“Karma is a Female Dog”

-Or a bull named Taurus (Chapter One)-

So, it would make sense to question why it is I’m being punished by the Karma Gods for something that happened almost two decades ago; when I was nineteen and stupid.  I was fresh out of high school, discovering my sexuality in cascading droves. I had no clue how life actually functions.  I was a late bloomer when it came to common sense, I had raging hormones to spare, weird anger problems, and didn’t smoke, drink anything beyond a wine cooler, experiment with mind-altering drugs, or any other vice which might have made adolescence easier to cope with.

Nope, because of my amazing choices back then and subsequent string of misdirected ‘ideas’, the early twenties were indeed a bumpy ride.  Had I listened to the wiser people in my circle, things would’ve turned out better.  Or would they have?  The theory of Karma is, at its easiest-to-digest level: cause and effect.   Although, it’s never quite clear which is the ‘causer’, and which is the ‘effectee’.  This is because everyone who engages in Karma has to write their own rules, remember that no two rule books will be the same, and the rules can all switch in favor of the other party at any time.

So, let’s see if I’m getting this right: BeCAUSE I impregnated the village bicycle, and then decided it’d be a superb idea to take that a step further and marry her, cut the umbilical cord to mommy, and move my new family to the middle of nowhere thirty miles away, work three jobs at once, still be poor as hell, and other general ‘baptisms by fire’, this somehow still constitutes, nineteen years later, a reason to be passionately hated by everyone in my son’s family; including my own son?

It’s silly, really.  The forties are on the horizon for me.  The teenage years were a few wedding rings ago.   Drama shouldn’t be this unnecessarily rampant.  Get over it.  Hath Karma no half life?  No shelf life?  No expiration date?  No currency of brownie points?

Apparently this isn’t the case with Karma.  So, without further ado, I’m converting to a Karma-atheist.  No lie. Why?  Because the concept is cutting room floor junk used by people who overuse the phrase, “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?!” or, “Karma’s going to bite you in the ass someday for that!”  I’ve tried faithfully preaching the pseudo-religion of Karma for many years, but now I have reason to comfortably say that ninety percent of it is moldy tuna used for sandwiches whenever people are out of freshly canned God.

Karma shouldn’t be plaguing me today for the lousy temper I had when I was technically still a kid.  It shouldn’t be the only factor when making decisions on trust.  There shouldn’t be hatred and perpetually fueled animosity when the original issue isn’t one anymore.  It has only been within the past seven years that I actually feel like a man (told ya, late bloomer) and have trusted myself well enough to have faith in my decisions… not just for me, but for the families I help support each day.  Sure, my temper used to suck (and occasionally still does).  I was a bit of an eccentric, know-it-all, clueless jerk, (and sometimes still am) who (like, really, any 19 year old) didn’t appreciate the scope, power, and limitless beauty of Karma.

But, that’s the funny thing about it.  It’s too ambiguous to use in any one situation.  There are simply more variables to Karma than the situations you can use Karma as an excuse in.

For example:  In the beginning, I was low on options.  I had to return to mom’s womb (aka: the basement of my parent’s house), to sort out my finances and life.  I had a rough time grappling with closure.  My 1^st wife had taken my son, moved to Washington to figure herself out and become a part-time lesbian, and then moved back to Elko County, Nevada with a trophy of a 2^nd husband who instantly despised my every breath, and refuses to this day to be anything other than a walking douche bag with a beard to me.

Ah, Hell! I certainly had all of that comin’, though.  A saint I’m not.  Admittedly, in both the spouse & father departments: I sucked.  I said mean, hurtful things, and had a tendency to talk with my hands in not-so-nice ways.  I was too selfish to listen to anything, and was too much of a coward to do the right things.  I knew the differences between wrong and right, but I was a kid scrambling to find good vines to swing on in a chaotic adult jungle.  It was too much, too soon, too fast, and a jerk deserves to be treated as such.

Karma seemed to shadow my every move.

A few years after the 1^st marriage broke into pieces upon entry, I remarried.  It went against everything I said I’d never do, and was again forewarned by many, but found myself in another situation where I thought I knew it all.  A year later, my new bride and I had a little girl together, and ended up moving around from Elko, to Winnemucca, to Boise where we settled in to an apartment by the mall.

In the meantime, I continued shelling out child support money to support a son whom I was only able to see a few times a year.  And, even those rare visits, were anything but celebratory.  My son was obviously being brainwashed to continue to see me as the enemy regardless of anything I did to convince him otherwise.  He was taught to refer to me by first name to, “avoid confusion in the house with his half-siblings”.  I was no longer, ‘Dad.  Soon it became crystal clear that I’d either need to fight this, or let this ship sail out to sea with hopes of it someday coming back without too many barnacles to scrape off.  The day would someday arrive when my son would be older and able to break free of the hatred surrounding my name and prior reputation.

After a year’s worth of convincing from my 1^st wife, I agreed to surrender my parental rights in exchange for a [begin fingerquotes] “more emotionally stable environment” [end fingerquotes] with my son living with them full time.  Hell, he always seemed reluctantly anxious to be around his new 2^nd family, and I was obviously making things harder on everyone by trying to force it.  Besides, I was assured that I wouldn’t stop being able to see him, just because his last name would soon be changing to his ‘new’ father’s name.  The ink wasn’t even dry before the rules changed.

Dad.  Daddy.  Father.  Nope, I’m now Doug… with no ties to my own blood.  No contact, no letters, no word.  I wasn’t needed anymore and my name was forbidden to speak.  It was like I’d never existed.

My only option was to press forward, learn from the many effects I’d caused, and hope that somehow I could change myself enough to ward off attacks from the Karma Gods who seemed to lurk around every corner.  I had a new marriage (although far from the greatest) and little girl to care for.  If things were truly meant to be, then as sure as shit, someday my son would show up at my door trying to get to know me again.  However, I waited seven more years before anything else happened.

…to be continued.