Chapter 3: Between Graduation from Undergraduate College to the next Phase of Life
The next phase of my life involved me meeting a very special person named Celta. I had moved in with my parents because I didn’t have a job offer and wasn’t expecting one.
Unfortunately, my mother started pressuring me to get a job and she would tell me that I could go to school at night if I was working as an engineer! What an idea, as if I never thought about that!
Never when I was growing up had she wanted to spend time with me but now a problem was that she complained that I was not spending time with her.
The entire experience became very toxic, and I felt incredible shame. This was why I would not spend much time with my mother.
I had met Celta early in 1990 in an unusual setting. She was in hospital due to her health. She had anorexia. One of the medical school interns had suggested that I could maybe talk to her to understand about anorexia because I had a cousin with that.
The hospital was Georgia Regional Hospital – a state psychiatric hospital. I went to them shortly after graduating from Georgia Tech and having moved in with my parents who were then living in North Augusta, SC, next to Augusta, GA – the location of Georgia Regional Hospital.
I told them I was planning to get a Master of Social Work degree, but I came from engineering and had no experience in the area where I wanted to go which at the time I would characterize as psychiatric social work.
I was assigned to work on the intake unit at the hospital doing psychosocial assessments. Later in my career I might have known more about boundaries. I was talking to a therapist recently and was asked if I knew about that now. It almost seemed like I had done something bad at the time.
When I met Celta and saw her before she was released from the hospital, I was not approaching her as part of the social work team as I had when I met other patients there. I was never assigned to play any role that was related to what the social work team does.
Celta and I never talked about her health. She was in the hospital for just over the first three months that I knew her.
An entire short book could be written about the experiences that I recall during that one year. This past Friday I was sharing my memories of Celta. I was describing the radical change that I experienced between what I knew growing up and what I experienced with Celta.
In the introduction to this book, I mentioned the way I was seen – as a guy who has more testosterone than a woman and so prone to aggression fueled by sexual desires. I am still the same person that Celta saw. I still want to help others.
My friend Suzanne spoke about the size and strength disparities between men and women. Her husband was not large in stature but he was stronger than her and could hurt her. Nowhere was this more evident than when considering the differences between Celta and me. She was about 4'11" tall and she was very underweight. She was all skin and bones.
I had fallen in love with her. I wasn't all about sex as something that is required to fall in love. Celta was extremely small and fragile as I was saying. If I was not an incredibly gentle person, I would have easily hurt her.
In one instance, her mother wanted to take photos of us. She suggested that I get down on one knee to use my other leg as a place where Celta could sit for the pose. I remember how Celta started to fall as we were getting into position. I worried about how I could catch her without hurting her. Luckily she did not get hurt, somehow. This is the kind of gentle person I am that I would be this profoundly worried about hurting someone.
To be honest, the focus of the relationship with Celta was not about me helping her because her challenges were with issues like alcohol and anorexia, and I was just starting out in the field.
I fell in love with Celta, and she loved me. In September, she said she loved me but wasn’t in love with me. I was 24 and this was 1990. It’s now 2024. I still remember many special moments with her.
On one day at the Botanical Gardens, I was just telling a story about growing up in Connecticut and hiking in the woods. I had noticed that her eyes were transfixed upon me, she was captivated and hypnotized. I both accepted and was in surprise and awe that she saw something special in me. I didn’t doubt that I was special but to see it reflected in the eyes of another means something because we are social creatures.
On another instance I was again aware of how thin she was. Her mother was taking photos and suggested that I get down on one knee and she sit on the knee. We had already been lost in each other’s eyes and had to be directed to look at the camera. Anyway, she started to fall, and I worried about where I could catch her small arms or body.
This was not a physical relationship in the traditional sense. We hugged and cuddled all the time.
This was set against that backdrop of living with my parents. If it were not for Celta, it would have been completely different. Despite the toxic nature of my parents, I have such pleasant memories and experiences from this time.
I felt shame from my parents and yet with Celta I felt 10-foot tall. Shame made me feel tiny. I would talk to Celta every day or evening and tell her that I loved her and her the words “I love you.”
At no time did my parents ask who was making me happy… What I might want for the future… How might my plans work out? They were utterly disinterested in anything that mattered to me.
I learned about the death of Celta on New Years Day, 1991. I cried more than everyone else at the funeral combined.
For the next year and just over 3 months I lived with my parents. This time without the support of Celta. I did go to a grief recovery group. I turned 25 in 1991, and the other members of the group were older people, mainly ladies past retirement age.
I was working various jobs with only one that related to software engineering which was related to my undergraduate degree. I was made to wonder how I could help others if I had my own problems.
My mother had introduced me to someone she knew named Martin Kirby – a professor and a published poet. This stands out as strange since she was showing that she knew about an interest of mine! Martin would become a mentor of poetry and writing.
One of the mantras he taught was to show the reader, not tell the reader. What that meant was more important with poetry. Sometimes in a book like this, there are places where I will tell the reader about things. Otherwise, the book and each section would go on forever.