In the last chapter, I ended with the announcement that I was moving to Wilmington, North Carolina. I had a six-month contract to work at Corning Glass. I was working as a technical writer. They needed someone who had a technical background, and I was told that my engineering degree and experience working as a software engineer met the requirements.

I was a bit nervous or had some uncertainty since this was just a six-month contract. What would happen after the contract ended in six months? The past year and a few months had been extremely difficult. I was not doing well, and my self-esteem had plummeted or so I thought.

As it turns out, I only had to move out on my own and get my life back on track. I had to resume my quest and continue with my career journey. 

It also is obvious that the only problem I had had was that I chose to live in an environment that had become toxic in terms of my relationship with my parents. 

I had spent over two years thinking about how unacceptable I was in the eyes of my parents. I could NOT make them happy for me to save my life.

What do I mean when I state that I was living in a toxic environment? I constantly worried that I wasn't good enough... I wasn't making my mother happy... My mother had made it known that she believed that I was stubbornly unwilling to work as an engineer. That nearly constant psychological and emotional abuse hung over me like a dark cloud... Other than when I was with Celta.

When I was with Celta, I felt acceptable... loved... special. I felt good enough. I could just be.

Prior to coming to Wilmington, I had been writing poetry and sharing poetry with a friend of mine named Martin Kirby. I give my mother credit for introducing me to him. It was interesting that she noticed that I might like poetry.

At any one time in life, there are things that stand in stark contrast to everything else that was going on. I mean, my parents had seemed to be completely unaware of everything meaningful that was going on in my life at that time. They were not at all interested in knowing that Celta existed and had played a role in my life. They didn't care to know why I had been so sad for the past year. My family showed no interest at all in my career plans or what I had done to move forward with those plans.

None of that ever seemed to matter at all. That was so exasperating but then my mother introduced me to a poet and English Literature professor because she knew that poetry was interesting to me. Yes, I am grateful that she noticed that but why could they not notice all of the other things that mattered to me?

The subject of the writing that I shared with Martin, my poetry mentor, was not something that either parent cared to know about. So, I'm grateful that my mother cared enough to introduce me to this talented professor of English literature but that was the extent to which either parent demonstrated an interest in anything that interested me or that would make me happy.

Anyway, this new interest of mine in poetry would prove to be important as I started to build a life as a young adult.

Before I moved to Wilmington, I had found a roommate who had a room for rent and her name was Donna Bender.  She was a thin pretty woman who had been in a domestic violence relationship and had been involved in the domestic violence community.

When I moved to Wilmington, I obviously didn't know anyone, other than my roommate. I did socialize a bit with my roommate. I remember going downtown to a gay bar with her once. Apparently, a guy was interested in me and I remember Donna telling that person that I was straight. It was interesting.

This wasn't my main source of entertainment or enjoyment after work and on the weekends.

When I first arrived, that first week, I had in mind that I needed to make friends. I thought I would see what activities are available in the city. So I picked up an entertainment weekly paper. I had in mind looking into the poetry reading scene in the area. I believe my poetry mentor Martin had suggested this to me.

This is how I would build a social network and a social life.

That first week when I arrived, I decided to call the contact person from the announcement in the newspaper. That person's name was Jean Jones. He would go on to be an important friend of mine for many, many years.

I had asked Jean on the phone if people read their own writing and he confirmed that this was the reason we gathered for the poetry readings. Yes, people read their own poetry.

So, I made a decision to attend, and I had in mind that I would share my poetry with the group. This was something for which I had to prepare mentally before showing up. The choice to share my own writing was based on two factors. One was the fact that I truly wanted to share my experiences with others. I had been through an amazing series of experiences and I wanted to make a connection with my stories. The other reason was the fact that I wanted people to know me.

Somehow, I found the courage that very same first poetry reading that I attended to share my poetry. I cannot overstate the courage, effort, and conviction that was required to do this. I had been a very shy person as you know, dear reader. The mere concept of being the center of attention in any group had never occurred in my life. I had avoided that.

I had tried to speak in class at Georgia Tech but never found the courage to do that. 

So, if I did find the courage to read my poetry at the poetry reading, this would be a first for me.

I can only imagine that my experiences with Celta were so very transformative. There was one other thing that was very important to consider which I haven't mentioned yet. I had done volunteer work at Georgia Regional Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. 

The experience as a volunteer at Georgia Regional Hospital was important because I had a specific plan for my career and the rest of my life. I knew I was meant to work as a social worker but that would require that I go to graduate school. The undergraduate degree was in engineering which would allow me to enter graduate school in social work. However, I figured I was going to need experience in an area that is closer to my field of interest.

I knew I wanted to be a mental health professional and more specifically a psychotherapist. Georgia Regional Hospital was a state psychiatric hospital and so that was perfect for me to get experience. I volunteered with the social work team. I also knew that I would need letters of recommendation to get into graduate school in social work.

So, volunteering at Georiga Regional Hospital helped me to advance my social and communication skills as well as give me the experience that I would need to make the transition to social work. 

In addition, this experience was very helpful in my ability to gain a great deal of self-confidence. I did interact occasionally at some staff meetings with perhaps 8 or so people there. They included social workers, a psychiatrist, and some medical students.

None of that involved being the center of attention. However, I did feel like I had been helpful to others. I knew that I had a great sense of empathy and respect for others. People opened up to me without any hesitation for the most part. Some patients had problems that made it hard for them to communicate - this was related to their being admitted to the hospital.

Still, it seemed that so many people were happy to share their stories with me. I was able to get them to open up. I got a sense that I was helping them. Sometimes people just want someone to listen to them and to try to understand them and what they are experiencing.

While those experiences were helpful in increasing my self-esteem and self-confidence, I have also described the painful experiences that were so destructive to me and my sense of self-worth and self-confidence which only increased following the death of Celta.

With that background, I found myself in a different place emotionally and psychologically having moved to Wilmington and out of the situation in which I was living. It truly was like magic and it was like night and day when you consider just how different everything was when I settled into that first week in a new city.

There was another theme that exists in this book. First, when I went off to Georgia Tech as an adult and lived on my own away from my home, I found that experience to be transformative. Now, I moved away from living with my parents, and again almost like magic life is different, better... more healthy.

I don't mean to call my parents bad people, it's just that I needed to be an adult and make my own decisions. 

That is the situation that describes me when I showed up at the Coastline Convention Center at 7 PM Sunday, the first Sunday I had in a new city. Shortly after 7 pm, the sun was setting on the Cape Fear River with the red, orange, and then blue light reflecting into a room with the lights turned low to create a peaceful atmosphere. Large windows lined an entire wall from the ceiling down to nearly the floor. We were on the fourth floor.

A small group of people was there... perhaps 10 to 15 people moving about quietly, each taking their turn to read. A woman named Dusty was the emcee. She was such a special person and that probably had a factor in my choice to summon the courage to do something I had never previously contemplated.

I somehow found the courage to walk to the front of the room after getting some directions from Dusty. She had an air about her that was motherly and serene. Peaceful. Welcoming.

I heard my voice on the microphone and it was an unusual experience. I had never heard my voice amplified. "Is that what I sound like?" I wondered. If you had asked me a few years earlier, when I was in my first two years or more at Georgia Tech if I would ever do this, I would have said it was impossible.

During my last two years at Georgia Tech, I knew I would have to do this - put myself at the center of attention in a group setting - but I also knew that finding the courage and self-confidence to do so was something that would take a tremendous amount of work and effort. 

I had NEVER done what I did this first night at the poetry reading!

Something special was happening that evening. This was the beginning of my life as an adult. This was my becoming. My greatest accomplishment! Finally! I did it. It almost seemed like a test. This was a very, very different test for me. And I passed. I did what I had wanted to accomplish.

I recited a few of the poems that I had selected. I was nervous and I hoped that it wasn't too obvious. I liked the applause and the recognition. Dusty was standing to the side of me as I was finishing up. Her smile was comforting. It said, "thank you for sharing." "You did well." It was accepting. She was about a generation older than me and I realized that this acceptance from a mother figure was something that I had wanted for so long.

The feeling from the experience overall, as I stepped away, from the group was, "you belong." "You did well." I felt like the nervousness that I felt could be contained within the warmth of the room and the welcoming nature of the setting. I belonged. Yeah, I felt like I did belong. This soothed my nervousness and helped me relax.

There would be more Sunday nights just like this. Dusty called this sharing of our personal poetry a sharing of a gift to the group. I liked that idea. I had personal poems about Celta that I had wanted to share.

On the second night that I attended I approached Jean. I knew he had a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree with a specialization in poetry. He was the contact person that I found in the weekly paper announcing the group. I shared with him a poem I had been working on about a memory I had with Celta. I called it "The Swing."

The poem was about a memory I had with Celta when I had gone to the park in the summer of 1990, less than two years ago. She was on a swing.  I had been pushing her away knowing she would swing back to me. First, she would pause at the farthest point from me, her brown hair backlit against the early afternoon sun. 

She had asked me to take her to meet a male friend of hers. I left that out. I noticed how her look had been transfixed upon me. Her friend's voice had faded as if whatever he was saying didn't matter at that point. I could tell he was looking at us. Out of my periphery, I noticed his movement that said he felt awkward and maybe intrusive. Yet at that moment despite the fact that I am incredibly sensitive to the feelings of others, I felt mesmerized.

As I write this in 2021, decades later, there are aspects of this memory that are new along with my ideas for the poem. Back then I was using words like the undulating motion of the swing and I had the notion of pushing Celta knowing she would come back to my arms. 

Jean was friendly and helpful, crossing out large parts of the poem.

It's funny how memories flow back to us like waves when we least expect them to do so. Celta's movement on the swing was wave-like in nature. I had mentioned that in the poem. But my poetry mentor, Martin Kirby, had said that it would take ten years for me to write truly good poems about Celta and our experiences.

Somehow, I would find a way to move on with my life. I was going to meet another special girl named Lynn. I had hardly noticed Lynn, yet. I had still been processing the loss of Celta... and when I shared poems about these things, which was such a challenge, Dusty called our poems gifts! 

So, sharing our hearts and memories with someone or a group is a gift! Nice. I liked that! I liked that very much!

This was the beginning of a quest to pursue a set of goals, dreams, and aspirations. I knew I was going to be tested again in the career I had chosen. I would have to rely upon skills like this and courage like this.

Friendships and Family...

There were a number of regulars that came to the poetry readings. This was where I would build friendships that would last a lifetime. I am about to describe one of those individuals, Lynn Denise Krupey who will figure prominently in this book.

Another important friend who was coming to these readings is Thomas Childs. I have considered him to be part of my family of choice. Thomas, along with Celta, Lynn and my second wife Elee are the four most important people to me – those individuals who have been most dear to me in my life.

This section of my book covers building a family as an adult. Beginning in April of 1992, I would move out on my own leaving the life I had living with my parents. You will notice that the "problems" that I had described when I was living with my parents and dealing with grief will almost magically disappear. 

The environment in which I was living with my parents had become unhealthy because of a misunderstanding. It would take me decades to find out that my mother and perhaps my father had expected me to work as an engineer. I knew they were encouraging me to do so with arguments about how much better off I would be financially and how it would allow me to pay part of my graduate school costs but I didn't know that they expected me to do this. 

I didn't know that they felt I had wasted the investment they made. I had honestly thought they knew and understood my plans to go into social work and that engineering was as wrong for me as anything can be wrong for any job seeker. 

For a brief moment, before I moved out on my own, I worried about my own mental health and whether my "problems" would have an impact on my career plans. In many ways, this was caused by the death of Celta and the impact that had on me. That was where things were left at the end of the last section.  Never again would I wonder about this.
 

In this section, I am writing stories that read like a love story when taken together. When I speak of starting a family, I mean sharing my life with another person, eventually as husband and wife. So, this is about falling in love. I had dated a little but no one other than Celta played a role in my history. 

There was a moment when Celta and I almost kissed – do you remember what I described?

I suppose some of it can be confusing. Nothing "sexual" happened. That being said, I never held hands with my male friends, or cuddled with them, or stared into their eyes, felt the need to repeatedly tell them "I love you." You get the idea.

This section of the book will begin to focus on Lynn who is the subject of this book and who is mentioned in the book's title.

It's important to note that the same efforts involved in overcoming shyness in order to be able to find someone to love were helpful in my career journey. So, this section is a very important part of my overall autobiographical story.

Regarding shyness, I would say that I was a "shy person in recovery." I made up that term and you will come upon this later in this section of the book. I use that phrase to indicate that I had accomplished so much with regard to overcoming the paralyzing effects of shyness, but it has been an enduring aspect of my life story.

Cystic Fibrosis and My Life with Lynn Denise Krupey

It's also important to note that the girl of my dreams, the love of my life, the one person I would fall madly and passionately, totally and completely, in love with, had a chronic illness called Cystic Fibrosis. 

This would have an impact on the decisions we made about life together.

The Role of Religion As A Toxic Influence

For the longest time, I was still a believer in religious ideas – the ones I had been exposed to growing up. God, spirituality, heaven, and sin of course. We can't leave that out. I would come to feel such great shame for things I said to Lynn when we were living together. 

Normally, I would have chosen to get married before moving in with a girl. Things were more complicated by the genetic illness with which Lynn was born.

Where the Story Begins and Where it Leads

I pick up the story when I turn twenty-six and move to Wilmington, North Carolina - my home. Things are much different than when I arrived in Atlanta Georgia for college. It's true that I didn't know anyone in Wilmington when I first move there. However, I am not paralyzed by shyness and social anxiety – I had developed social skills as well.

The experience of being in love was more amazing than I had imagined. I could not have known what it is like to be in love until it happened. I suppose no one does... but no one tried to convey the happiness and serenity that comes from being loved and being in love.

Please join me... this promises to be exciting. 

In the last chapter, I told you about the joy I found in finding someone to love and someone who loved me. I told you about the experiences I had, and I hope it was clear just how meaningful this was in my life's trajectory. It was so important to present the profound and positive impact this had on my life.

This was life-altering.

The experiences I had growing up, in my home environment were toxic to the development of the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that I would need to achieve my career goals. Something had been missing despite all the improvements I had made in my sense of worth.

It's hard to know what you need to overcome a problem that has existed throughout your life. My therapist or counselor in college was very talented, competent, and profoundly helpful. However, we failed to fully appreciate all the negative impacts of abuse and devaluation that I had experienced in my home life from my parents.

Then I met Celta, and something happened. She seemed to delight in me. She was so interested in my experiences. She also was concerned about my well-being and happiness. I knew she was thinking about me for most of the day each and every day! Her diary-style, stream of consciousness letters told me this.

I knew she was thinking about me for so much of her day, each and every day, because of the letters she wrote to me - her diary of sorts composed with me in mind as someone she wanted to share her life with. I had realized that I previously thought that I was not that important to anyone. This is what I meant by seeking a relationship with some aspect of exclusivity or the idea that I could be the most important person to someone.

I knew that I was the only one that Celta loved the way she loved me. Previously, I had friends, but they all had a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse or the relationship wasn't as close.

After I was with Celta, I felt like I was ten feet tall... confident... worthwhile, and deserving. My self-esteem was higher than it had ever been in my life. I also felt safe trying new things. This idea might seem unexpected. She was just a small girl (woman). I sensed that she deeply cared about me and thought about me and that was transformative.

It's important to underscore these important points before I move on with this story.

When I say that our relationship was platonic, I mean that we were not boyfriend and girlfriend. We didn't have a physical relationship. That being said, we did exchange "I love you" on a daily basis or whenever we talked on the phone or saw each other. We were close and perhaps somewhat intimate and physical but not in a sexual way.

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as I was leaving. It was impulsive. Her lips were so thin that I didn't feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She had not turned away or signaled in any way that she didn't want me to proceed. So, why was I uncertain? I didn't have to be shy with Celta. But I didn't want to use her for my own personal "experience."

I would play this back in my mind as I drove away. Yes, I wanted to kiss her. Having decided now for sure what I wanted, next time I would kiss her.

Sometime later I pictured my face turning to the right and moving closer to her as she moved toward me. I had been in sync with her and felt so comfortable. I knew that she might have said that one time that she was not in love but when we were together there were so many times when she had that look of someone who was so happy, comfortable and it sure looked like she was in love. Well, she definitely had "romantic" feelings.

Also, when I was with her, I could see myself and my feelings. You just know those things. There were so many subtle behavioral cues that told me what she was feeling and how she was responding to my touches... how I held her... where I touched her. Everything had been welcomed. I played back memories of how when I touched her she moved closer to me.

As I replayed the imagined kiss – next time - I would begin to tilt my head to the right, bend down, she would be acting on instinct, without taking the time to over-think it – that's what I would do, and she was my mirror. Sometimes we do things as if the moment is such that it is inevitable. She would move to meet my lips... she would be transfixed upon my eyes and I hers. I felt excited as I replayed this in my mind.

It was as if it had happened already, almost.

It would never happen.

On New Year's Day of 1991, I got the worst news of my life. A phone call. I was in my room on the second floor of the house owned by my parents. "Celta died last night," I was told.

"How?" I asked as if this wasn't possible or real. I was stunned. I wanted my willpower to make it not real!

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation." It started from an exposed electrical cord on a TV.

My mind registered information about the funeral, its location, and time but I could not find the words to begin to convey any sense of what I was feeling. I had spoken a few times to the man previously. He was a friend of the family. Tears were flooding my eyes. I just said, "Okay, I'll be there but I can't talk..." my voice breaking. I needed the family to expect me.

I dropped the phone and began to cry so bitterly.

I hurt so much!

I cried so much as I drove the way to the funeral. Just before the funeral, I looked at the closed casket and was overcome. Someone was standing by it and for a brief second, some part of me wanted to open the casket and find out that it wasn't Celta that was inside.

At the funeral, I cried more than everyone else combined. I didn't care how I looked.

It was at the Episcopalian church where I went with Celta and where I would sit down next to Celta's mother and Celta. I was still Christian, meaning I went to church on a regular basis.

Standing outside after the funeral people were talking. I was looking at the closed casket unable to believe this was real. I was still crying. Celta's mother instructed me not to come to the burial. She could tell that I was not going to make it through that event. My state of mind was such that I needed to be told what I should do now.

At the burial the one person who loved Celta most, who felt a visceral sense of grief above and beyond that felt by the others... that one person would be missing. I would not be there. I had followed the directions of Celta's mother and left Athens (Athens Georgia).

I certainly felt betrayed and abandoned by God. However, I did go to grief counseling at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia. A nun was leading a grief counseling group – spiritual counseling. She was using guided imagery, relaxation techniques, prayer, and biblical references. I met with her a few times and asked for tape recordings of the sessions.

In the group sessions, she spoke about the stages of grief. We were encouraged to bring in things that were mementos of our experience with our loved ones. I listened intently as others spoke. I was by far the youngest. I had studied the grief process in a psychology class at Georgia Tech. I read some more about this from a "clinical" standpoint. I was keeping reality at a distance.

I was in denial at times and at other times I would be overwhelmed with the idea of not being able to see Celta ever again and I would cry and cry.

So much is strange about this time period. The struggles with my parents were never intentionally instigated by me out of anger for anything. They just seemed uninterested in me and my life, other than to tell me what I ought to do.

I suppose I wanted to share the fact that someone had loved me to explain what had changed. It was surreal that there was such denial that anything had happened or changed. I might be in denial as a symptom of grief but I wanted to celebrate the relationship that I had. Where would I begin?

To cope with the tragic loss, I started drinking. A lot.
 

I was put on a tricyclic anti-depressant by a psychiatrist. I had developed panic attacks as well. The anti-depressant had the effect of creating a sense of positive feelings even with my mother standing there one morning ironing something for work with my father getting ready too. Those fake feelings were only transitory. It is reminiscent of the song by REM titled "It's the end of the world as we know it."... and I feel fine. I guess I felt "high."

The days flowed around me like a mystical experience in which I flowed in and out of my body. I wasn't fully alive or so it seemed... betrayed even by God.

It was all a blur. My entire existence.

Somehow, I did get a job finally that could have made my parents satisfied. Everything was always about them. They never asked about anything that was happening to me. So, they never inquired about why I was going for grief counseling because they had no knowledge of this.

Anyway, I got a job at the National Science Foundation as a contractor. I was developing a network for the museum and that involved network programming in the C programming language. I was a software engineer. I did accomplish a great deal in that job capacity and my supervisor was very impressed with my talents.

Again, this was not at all interesting to me. Yet, I was making sure that I successfully met all deadlines and deliverables.

I vaguely remember a summer trip to Las Vegas. The company paid for this to cover some training related to my work. It was amazing. I had this incredible per-diem rate where I was paid my salary plus extra money for expenses that exceeded the cost of the hotel room.

Vegas was probably the worst place for me to go with so much free cash and free drinks in the casinos. Somehow, I made all the presentations for the training that I was sent there to attend. In the evenings and free time, I hit the casinos and made some decent money. Nothing to write home about. Gin or vodka was an escape but somehow, I didn't drink so much so as to get sick at night or even the next day.

As I try to write this now, I have only momentary snapshots with no full-running narrative memory. Just random disconnected sensations. My hands were unable to touch the leather inside a car. The sun shimmers on the pavement. Casinos. Drinks. Sitting at a poker table. Pulling a lever on a slot machine.

I must have done what was expected of me. I don't remember any complaints from my boss.

Yeah, I moved through time like a robot.

The job was going well, as I said. I was proud of how well I was doing.

I was drinking more and more during this time period after the trip to Las Vegas. Everything except beer. Vodka with tonic or orange juice. Gin and tonic. Whiskey with ice, water, or coke. Not so much wine.

I was passing out and once or twice I would puke. I really hated throwing up, always.

I did meet this girl from the home office of the company that was paying me. She lived in Alabama and I was in Augusta, Georgia and we decided to meet in Atlanta, Georgia where I had graduated not long before that.

My supervisor was joking that I had "jungle fever" because I was a white guy who was going to date a black woman. He was black, as well. I didn't let that bother me. Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" had been out, and it was an important film. I have always been fine with having a conversation about race if that was something that was desired.

My mother actually asked about my date. I suppose her name sounded ethnic and my mother asked about that guessing that she might be Italian. I said, "no, she's black."

I remember that this was the first time I kissed anyone other than a brief kiss that Celta and I shared back in December of the last year. I mentioned that above.

This was extremely passionate. She brought her kid and left him in the car and parked near the Student Center - the same building where I worked on the bottom floor in the post office.

We were looking for someplace to sit or be as private as possible outside after dark. I remember making out at a few locations here and there. I could feel her large breasts against me, and I was aroused.

My first passionate kiss. Before Lynn. We'll get to that later.

Did I feel guilty about dating so soon after Celta? Maybe. But I wasn't actually feeling nor was I "aware" during this time period. I was so numb that I needed to feel something. To wake up! I was trying so hard to wake up. The tricyclic antidepressant made me feel good for a few moments. That didn't make it a meaningful experience.

Then later there was the fact that she said in December that she loved me but wasn't in love with me. I had only known her for one year, from January through December 31 or 1990. I do know that countless times she had that look like someone in love when she looked in my eyes. I was fairly certain she was trying to protect me from being hurt. But I never got a chance to ask her.

And that kiss? I had stopped, not her. It was my first time kissing anyone and I should have been aware that her lips were so small that if I didn't feel anything at first I should wait or stay there. I was always comfortable with Celta. She had never rejected any of my touches.

My mother had made me feel so not okay and so had my father somewhat. This "date" was a way to get out of the home and to appear normal to my mother. If I was going out with someone from the company that employed my services, it made me appear less worthy of the criticism I had been getting from my parents. That's how I figured it. It was an escape.

Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder or trauma disorders will cut their own skin with razors or something sharp just to feel something. The date was something like that.

There wasn't a second date. I had expressed my concerns about pre-marital sex. We weren't even in a committed relationship. I drove to Atlanta to meet her for a second date, but she never showed. I was frustrated out of embarrassment. Then I just forgot the entire matter by the next day and never thought about the matter further.

The various medications and the alcohol impeded grieving and dare I say reality testing. People who are grieving are in such a state of denial that it is almost like a temporary psychosis. From what I was reading and hearing in the stories of grief that I studied, "normal," healthy people did for a while embrace denial to such an extent that it bordered on delusional thinking.

The loss of Celta could not be washed away with alcohol, grief counseling, or an intimate date.

Poetry as an outlet...

I can thank my mother for introducing me to Martin Kirby, who went to our church and he was a professor of English Literature and related subjects at a college in Augusta, Georgia. He would become my writing/poetry mentor.
 

I would show up on a regular basis for poetry readings where I shared my poetry and got feedback, advice, and guidance on writing good poetry. He also heard me write about my experiences with Celta and listened to my experiences. This was very helpful because I had no other outlet for this or place to talk about Celta and my relationship with her.

He said he thought it would take about 10 years for me to be able to write good poetry about Celta because the feelings were too raw.

I was living in a difficult environment with my parents. I was dealing with a major tragedy and yet the name Celta wasn't even being mentioned.

Between drinking, the different medications I was put on, and the panic attacks, I had to go to the Emergency Room (ER) on two occasions.

The psychiatrist tried me on a major tranquilizer, and I had these horrifying muscle spasms that twisted my body up into contortions that made me think my bones were going to be broken in my neck and elsewhere. The doctor said that in higher doses the drug is used for psychotic disorders but somehow it would help with my depression, I guess. That was the reason I was taken to the ER once. My father took me.

Another time I had a panic attack and again my father took me to the ER. It's strange that they weren't asking why all this was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. NEVER!

The only ones listening to my stories about Celta were Martin Kirby and his wife as well as the attendees at the grief support group. Again, my parents were not interested to learn anything about this matter. They never seemed to have any awareness that I was even going to grief counseling.

This is so utterly astonishing! I had not deliberately been trying to keep everything a secret about what was going on with me. On the contrary, I looked for an opening to discuss the matter. I wanted to repair and improve the relationship. I wanted to share the fact that I had found someone who loved me.

With all this going on, all the problems I was having, I began to doubt that I could achieve my goals in life, my career goals. I wondered how I could help others when I had so many problems myself.

It should be noted that while I was put on a major tranquilizer, my psychiatrist NEVER said he thought I was psychotic. We knew I had problems coping with overwhelming stressors.

After the job with the National Science Foundation ended, another opportunity presented itself in March of 1992. I was offered a job in Wilmington, North Carolina, to work with Corning as a Technical Writer. They wanted someone with a technical background.

This would change everything. I was about to be on my own again. Finally!

My perception that I had long-term "problems" would disappear as if by magic, literally - it was unbelievable. My problem had been living in a toxic environment and that was complicated by the grief and the effort I had made to ignore, suppress, or deny the natural process.

My own doubts about my ability to achieve my career goals in life were contributing to the problems I was having.

It's hard to believe that I had only known Celta for one year – the year 1990 and when that year ended, so had Celta's life.

The tragic loss of Celta did not erase the positive impact she had on my life. There were other positive experiences during this time. I had become more confident.

I had been writing poetry about the experiences I had with Celta and I wanted to share that with others. I had been sharing that with Martin Kirby my poetry mentor but now I wanted to share this with others. It was so important and meaningful!

I recently found a photograph of Celta Camille Head, a high school yearbook photograph through Ancestry.com. I had not known her in high school. In fact, she is 8 years older than me.

In this photograph of her, she is 16. She's thirty-one now when I meet her for the first time.

After I graduated from Georgia Tech, I was feeling good about my career prospects and I had a new direction in life. I had a clear path in front of me. I finally knew what I wanted and how to get where I was going ... or so it seemed upon graduation from Georgia Tech in December of 1989.

The problem was that I chose to move in with my parents after graduation. This would be a decision that haunted me for the rest of my life!

Ironically, just as I somewhat regretted my decision to move in with my parents, knowing how toxic they were, what began in the 90s would make this time period among the best years of my life. I'm talking about the chance I had to meet Celta in 1990. Also, the opportunity that I had to volunteer with the social work team at Georgia Regional Hospital - a state psychiatric hospital was so rewarding. I learned so much and I realized that I have a knack for this kind of work - psychiatric social work.

The work I had done in undergraduate school got me to this point. I knew that I had developed some powerful social and communication skills during my five years of undergraduate studies. I had learned to demonstrate empathy. I had overcome so much of the social anxiety that I had previously.

I want to tell you about someone special that I met.

I knew that some work needed to be done before I could begin to realize my dreams and to find success in my field. I was making a transition from having a degree in engineering to working as a social worker, a psychiatric social worker.

As I was saying, I met Celta in 1990. In an earlier chapter, I stated that I had only one date during my years at Georgia Tech. There was one other time when I went out with a girl who was a cousin of one of my best friends but we had only one date. That was my entire dating experience since I was too shy to date in high school.

I wasn't expecting anything special or amazing to happen in 1990.

I met Celta in an unusual setting. She had been in the hospital when I met her, making this story even more complicated, unexpected, and unplanned. She had anorexia. That is why she was in the hospital for a short while - her weight had gotten dangerously low. She was about four foot eleven and weighed under 60 pounds when I met her. Maybe less!

Even as I write this, I feel a bit uncomfortable mentioning these facts. How can one measure a person or their worth by their weight?

I had a cousin who suffered from anorexia and one of the medical interns mentioned Celta saying that maybe by becoming friends with her I might gain some insight into anorexia. This was different than my usual role as a volunteer with the social work team at the hospital. I will discuss that later.

The idea was that I could be friends with someone, or I could meet with someone as a member of the social work staff. Intuitively I knew that these boundaries are important.

It was Wednesday, January 3, 1990. I walked into a room at the hospital and saw her pacing. She seemed frustrated. I remember how they had dragged her to another building to be weighed. As our eyes met, I could feel a sense of serenity and peace.

This wasn't how I imagined this moment. In my imagination, I had thought about ways I could get to know her and gain some insight into a mysterious disorder called anorexia. I had not been assigned to do a social work assessment on her so I wasn't approaching her in that capacity.

At this moment, I did not feel any sense of pressure to make an excuse to talk to her. My mind was at peace. What was it that I felt?

A smile washed across her face as if it hasn't been there in a long time. Maybe this was my own impression of what life must have been like for her for a long time. I wondered what she was thinking as I moved toward her.

"Hi, I'm Bruce," I said, "I am a volunteer with the social work team, but I am finished with that for the day. I wanted to meet you."

"Hi," she answered. Her smile remained the same. I noticed that she didn't seem to be responding as she usually does when she is approached by members of the staff.

"Can we talk?" I ask her.

"Do you want to go outside?" she asked me.

There was a swing outside where two people can sit together. It reminded me of the one that my grandparents had on their porch.

I realized that at this moment I was not brainstorming or rehearsing things to say as I usually did when I met someone new. For the first time in my life, I was meeting a person and not feeling fearful or timid!

Sitting there on the swing, outside seemed almost like we had privacy, as much as was possible to have when you are out in the open.

I explained that I am not here to gather information. "This isn't my job."

She just smiled.

"You seem almost happy," I said, jokingly.

"I will be here for a while," she said with a bit of a laugh that conveyed a sense of resignation to her situation. She then explained that she had been in the hospital before.

I would visit her almost every day just before she was discharged. We would walk around the grounds and I began to tell her things about myself and my own experiences in life. I think she enjoyed listening to me and sharing even the most mundane events. There was no one else that she described as being part of her life other than a mother and father.

She listened intently... with concern and interest.

Before long she was writing letters - diary entries of everything she observed... the smallest details all laid out for me like some running conversation. Sometimes she mailed the letters to me and other times when I showed up, she gave me the letters.

It did feel a bit awkward because I had not thought that I was coming here to make a friend and I wasn't sure that doing so was okay. I was just starting out in the field. Before long, it seemed like the patients and staff knew we were friends. I was Celta's friend, and I also was part of the social work team/staff. Those were two entirely different roles.

It was March and just two months had passed. "I want to show you something," Celta said, inviting me to walk. "See how they have faces?" she said pointing to some pansies.

I found myself momentarily making out the expressions on the human-like "faces" on the flowers.

On the next few visits, I noticed that the pansies seemed to smile or frown at us as we gazed upon them as if they reflected our feelings that day.

Celta had asked me to draw an image of how I saw her. I laughed and said that I cannot draw, but I asked if I could draw the picture with words. Perhaps she wondered whether I was attracted to her or found her beautiful.

I learned that her name was chosen mainly by her father who was interested in Celtic and Gaelic history. Her sister's name was Gael, as in Gaelic.

She returned to Augusta, Georgia when she was well enough to leave the hospital. Our friendship was growing. Her financial situation was a big problem, and I was worried about her. She was so thin, and I was so worried about her health because it was obvious to me that she was at an unhealthy weight. 

In the next chapter,  I will begin to describe events shortly after she left the hospital. 

In this section, I will describe a very special person who came into my life in 1990. Her name was Celta Camille Head. This was before I met Lynn but it is an important story about my development and the development of this larger story depicted in this book.

I mentioned in the previous chapter that I was able to find a way to ask a girl out and I had a date with a girl finally by my senior year. Yes, it took that long. I had not dated in high school and I had not had a date during the first four years of my college education. There might be an exception as I did go out with the cousin of one of my best friends. It's been many years and so I am not sure if that happened during my senior or junior year. I'll describe that below. 

I want to describe what I was learning with the help of my counselor. 

In the sessions with my counselor – my psychologist, I learned ways to speak to people and to listen. For example, I learned about "free information" – the weather, something a person might be wearing, a shared experience like something from class. Then to keep the conversation going, I learned about active listening. That could mean summarizing what someone just said, rephrasing it in different words to confirm that you understand... asking follow-up questions and the best questions are open-ended, that way you don't get a "yes or no" or short answer. An open-ended question invites the other person to speak at length.

In addition to being given reading material by my therapist and discussing things in therapy sessions, my counselor facilitated a therapy group. It turns out that a number of people have similar problems and needs. We used role-playing and other techniques to learn and practice different skills. 

I was learning social and communication skills. 

I also learned a technique for dealing with social anxiety. Suppose I want to meet someone or just be more friendly. I was challenging my fears as opposed to not trying or telling myself something will go wrong. I learned a three-column technique based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques. This is something I did all week actually. I had a pad of paper, a pen, or a pencil all the time.

I would imagine scenarios and ask myself "what is it that I fear if I acted instead of avoiding what I feared." It wasn't actually those words that I asked but there were so many examples that no single example can capture the essence of the fears. I mean if the fear is that I approach someone I don't know and say something foolish or incoherent, then avoiding the action avoids the negative emotions that might show up in the form of a racing heart.

That is just one of the countless examples and probably not a good one. Anyway, in column one, I write our automatic thought. He/she won't like me. She won't be interested in ME! Then in the middle column, I write the name of the "cognitive distortions that I can recognize. Maybe, for example, I am "predicting the future" which is a cognitive distortion, or I am "discounting the positive" – positive aspects of myself. There are common cognitive distortions that people use. In the third column, I wrote challenging statements. Depending on the situation, I might write about evidence of how I am liked by the friends that I have.

This is something I did every week, frequently, for years. See what I mean when I say that picking any one example might not convey the breadth of potential negative thoughts. To be clear, this happens to all kinds of people not just shy people. I was trying so hard. A simple way to figure out what the automatic thought was is to think about asking oneself, "what's the worst thing that can happen?"

Despite all the improvements I made, I never met girls directly at the parties at the fraternity house. What I mean is that I met girls that were friends with some of the guys that I knew. I did make friends with females in my classes and in other settings but they were just friends. 

My best friend Thomas could trust me completely to hang out with his girlfriend, fiancée, and later wife, Jo-Lee but she was one of my best friends and we spent a great deal of time together when Jo-Lee was here at Georgia Tech after Thomas graduated and moved up north. I had another male friend and I was friends with his girlfriend as well. In fact, she came down to Florida with me on a break between class quarters and we went with my sister to Disney World. 

I have no idea how Thomas got engaged. I cannot imagine him asking out Jo-Lee. This is heartening because, to me, it means that the entire burden doesn't lie upon the guy to ask out a girl. I grew up on shows like "Happy Days" where it was announced that it isn't proper for a girl to be calling a guy and asking the guy out, and etc. This spells certain serious problems for a shy guy. 

Who made up that rule anyway? I know, dear reader, you have heard me rant about this in other parts of this book and the topic will come up again. It has been a great source of incessant pain for me to notice that no female has asked me out. No matter how much the "rule" might make sense to you, that is no comfort to me. I still feel unattractive and undesirable when I think of this.

Oh, and all the things I was learning about social skills, dating skills, intimate connections... it seemed so artificial. I like it better where you just start talking to someone as a friend and find that you have some things in common and then you realize that you are also attracted to that person.

A Date With Jo-Lee's cousin Marleesa

This is my favorite part, next to the story about Donna liking me in 3rd grade. This is an instance where a girl was definitely interested in me and it was obvious.

My friends Thomas and Jo-Lee got married when I was either a junior or senior. Thomas had moved to Massachusetts for a job but they had the wedding down in the metro-Atlanta area near Georgia Tech. 

I was the best man at their wedding. It was interesting. I have one more story to tell here. 

I mentioned earlier in this book the date with the girl I met at the post office. That was hard. I mentioned the subtle things that attracted me to that girl... but all I knew was that she didn't have a boyfriend and she seemed nice. I had no idea if she was into me, though. Yet, asking for something that you want is an important goal for someone like me seeking to overcome shyness, social phobia, and/or social anxiety.  

Around the time of their wedding, Jo-Lee asked her friend whose name I cannot remember, to show me how to dance for the required "dance" the best man would be forced to do. I felt sorry for Thomas who also had to engage in this ritual of a similar "dance" that he would hate as much as I did, I imagine. The only thing that stands out is the dresses that the brides' maids and maid-of-honor wore. The maid-of-honor held my attention though in the very revealing low-cut dress that made it hard to not notice her breasts.

So, here I am talking about Jo-Lee's maid of honor. 

She seemed friendly and kind as she tried to guide me, and she was acting considerate of my discomfort. Right now, I cannot even form an image of me trying to dance with the maid of honor. I suppose, now that I think of it, I had been making a parallel between the way I thought of her and that character Tommy from the movie "Carrie." Tommy asks out Carrie who is the shy scapegoat in high school. This isn't a perfect parallel since, at this time, I wasn't a scapegoat and I had done so much to come out of my shell by this point. 

Anyway, after the wedding, there was some event with many people over at the home of part of Jo-Lee's extended family. Jo-Lee was from the area. I was thinking about asking Jo-Lee about her bridesmaid, trying to find the courage to do this. I don't remember the details about how I came to find her attractive and I hate that the only thing that sticks in my mind is that she had nice breasts.

Anyway, then Jo-Lee pointed out how much her cousin Marleesa was interested in me. I noticed she was pretty too but don't ask me to describe her for this story. I just remember noticing that and I am considering what followed. At first, I was in denial, still doubting that any girl would be interested in me. I was a junior and this was before I asked the girl out from the post office, which I described in an earlier chapter.

Eventually, I started noticing everything that Marleesa was doing to be nice and show her concern. I remembered they had a dog at that house that was annoying. Marleesa noticed my annoyance and got the dog away from me. I then looked up at Thomas and Jo-Lee who had a look like "see, I told you she is interested in you."

Okay, so I started talking to Marleesa and she invited me to an Easter play in which she was acting through her church. Marleesa was definitely someone who was very forward. Who asked who out? I can't remember how it occurred. I am sure that I started making conversation with her and indicating that I was infested in her. 

She seemed sweet and pretty. 

For some reason, I am now thinking of the words "flirting" and "hitting on" someone. I wonder to this day if this is one of those ways that two people figure out in a less threatening way whether someone is interested in them so as to gather information before asking the person out. 

If I was flirting or she was flirting, I wasn't sure of that. I suppose I can concede that what I had observed indicated that she was infested in me. However, I needed the help of Thomas and Jo-Lee to make it known to me. I imagine that Jo-Lee explained what was happening in a private conversation with Thomas because I imagine he was similarly lacking in "dating," "flirting" and other skills. Again, I cannot imagine him asking Jo-Lee out.  

Anyway, getting back to Marleesa... It was interesting to be meeting the family for this first date after the performance. She seemed so interested that I thought I should kiss her.

She turned her head away and I was silent, and my face was red with shame. I had not done anything wrong other than read a signal wrong. The one time I had not invested hours doing my Cognitive Behavior Therapy homework with the three-column technique and I got it wrong. I felt like the air had been sucked out of me. I was frozen and silent.

For a while, I would reflect on this with shame as if I had done something wrong or broken a rule that I should have known. I had not been forceful at all and as soon as she turned away, I had shrunk within myself. I was just so confused.

She had been far more "aggressive" at the party with others around and here we were outside after dark where privacy might allow such things.

That was the last time I saw her. I wasn't mad - just confused. I don't want to give the impression that she owed it to me or that she was playing games. A girl can change her mind at any time. I just felt shame for MY mistake, like I needed to learn more about making a connection or how to deal with rejection.

The next section and chapters will describe my first experience of feeling "love."