Abortion, Choices and Wisdom.

I’d like to take a few minutes and talk about some tougher moments in my past and take you on a journey through some of the memories that were original regrets, but over time, have turned into lessons.

I had just spent months chasing a girl who I thought was the love of my life or something along those lines. I know the emotions were strong, but the evidence was more akin to boyish desire than the greater grit that real love takes. One night, I was invited over to a friend's house, and at the time, I was lightly using pain pills on a daily or semi-regular basis, and in some respects, new to the drug consumption game. But that wouldn’t hold for long because I was about to have a new relationship that would carry me from novice to expert within a year and a half period.

Knock, knock. The door opens, and the friend that invited me over invites me inside the apartment. It was on the bottom level of a four-story building in a slightly dense metropolitan area. Walking back to her room, it’s filled with plush toys of varying rainbow colors and sizes, a bed on the floor in the right-hand corner, and plastic drawers surrounding the room. I see two of her friends, one of whom I was soon to be obsessed with, and one whom I was about to live with. I wish this was the part of the story where it made sense and quickly, but this is the part of the story where I go from an average white guy looking for a place to spend his time to wildly lost and depressed.

So… I’m hanging out with the friend who invited me over with her two female friends, just making jokes in the middle of the room while they're laughing at my antics. One of the girls, right after laughing at what I was doing, leaves and heads to her room in the apartment. It felt strangely abrupt but not wildly out of place. I had spent a little while longer hanging out with the other girls, then I headed home.

Bzzz, bzzz

The phone rings. It’s the girl who left the room right after I was joking around and had laughed. “Chas (old nickname), do you want to spend some time together and hang out?” I said yes and headed over late that night to spend some time with the girl who seemingly enjoyed my antics the week prior but left abruptly. When I got there, I just listened to her talk, and we re-organized her room. It was innocent and simple.

Leaving that night, I’m walking to the door, and as I open it, she runs over to me and hugs me under the arms, holding her head tightly to my chest.

“Bbzzzzzrrrprppprrzzzzz” goes the time machine.

Fast forward a serious and heavy year and a half. I’m sitting in the bathroom stall at rehab while the girl that hugged me so tight that night texts me, “Do you want to see the ultra-sound?” minutes after she just had an abortion. I remember being so angry that she would ask me that after just aborting our child. She’d later tell me that she just wanted me to have the option if I wanted to see him. Emotions are flooding me in that stall, but I don’t have time to process them because this is the bathroom stall at an outpatient rehab. I head back into class, quiet and lost. I start with, “My name is Chas Menk… an addict… my yi…” I burst out into tears and quickly run out of the room into the hallway to catch my breath. I knew this moment was coming, but I don’t think any book, letter, newsletter, or movie could have prepared me.

Something that started so pure and innocent, no cross intentions or malice between us two, what went wrong? I never knew that as you grow in a relationship with someone, when you let chemistry decide what you trust someone with, it will let you know in the end if you’ve left your heart, love, and seed in the hands of someone who doesn’t share the same sentiments, thoughts, and choices. In life, reader, we will run into hundreds of thousands of people through our time on earth, and where we put our heartaches, our low moments, our seed, our hopes, our generations, our life will so clearly and definitely define how low our lows can be and how high our highs will be. Choose your friendships and choose wisely, choose your partners and choose wisely, choose your spouse and choose wisely, and maybe you can take a piece of wisdom off the “Charles’ Wall of Lessons.” But just don’t forget to send me a text when you avert some catastrophe.

Your friend,

Charles