Karma

Articles

Karma

By Pamela Tatom
Mar. 24, 2005

“You do what you want to do – I leave it all up to you. In time, I’ll find love again,” – Sammy Hagar

“Late at night, I close my eyes, and think how things could’ve been. And when I look back, I remember some words you had said to me. It’s better to have lost at love then never to have loved at all. I won’t forget you, baby, even though I could. I wont forget you baby, even though I should.” - Poison

“I would have given you all of my heart, but there’s someone who’s torn it apart. And he’s taken just all that I had. But if you want to try to love again, baby I’ll try to love again but I know….the first cut is the deepest.” – Sheryl Crow

“Everyday I fight a war against the mirror, I can’t take the person staring back at me – I’m a hazard to myself. Don’t let me get me, I’m my own worst enemy.” “Don’t wanna be my friend no more, I want to be somebody else.” - Pink

kar·ma
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit karma fate, work often capitalized: the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence – Merriam Webster Dictionary

“Karma is the implications of a person's actions and conduct during the phases of their existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny.” – http://www.selfnetwork.com

“The law of Karma teaches that responsibility for unskillful actions is born by the person who commits them.” - unknown

Chapter 1 2003 had been a bad year for Lisa. She was facing a difficult crossroads in her life, and was very unhappy. It had actually been a LONG time since she could remember being anything else. She was depressed, so damned depressed and lonely. The loneliness was the hardest part of all for her. She had recently started toying with the idea of putting it all down on paper. Could telling this long, sad story be the beginning of something better for her? She didn’t know. Didn’t know if she could even do this. Sighing, Lisa sat back in her chair, looked around her tiny, cramped apartment, lit a cigarette, and began to write. She decided that the best place to start this story would be with Jerry. Jerry was a sweet guy Lisa had met in high school - the first guy who had ever treated her like she was genuinely special. The year was 1983, and Lisa was in her sophomore year at Navasota High School. She had decided to go to the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance with her good friend Richard, since her most recent boyfriend Alex had just dumped her. Richard and Alex were sitting outside during lunch discussing this upcoming event, and Jerry happened to be sitting nearby. He couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. Alex was trying to convince Richard to stand Lisa up. Now Jerry knew Lisa, and liked her, but they actually weren’t very close. Hearing Alex and Richard talking so mean about her brought out the hero in him. So when Richard said goodbye to Alex, Jerry caught up with him and pushed him into a corner near the lockers. “I heard what you and Alex said about Lisa, and maybe it’s none of my business, but if you stand her up for that dance, I’ll be waiting for you the next day, and sincerely promise to beat the shit out of you.” Richard was actually a very nice guy; most people would have probably described him as a nerd, but he had been a special and valued part of Lisa’s crowd for a long time. Even though he had been talking plenty of trash with Alex, in all reality he had no intention of standing Lisa up; she was one of his best friends. Of course, Jerry had no way of knowing this, but Richard insisted to him that there was no way he would really do that to Lisa. Jerry found himself wishing that he didn’t already have plans that night, or he would have stepped in and taken her. He had recently broken up with his last girlfriend Sheila, and hadn’t much thought about replacing her yet. After this incident though, he found himself thinking of Lisa quite a bit.

Up until then, Lisa hadn’t had very many boyfriends, and the few that she had in the past had all treated her badly and abandoned her, much the same way her father had when she was a little girl. Was this a pattern for her? Maybe. As young as she was then though, the thought hadn’t ever occurred to her. Jerry and Lisa started dating soon after the dance, and Jerry treated her as if she were made of glass. He had never met someone like her before; he thought she was very smart and extremely special. This was amazing to Lisa; no one had ever given her such a sense of self-worth before. There was a problem though, as there often is when two people come together for the reasons they did. Although Lisa thought Jerry was great, she never fell in love with him. She certainly loved the way he made her feel about herself though. She had always been restless, and had even run away from home several times. She had been in and out of trouble for years, and had only moved back home with her parents a few months before school had started back that year. She was trying to make a fresh start of things, and dating such a good guy like Jerry fell right in with that. He loved her, treated her with respect, and wanted to marry her. At seventeen years old, that was good enough for her.

Lisa and Jerry got married in the summer of 1984. It was a family affair, with lots of homemade decorations. The wedding took place in a small country church in Plantersville, Texas, which was nearby the small town of Stoneham, where the couple lived. The ceremony was very sweet, but when Lisa looked back on it, she always thought that she spoke too loudly when she said, “I do”. The reception followed, with the usual gifts and the throwing of the bouquet and the garter. They spent their wedding night in a local Best Western. The next day they took off for the beach, planning to stay with Jerry’s parents at their house on the ocean for a week. Things were going great. They laughed, drank, spent time with Jerry’s friends and family, and made love a lot. Lisa was excited to be married, even though it still didn’t seem real. She was finally considered a grownup. She wanted to have children, and get on with the future. As the years began to pass, Lisa and Jerry tried over and over to have a child. Lisa never got pregnant. They tried going to doctors, having tests done, praying, wishing, hoping. But sadly, it never happened. Time moved on, as it tends to do, and before they knew it, 4 years had passed. They were now living in an apartment in Houston. Jerry had a good job driving a truck for a glass company, and Lisa was working at a music store in the mall nearby. They had lots of friends that they spent their free time with, and Jerry had begun playing softball. He tried to share this interest with Lisa, but even though she tried, she just wasn’t interested. At 21, Lisa was becoming restless and bored. She had realized 6 months into this marriage that it hadn’t been the right thing to do. She had actually tried to get out of it then, but Jerry cried, begged and pleaded with her to give it another chance. Lisa was a tenderhearted person, and knew how it felt to be rejected. She did care deeply for Jerry, but she just wasn’t in love with him. She stayed though, and decided to make getting pregnant her main focus. Now that it was becoming clear that this was never going to happen, she had started to dwell a lot more on friends and career. Lisa may not have been able to admit this, or possibly she wasn’t aware of it herself, but she wanted more out of life than it was giving her.

About 6 months before their 5th wedding anniversary, Lisa had an appointment with the regional manager of the music chain she worked for regarding an assistant manager position. Unfortunately, her car wasn’t running very well and Jerry needed their truck to get to his job on the other side of Houston. She decided to visit her friend Joni, who was a stay at home mom at the time, to see if she could give Lisa a ride to the mall where her regional manager was going to be. It was Sunday evening, and Jerry was relaxing on the couch, reading a newspaper and watching TV. Lisa gave him a quick hug and told him where she was off to. Mildly, Jerry asked, “Do you really need to go right now? It’s getting kind of late.” Lisa replied, “I would just call her, but their phone isn’t working, and I really need to see Jeff tomorrow. I want that promotion. I promise I won’t be long.” Jerry agreed, and Lisa was off. She drove to Joni’s, singing along to the radio. When she got there, she noticed an unfamiliar car in the driveway. Having no idea whose it was, she quickly dismissed it, and made her way to the door and knocked. When Joni answered the door, she was all smiles. “Hey Lisa - come on in! I want you meet my brother Eric; he just got in from Connecticut! He’s going to be staying with us for a while.” When Lisa walked into the kitchen, there was a young man sitting at the table with longish blonde hair. Joni introduced them, and they nodded and murmured a greeting to each other. Honestly, she didn’t pay a lot of attention to Eric; he was very quiet and didn’t seem to have much to say. Lisa got back to the business at hand, and Joni readily agreed to come and pick her up in the morning. After a brief conversation, Lisa drove home.

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About the author: Pamela Tatom lives in Magnolia, Texas and writes in her spare time.

Email: ptatom@gmail.com

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