So my sisters wedding. It wasn't something I was terribly thrilled about, hell the woman had been married for 2 years. I was living with her at the time which was not working out well. I was 19, she was 22. We pretty much always hated each other. I don't really remember any significant period of time where we got along. There were moments, but nothing substantial. She moved me down to Huntington with her, to be honest I'm not sure why. I was pretty much homeless and a bit strung out. I was sleeping around and staying out. She didn't appreciate it and things were kinda rough. None the less her wedding was coming up. I was working at Bob Evans as a hostess and had taken the time off to drive up there to prepare and what not. I was generally pretty unimpressed with all that. By unimpressed I mean emotionless and frankly selfish. I wore the dress, and tried to not piss anyone off. It really was a beautiful wedding. They were happy, and things went well. I was staying with friends up there afterwards, and she was on her way to Jamaica for her honeymoon. We got into this argument about money. I think she was expecting me to give her part of my check. I was expecting to get drunk the week she was gone so I wasn't budging on the funds situation. She lost it, which was generally her reaction to me. Somewhere in there she told me not to come back to her house. So there I was in my friends apartment over a tattoo shop, alone, drunk, and newly homeless. I thought about it, I think I even made some attempt at a pathetic suicide note. Ha, not that I had real intentions of killing myself, just something dramatic. I figured I couldn't stay in Wheeling. I left for some really good reasons, and as fun as it was sometimes to run with my old crowd, I'm pretty sure they all hated me as much then as they ever did. I called a guy Adam, we had slept together here and there. He was a friend of a guy I dated, and he told me at the time that I took his virginity. I thought it was an accomplishment then, but I think now that it was probably something he said to get girls to sleep with him. I don't know why or how but I convinced him and a friend Gwinn to drive the 3 1/2 hours to pick me up. They really barely knew me, and I had basically no money. I didn't even know then where I was going to go. Back then I just ran with things. There wasn't a lot of questioning it, I just went with whatever was happening. I had a lot less fear, I miss that sometimes. They drove up and hung out a bit, I think they hooked up with some chicks I knew. We went to the Krishna Palace which is this stunning building in the back woods of Wheeling. I have no idea why it is there, it was built for Srila Prabhupada to live in and write, but why there I do not know. All of these devotees came with no experience and built this marble and gold palace for him in the 70's. Now you can go up there walk the grounds, and take tours of the palace. We met this man Che, he walked us around and fed us vegan pizza. This woman gave us these big flower necklaces. They showed us the temple and the rose garden. Apparently there was a convention going on so we got to meet a lot of people. These peacocks were roaming free, it was really inspiring. I talked with this woman about when she converted. She said she used to be a clothing designer in The Czech Republic. Self taught, she hung around in a seamstress shop near her house. Apparently her family had some money and they put her clothes on display. She had some fashion shows, and was popular almost instantly. People respected her, and she went to all the big shows. She said, "One night I was laying in bed, I was so sick". I never knew if she meant physically or spiritually. She told her boyfriend to go and get her every book on god he could find. She said laughing that by the time he came back she was so tired she picked up the smallest one. It was a book about Krishna. She said it filled her with so much joy that she went out and read every book she could. She ditched the guy, the money, the car, the clothes and devoted her life to this faith. It was so beautiful. It didn't make me want to sign up necessarily, but it was so lovely. I remember looking at her. She was so beautiful, and so happy at the way things were. I wanted that. I wanted to talk about my life and love the words that came out of my mouth. I wanted to look out at where I was and feel full and inspired. We left and drove the 3 hours to Huntington. I kept the flowers, and slept in the back smelling Nag Champa. At the time maybe that sucked. Not only loosing my place to stay, but just who I was. I was so full of feelings, but no where to put them. I wanted things I couldn't even understand at the time. I still think about that woman though. I think about her eyes looking off and smiling. I think about how one day maybe I will tell my story and have that same look.
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