Unlike my wife, I am no stranger to the surroundings of evil people, the ones who add to the definition of words like notorious and inhumane; individuals who have heightened the emotions of jealousy even way beyond the points of where God himself intended for it to be.
See, I entered this world among a class of humans who were deemed from the gutters of society, scums of the earth, menaces, degenerates, criminal minded and plain corrupted.
And as I became more conscious of my surroundings, I realized that most of what was said about us were true, but what wasn’t true was that the negative behaviour which had been exercised and passed down from generations to generations weren’t all by genetic traits, while 50% might have been, the other 50% were mere cultural exercises adapted by ignorant fools who were brainwashed to not think outside of the box; in other words, an ambitious escape could save them, the same way it saved me.
Earlier in my life I was ashamed of my origin, but today I am neither proud nor ashamed; however, I appreciated the wisdom and the knowledge gained from my experiences. I am still yet to grasp its full understanding, but I am happy to have the wisdom and knowledge which enforces that ‘If I do not know where I am running from, then I do not know where I am running to.’
One of the benefits of being from the gutters, is that I can recognize gutters and gutter-rats, who try to pass themselves off as decency, quicker than my wife, whose origin I put at about 220 degrees from mine on the compass.
So it is no surprised that for years, my wife was puzzled about my existence and social behaviour; she met me as a hobo, a loner without family ties.
In my search for peace and happiness, I found Hope, who was a big piece of the Bliss Puzzle which I was on a quest of putting together. But Hope was normal, she did not have the same life as I did growing up, so she had very little, if any, reason at all, to create personal disciplines and life’s guides.
She never understood why I had no connection with my parents nor relatives, and it was even more puzzling to her when she learnt that the disconnection was of my personal choice.
I have always told my wife that after having a ‘wake-up call’ twenty years earlier, I adopted, what I like to call The Discipline of Change, in order to gain a custom-made life for myself; a life directed by my ambitions. The Discipline of Change involves People, Places and Things, and in adopting it, it meant that I had to rid myself of everyone known to me previously, without exceptions.
And even though, all of my relatives weren’t deemed bad people, by me, all had to go. But notably, some were the ideal product of the gutters; hateful, jealous and hypocritical without reasons.
Still, I did not expect my wife of a sheltered upbringing to understand the security gained from my disciplines nor the severity and detriments which can be caused by jealousy from the vultures among us in society, so our lives continued with me constantly watching over her in ways she never realized, even with her eyes open; being her husband and protector.
After I initially met with the immediate family of my wife, I kept a cordial relationship with them for years, but with a safe distance; my distance was so safe that even ten years on, none quite knew anything about me nor ever had the opportunity of a one on one conversation that exceeded half an hour.
My distance created suspicion of having something to hide, but I didn’t care.
The true reason for my distance was simple, some of them, I had seen their kind before, I knew these people and these were the kind of people I was running from.
My wife tried on many occasions, for me, to give them a chance, but I knew better, my wife could not see them the way I saw them and such conversations always ended with me saying, “It would be hypocritical of me to embrace your family after I deliberately divorced mine, especially with the fact that I see similar qualities in them.”
Just like mine, not all showed signs that I should be weary of, but one or two was enough for me to keep my distance.
Still, I would never put a wedge between my wife and her family; after all, she had no personal reason to refrain, so I had no reason to suggest it.
But on my quest, with Hope, life continued to get better, we became a family with one child, established businesses which aided us to travel around the world, living in a few different Countries; Hope and I called it the Good Life.
And her mother, especially, was pleased. But it was around the same time that my wife saw the first signs of jealousy, toward her, emerged from within her family.
And as life changed for my wife, she also had to experience acts of being sabotaged and backstabbed by family members; her naivety had led her to hug, smile and talk to the devil in disguise which resulted in emotional bruises and mental anguishes.
It wasn’t anything that we couldn’t bounce back from, but it was enough for me to encouraged my discipline upon her.
Immediately, I suggested that she should cut all ties, but my wife thought that my suggestion was extreme and contested it. Despite her wounds, she still could not accept that her own siblings possessed what appeared almost like hate for her.
I remember saying to my wife, “Only a fool give their proven enemies second chances” and “If they missed at their first opportunity, it is almost certain that they will succeed on any second chance.”
But my wife refused to accept such talks and said, “It sounds like a declaration of war, they are only my family!” which I replied “Okay!”
I knew that I still had to watch over her, but I also knew that if I am proven right, it was also a risk of us being extremely wounded, I did not know what category of hurt, but I expected a level of severity.
It had been two years since we were in the same locality as her family, and having things somewhat my way, meant our whereabouts had been kept private, needless to say that life’s goodness had not stopped raining on us.
Well, up until the time my wife suggested a visit to her family.
After agreeing to the revisit, my wife contacted and made known to her family that we would be arriving.
Interestingly, a string of unfortunate occurrences followed; first, my wife lost her passport, which we had to spend a fortune to immediately replace, then on the day of traveling I accidentally left my bag containing valuables at the train station, in haste and hope to find the bag still at the station, I left the train and caught a cab, which cost another fortune, the bag was not found. I then directed the taxi driver to hurry and take me home, in attempt to get items which could substitute my lost valuables, and in haste the driver got a ticket for speeding.
I felt bad for the driver and paid for the ticket; by the time I met up back with my wife and son, at the airport, I was exhausted; it was as if we were not supposed to take that trip.
And indeed, the signs were right.
We counted our losses took off and landed.
Despite never being stopped at an airport before, after scanning our passports, this time we were stopped and interrogated. And even though some of the questions were a little out of the norm, my wife and I, at the time, thought it was just airport procedure.
The questions varied from our whereabouts abroad to the local address which we would be staying, the validity of passports and permits for other countries etc.; after about forty-five minutes we were good to go and left asking ourselves, “What was that all about?”
Little did we know that the answer to such a nonchalant question would be arriving the next day.
The next day my wife and I were visited by Police Officers, who claim anonymous information had led them to believe that we were at the address, involved in a variety of crimes, which included child abuse of our son and depriving him of education.
For a moment silence stunned the air as we stared at each other in disbelief of what we were hearing, disbelief maybe, but for me, I saw this coming from a distance.
Our mistakes were obvious:
1. (For the sake of love) I broke my discipline
2. A proven enemy got a second chance (and did not miss)
3. My wife looked back
And even though we were not arrested, we underwent hours of interrogations, which caused us to disclosed details of our private affairs, before the Police Officers ruled it as False Allegation and a Malicious Attempt.
Having to see our child interrogated and questioned about possible inhumane treatment, me, my wife and son were equally injured, but have no other choice than to make it a lesson.
A lesson, I didn’t have to learn twice, but for the sake of Hope, a big part of my Bliss, it was a worthy sacrifice. We licked our wounds to better days, and my wife now have her very own reason, like me, never to look back.
Bleeding Pen 