for 4 to 6 hours a day. That would be on the weekdays. On weekends it was far worse. I would go to a friend’s house and we would play all weekend long. I was selfish and didn’t think about what Atlanta needed or wanted. She came along and seemed to enjoy hanging out with all of us. She pretended to like video games as much as I did. But it wasn’t the games she enjoyed. She was happy that I had passion for something again. It would tear us apart eventually. She never once showed that she was upset with me. So I continued destroying our relationship.

She would fall asleep without me for so many nights. Times she would wake up and I was still playing while the sun was coming up. Then I would fall asleep and wake up just before work. Not spending anytime with her. I was a horrible boyfriend. I was clueless to what I was doing to her and our relationship.

She started to hang out with one of my other friends that was outside my gaming circle. He was back for the summer from college. So he would take her out with him on the weekends. They partied every weekend during the summer. I didn’t think much of it because I was happy that she was off my back about playing games and other things I wasn’t doing. I was driving her away. I thought it was good she had other friends now and didn’t need to cling to me.

One weekend it hit me. Something was not right in our relationship. She didn’t call me anymore when she went out with her friends. At home she would be bland and passive with me. So I called her while at my friend’s house.

I asked her what was going on. It was the first time I have ever talked about anything serious with her in a long time. I told her I knew something was going on because she has been so distant. I was one to talk. I have been distant for six months. This was the girl that I was in love with. The one I dreamed of being with. I was throwing it all away. I told her we needed to meet up and talk. She agreed and an hour later we sat stood face to face in a parking lot.

I knew one thing for sure. There was someone else. There had to of been. The signs were there. So I asked her if she had met someone else. She said she has been with another guy. My heart sank but I knew that I deserved it. She asked if I knew who it was. I said I had an idea. This is where the story gets a bit complicated.

She was hooking up with my good friends, little brother’s best friend. To make matters worse. She was leading on the little brother to get to his best friend. To top all this madness off. They all were my high school friends, we all played high school basketball together.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She told me that she loved me but I was so involved with video games and my own life that I neglected her. She was absolutely right.

So I gave her an option. Back then I thought it was a fair decision because I had hurt her for so long. Now looking back, I know that what she wanted was for me to tell her I loved her and that I would do whatever it takes to win her heart back.

I gave her the option to see that guy again. If she felt that she would be happier with him, then I would back off and let them be happy. She agreed to it and the next night she went out with him and her friends.

I didn’t stay at my friend’s house that next night. I spent the night waiting for a phone call or for her to come back home to me. The hours passed. I grew more and more heartbroken. I was starting to lose it. It was a feeling I have never felt before. I was shaking uncontrollably and couldn’t focus on anything.

I wanted to talk to someone but I couldn’t. I only had guy friends and I really didn’t feel like crying to them. I was starting to feel how my last girlfriend felt when I cheated on her and broke up with her.

It was 3am and she still had not come home. I knew it was over. I was devastated. I sat in front of my computer a complete mess. I needed to talk to someone, anyone. So I turned on AOL. Found a random female in a chat room and private messaged her. My first message to her was

“I’m sorry for bothering you, but I’m a mess right now and need someone to talk to.”

She agreed to listen to me. I poured my heart out to her. She was so nice and consoling. Everything I said she knew the right thing to say to make me feel a bit better. People like her make this world a beautiful place. We ended our hour-long conversation. I never spoke to her again.

4am now and she was still gone. I wrote her an email, told her that I knew her answer and that I hope she is happier now with someone who would be a better boyfriend to her. I apologized for everything that I did to her. At 5am I needed to get out of the house. I went rollerblading around town for an hour.

I cleared my mind and accepted everything that happened. I was sad, lonely and heartbroken. Weird thing was that I was ok with it because I had no one else to blame but myself. I brought all this onto myself. Just at the moment of acceptance. Atlanta drove up next to me and screamed at me to get into the car.

I asked her what she was doing. She had just read my email and was angry that I assumed that she was leaving me. I thought she was crazy to think otherwise. She told me that they all just hung and played board games all night then fell asleep. Thanks for not calling me and telling me that, I though in my mind.

I was relieved that she wanted to make this work. But I couldn’t help but think that she was lying to me. How could you not call me and tell me you were going to be out all night when she knew what the night was supposed to about. If she had intentions of working it out, why not come home. Instead make me suffer at home waiting for her. I guess she wanted to teach me a lesson.

I was exhausted from not sleeping and being an emotional wreck. We made up and fell asleep together for the first time in months.