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By Emmanuel Williams

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Purgatory: an in between stage preceding heaven where one is cleansed.

When my sister kicked me out of her home in Aurora, CO my instinct was to find my way to the most constantly available shelter area in Denver. The Rescue Mission.

There I’ve been staying during the break between Fall and Spring semesters. Each semester brings with it a tuition refund of 3,000+.

This semester I had to put funds aside for an apartment with my wife who lives with a couple of gals who would rather not complicate things by bringing a man in even if he should pay the HOH in any consistency or number.

My purgatory is clear. I must transition between my sister’s place and an apartment with my wife.

I’m still in purgatory…

But have no doubt, I am not idle.

The semester officially starts in just shy of a week on the following Tuesday from the time of this post to Stick Fist.

Finally I have a laptop so I can participate in the life of my blog again. I do hope the blogosphere has missed me as much as my wife says she does. 

Regularly, I might add.

Nevertheless, I am in between homes. Between lives. Between the earthly plane, and the heavenly realms.

I cannot wait to bring home the bacon, instead of sitting on the bacon in case I run out of cigarettes, coffee, or clothing.

You cannot imagine how little you can “keep” when your life must travel with you upon your back.

No room for coffee pots, or cigarette cartons, machines, or even your own wallet should you lose it on a night of personal debauchery spent mostly in airports and train stations. And all the travel in between.

Ever lost your driver’s license or state ID? How often?

Then try to buy cigarettes or even rolling tobacco. Then try to buy alcohol on any regular basis in strange liquor stores that don’t recognize you because of how little you visit their establishment, and they’ve never once seen your ID.

Nevermind that your day is very busy for anyone to recognize. A full time student. Full time work-study, which pays well but even though you have 3 different positions, the university would rather you only work 30 hours a week. 

CAP.

No matter how many positions you hold. Something about your studies being of paramount importance.

Thanks a lot.

3 roles and can’t even work overtime for 1!

Add to that the position I volunteer to do. The school paper known as The Metropolitan.

That’s right, I attend Metropolitan State University of Denver. Also known as Metro State, MSU Denver, or to native Coloradans: Metro.

Home of the Roadrunners.

We don’t have a football team, our Men’s basketball team is laughably terrible. But our Women’s Volleyball team clinched the championship for our region that includes Regis University and Colorado School of Mines.

Our baseball team is nothing sneeze at either, but I have no idea how our softball team is doing or, frankly, has ever done…

I am 3 credits shy of my Junior year.

And I’m a homeless student.

Randomly and by no fault of my own.

I didn’t see it coming. My sister just said “married men shouldn’t live with their sisters”.

And it’s this kind of conservative rule following that is what’s wrong with the country.

A man cannot live with his wife if there are other women in her home…

A teenager should not masturbate should they hit puberty at all…

A couple should not have sex before marriage, or get pregnant before marriage, or get married without consulting their 37 church parents first…

Or a cigarette will kill you…

Marijuana is de debbul…

And it’s not okay to try and fix your problems on your own if everyone decides to ignore you or offers solutions that don’t reach the true problem.

Honestly, if I don’t kill your dog or cat, you should let me heal the way I will.

No, I did not ask your opinion before I made a huge life decision. It was my decision to make, so don’t you dare get offended that you weren’t included in the decision making process.

YOUR INPUT DOES NOT MATTER ONE IOTA.

My decision is the 1 and yours is a complete 0.

You’re even wrong in binary!

You think I would seek advice before marrying a goat? A beautiful model? A billionaire?

But it’s someone you know so you have some sort of say in what makes them happy?

Get wrecked.

I wish I could just Rick Roll all the people that responded negatively to my wife and I tying the knot.

Especially my sister. And even more the people in her church who decided all of a sudden that they have an interest in her romantic life.

Fucking. Fake. Concern.

What you really want is to insulate your loneliness by tearing down the Happiness that threatens their own Utopian vision of it.

I got news for you complete and utter cunts: Disillusionment is coming for you.

Sooner or later your dreams are going to fade in potency as your pain grows beyond your imagination.

And I hope that when that happens, someone pulls you out of it like my wife did when we found each other on facebook just a year and a half ago, and decided to start dating.

Because the years before her were complete hell. Couples offended me. Public affection made me furious. And if what I thought was perfect was on the arm of another fellah, then my pain, annoyance, and shattering of heart, was deepest.

But the truth of the matter is very simple, if not easy at all.

It is this, and only this: You are meant for another type of person.

You may have dreamt them up, that is possible. But more often, you never see them coming, and they sweep you off your feet. 

There’s a chemistry, a magic, a persistent connection that isn’t what your Utopian dream said it would be…

But you’d rather have this new thing… this… this… 

ASYMMETRY.

You can only paint in your mind when there is something lacking in that moment.

But you have no idea what God or Fate, or the Universe has waiting for you.

If only your heart became open enough to receive something between 60%-100% perfection.

I apologize about the depth of this post, but I miss my blog having had to travel without a computer and all the rules of trying to keep a shelter happy enough to receive you night after night.

Purgatory.

Heaven is the apartment she and I will end up with. We have funds to make it happen. Refuse to spend it all on hotels, that will just eat it up without enough permanence or heat when it’s cold, like it is now.

We won’t buy drugs, we’re past that now, though both of us have had our “fun” in the old days.

Purgatory.

Thank God, Fate, or the Universe that I still have alcohol, coffee, and cigarettes while I’m… cleansing…

I even go to church as there is no better option for Sunday morning to kill time or be warm.

And I pray the rosary as a verbal chant to stave off the auditory hallucinations that come with SchizoAffective disorder.

My wife has it too. I’m Bipolar type, she’s depressive type. And she doesn’t have the right sleeping pills yet. I for one swear by Trazodone. 

Even if I can’t smoke weed because Trazodone will give me homicidal nightmares when mixed with Mary Jane.

Can’t say I don’t miss the doll…

Conclusively, paradise is just around the corner. But damn if the One Spirit isn’t making me work for it like a simple dog presented with a distant meat-like treat.

But if I die on one sword, it is my loyalty to what the One Spirit has given me.

Her. She. The Queen. My wife. And the commitments between she and me.

Without whom, even purgatory would feel like hell.

It ain’t like it hasn’t been before…

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