705. Who is this Karen woman I speak of? P1-3

05/01/2015

I know this is all going to seem long, but trust me, for a 12 year friendship, this adds up to a short time in comparison.


I met Karen on line in October of 03 through this great bloopdiary site. We would read each other’s diaries and leave notes about the entries.
At some point we exchange AIM SN and chatted every day it seems.
At some point in 2006 I gave her my phone number but never thought she would call.
New years that year I was partying down in Tampa with my twin brother. And soon after midnight I got a call and the voice I heard on the other side I could only describe as an angel’s voice. It was soft, in a silky tone. It just melted me. She wished me happy new years I did the same and asked who it was. She said Karen. I said Karen who? She giggled. Her giggle put a smile on my face, it was so cute. She said Karen from bloop. She was with her friend heather.

Back up… once we started with the AIM’s, we got really close. We could tell each other anything and I mean ANYTHING.

She was an artist by nature and could describe things in ways no one else can. She does it so perfectly without being wordy. It was one of a hundred of qualities I loved about her.
She was this next-door-girl type who also had a silly-naughty side. I remember once she told me that she just got out of the shower and that she was still naked and wet. I must have choked on her words and she was like…whaaat? (In this very cute tone, all innocent) But it got to the point where she would tell me that she had a mosquito bite on her right boob or she told me once how she went to the doc for a physical and they wanted to do a gyno exam and she told him no and told me how it made her feel. NO shame with me no secrets from me.

Her senior year of high school, she took a meddle shop class. Near the end of her school year, she said she was going to send me something in the mail.
A few days later I got a bubble wrap package. No one had to tell me who it was from. I went down to my room and opened it up. There was this meddle charm. On one side it felt like a baseball, with the set of stitches that’s on a baseball, engraved into it. On the other side, absolutely blew me away. It was my initials in Braille. So she had to look up how to write Braille and figure out how she could do it on this piece of meddle.
No one in my family ever learned Braille so you can (not really though) imagine how this made me feel. Emotionally ecstatic would be a good way to describe it.

She went off to college and met a guy. Yada yada.
After college she moved in with him at his mother’s house 90 minutes away from her family and all her friends.
That September she got a little dog who she named Mogi. (Little meaning 12 LBS)

She still told me everything and although we didn’t talk every day, we still communicated by IM’s.
July of 2011 I got a call and since we had not spoken on the phone much, maybe a handful of times over the years, I didn’t recognize the voice at first but my face lit up when she told me who she was. We chatted till I had to go to work. I think it was close to two hours.
She said I could call her anytime. I wasn’t so sure about that.
We talked on the phone one other time that week and by early august, we talked every week day for about an hour.

On August 30th, we were chatting on aim and she asked me how I felt about her. I told her that I didn’t know because I never let myself go there. She pushed me to go there and I thought about it and told her that I could see us being together. Live a simple life with one child. She said that she could see the same too. So opening Pandora’s Box, I realized that I love her. In all the time we knew each other, 8 years, we never argued or even had a disagreement. I remember mentioning that to her on the phone some time later, asking her “isn’t that weird?” she said “mmm no, we never had a reason to.”

She was working at a junk-jewelry store for a while but she left for some reason. I was sad for her of course but I was beyond thrilled that she got a job working at a group home, just like what I work at. Her career goal is to be an art therapist and this was a good start. It brought us even closer together. We would talk about things that happened at work that no one else in our lives care about and or understood. She also worked the night shift. So she wouldn’t see her bf during the week. However, we talked on the phone every day now twice a day. Once before we went to work and then on her way home from work we would chat about work.

Late September I was joking with her and said I am going to come see you some day. She said ok. I was like…ok? She said yup, come over.

So we decided on November 2-5. I got a hotel since they didn’t have a spare room plus in the house, everything is broken down. They do their dishes in the tub because they don’t have a sink that works. A lot of the outlets are pulled out and there are wires that are frayed. So she thought it was best if I got a hotel room. Plus it would be awkward with the bf around.

This bf was very mentally abusive towards her. She would tell me everything and it hurt me. She knew that I didn’t like what he did but she wouldn’t do anything about it because she still loves him-cares for him. She would make excuses for him too. “It’s not that bad” “he loves me” “I have nowhere else to go” He had lost his job and for 9 month lived off her little pay. He was controlling, talked down to her. Made her feel like shit at times. Convinced her that she’s not even pretty and not to bother with sexy underwear because it’s stupid. Even though she liked wearing it, she stopped. I’m not sure at what point, but she had borrowed a book from the library “abusive relationships, easy to get in hard to get out” or something like that. She would read parts of it to me …she would keep the book in her car under the seat and would read it at work.

I remember on October 4th, she said “Jonathan, I love you” I had been saying it to her for a few weeks but I was shocked when she said it to me. So naturally I was on another cloud.

October 10th, I remember it very well…
She had called me about 12:15 after she got off from work as she normally did however, she was crying. She was sobbing so bad I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
I asked her questions that she only had to say “yes” or “no” to. I had learned that she cut herself. Her pain she was holding inside for a month was so painful that she had to relieve the pain by cutting herself. I found out the reason she cut herself. I will keep that to myself. She was able to tell me everything and convince her that what she had done…wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. She thanked me and said “I love you Jonathan”
I learned later that she had told work the cut was from her dog and she told her BF that the cut was from work because she didn’t want anyone else to know the truth.

Eventually came the trip to Indiana to visit Karen.

TO BE CONTINUED!
P2. The trip to Indiana to meet Karen
P3. The roller-coaster since