My Lost Years
I suppose my real problems didn’t start until I was in my teens I had just turned seventeen when I was suddenly granted independence as my brother’s before me I was told on my seventeenth birthday that I was on the threshold of manhood and that the choices I made would be dictated by me alone and guided by God if I allowed him to lead the way.
Now put yourself in my position all my life my decisions were made for me by my Father, my Mother’s and my Brother’s in that order. If relatives visited us the hierarchy changed depending on whether it was relatives from my mother’s side or from my father’s side and also on whether they were delivered by a man or a woman illustrated below is the hierarchy for a child in my family as listed above.
1. Typical Hierarchy for a child in my family.
2. Hierarchy when Father’s Relatives visit.
3. Hierarchy when Mother’s Relatives visit.
So as I was saying put yourself in my position seventeen free at last with no one to tell me what to do, where and how to do it. It was as my father said I was on the threshold of manhood with only the teachings of the Bible, the Church and My Father as my guide. I don’t mention the Big Guy because he is always with me.
So there I was seventeen years old with six hundred big ones burning a hole in my pocket. I’d just finished high and had decided to skip college.
I was on the threshold of manhood and I had lot to do before I entered that stage. I already knew what was expected of me once I reached that milestone, marriage and a couple of kids.
So I left the only home I’d ever know to seek who I was at that time I felt as if I wasn’t complete my brother Andrew who is only two years older than me suggested that I find a nice girl to settle with like he had.
According to him he’d also felt that way when he turned seventeen but when he met Sally his wife of two years he’d known instinctively that she was the piece he needed to fill hole.
That was all well and good for him but I wasn’t ready for marriage at least not yet, I mean how could I enter into a union meant to last forever when I had no idea who I was and what I wanted so I said goodbye to my loved ones and left the only home I’d even known.
I caught a train and ended up in a town I know refer to as my own personal Sodom and Gomorra but which will be referred to as S&G to save time.
I arrived in S&G with six hundred bucks and a high school education to my name. I was nervous as heck and was almost tempted to return home with my tail in between my legs when I saw them.
The women at the time I didn’t know they were prostitutes all I saw were these beautiful young women who wore far too much makeup and far too little clothing.
In my home all my mother’s wore very little makeup, a touch of powder and lipstick, and that was just on special occasions, my father always said that a woman who wears too much makeup has something to hide and I couldn’t agree with him more, but back then these women were something exotic. Almost like a forbidden fruit which I had to pluck and eat. I walked up to one of the younger looking ones and began a conversation with her I found her quite pleasant and was only two minutes into the conversation when I realized what she was.
As all women in her profession, she was eager to finalize the deal so that we could do the deed and she could move onto the next client. She at first suggested that we do “it” in a car or in some alley when I refused she took me to this dodgy looking hotel room with only a bed and dresser in it, through the open door I saw a bathroom which looked almost as dirty the bed she now rested on, naked her legs wide open with a come hither smile on her face.
I started to make my way to the door I had entered through only a few minutes ago repulsed at myself, how could I have thought to do such a thing, but oh the flesh is weak. I felt a stirring in my loins, for lack of a better word, and when I looked down my instrument was standing at attention.
It felt as if the blood in my body had suddenly been diverted to that one part of my anatomy and as I walked towards the prostitute it felt as if I were having an out of body experience as if my heart and mind were screaming at my body to turn away to resist the temptation but as I said before oh the flesh is weak.
I will not bore you with all the details but when I left that room after an hour I felt soiled, I felt so dirty I had committed a sin and worst I had paid to commit that sin and all it cost me was five percent of the money I had with me.
My parents had arranged for me to stay with an uncle of mine on my mother’s side so after I fled from the hotel room I found my way over to his place how I’ll never know because I wasn’t thinking straight all I could think of was that I had committed a sin, I had sold myself for what?
When I got to my uncles house I scrubbed myself raw, when I was done my skin was red but even then I didn’t feel clean. I still felt soiled so I repeated the process three more times. Sad to say the result was the same.
Throughout dinner my mind kept wandering back to the acts I had committed with that woman and each time no matter how repulsed I was at myself my body still responded to the memory.
That night as I knelt down to pray I asked God to forgive me for my sins and to help me avoid the urge to give into that temptation once more.
A few months passed my uncle helped me find a job as a messenger at an insurance company and for me life seemed to settle into a pattern of sorts, I woke up each morning and thanked the Lord for granting me another day, I bathed and headed for work and after a while I began to see the boy my parents had raised.
Life was going great until a couple of my friends from work asked me to join them for drinks after work one day. Now I didn’t drink and I was bit hesitant in joining them because my father didn’t drink and he didn’t approve of bars, but after much cajoling from my friends I succumbed and joined them.
My first visit to a bar was nothing to write home about while my friends gorged themselves on drink and woman I stuck to my orange juice and shortly before midnight I helped them home and then headed for my little room at my uncle’s.
I’d never been prouder of myself, I felt as if I has stared at the face of the beast and laughed in his face because I’d been able to control myself. My mind and my faith had been stronger than my flesh which he could tempt.
And so it was with my next few visits to the bar the results hardly varied, I’d help my friends home before going home myself but that all changed one fateful Thursday evening.
On that night I once again I succumbed to the pressures exerted by my friends and I had a beer. Even as I was sipping on the bitter drink I was regretting my decision but like with the prostitute I continued to do it. After three beers I was violently sick, of course my friends laughed but they understood after all it was the first time I’d ever had a drink, I’d get better with practice.
So I went from never having a drink to drinking almost everyday and each time I allowed myself to get drunk and go home with some strange woman and sometimes women I would get on my knees and ask for forgiveness.
My life changed from
To
Then once more to
After nearly a year of this I moved out of my uncle’s house and found myself a cheap two bedroom apartment near the office. At best most of my day was spent at work where I found myself quickly going up the ranks, I was promoted from messenger to sales trainee and in my early twenties I was a sales person with a travel allowance.
By that time I’d found myself a girlfriend, she was beautiful soft spoken and kind. She did everything for me and after dating for nearly a year she was looking for some sort of commitment from me. A commitment I couldn’t give her because 1. She wasn’t the one and 2. I just wasn’t ready for that commitment.
But like so many of her sex she believed she could change me, she believed that if she made a stand I would have no choice but to make a commitment to her and she was right.
She marched into the lounge one evening after supper, yes she’d moved in with me, and said. “We’ve been together for nearly two years now.” I met her when I was eighteen, “I live with you, I cook and clean for you, I help with the bills and to date you haven’t shown me any signs of a commitment you have a choice commit or I walk.
Part of me wanted to tell her to walk, the part of me that still held on the teachings and beliefs of my father but another part of me an EVEN BIGGER PART said lie to her, tell her what she wants to hear after all it is just words right?
So I sat her down looked deep into her eyes and for the first time in my life I lied to someone. Sure I’d lied to myself but never before had I ever lied to someone other than myself so while I looked into her eyes and caressed her soft skin I could feel the devil and his agents working on me.
Their lies and venom coursing through my mind and body and finally out through my tongue and I told her what she wanted to hear and these were my exact words, “baby, I love you. I need you like the air that I breathe, like the water which makes up most of my body. You are my lifeline and without you I’ll die. I know what you want from me and more than anything else I want to give it to you, I want you to be my wife,” at this time she was all excited because she was thinking forward like many of us she was assuming that my next words would be will you be my wife, instead I said, “but now is not the time.”
“Look at where we live,” I asked of her as I pointed around at the shabby and poorly furnished apartment, “I want my wife to have the best and this isn’t it.” Little did she know that she was not the wife I wanted to provide for our relationship returned to normal until one day we got a pregnancy scare.
No let me correct myself there it was a scare for me and a joy for her because we both knew what that meant I’d have to marry her.
By now I’d lost complete faith in God I mean after all it was His fault that I was now on the path I was on. He’d abandoned me if He hadn’t then why was I in the situation I was in?
If He hadn’t made the path of the righteous so hard than I wouldn’t have committed my first sin with that prostitute, I wouldn’t have corrupted my mind and body with the large amounts of alcohol I consumed almost on a daily basis and I wouldn’t be considering suggesting that she commit murder and have an abortion.
But I held my tongue perhaps there was still a part of me which remembered the boy I was. The two days we waited for the pregnancy results were the longest days of my life but when they eventually returned negative I spent the day celebrating, while she spent it crying and the next month she left me.