I called Ma up the other day & we had this nice talk. It was almost like a way we never had talked before. It was so open & loving, & I felt sad when it was over because I wished that we had talked like that before, or more often, or longer, even though I felt like I told her too much. It's like you think you know somebody, & then they tell you all this stuff, & it amazes you because they never said anything like that before. Like a new world opening up to you, or a depth that you didn't know was there. Like you had a friend, & one day you found out he was a cop, or a genius. Or anything fundamental that you didn't know. Not that she told me something about herself that I didn't know already, but I was amazed that she understood so much about me. Obdviously Lina told her a lot of stuff, but that's not what I mean either. I just don't want to go in to it right now.

So I went over there after work. I wanted to go home first, but I didn't want to waste time or get there late. And I was so nervous on the way over there. I'm thinking on the train what I wanted to tell them in a mad rush. But you got to hold yourself back & temper it or else you won't get everything out that you want to say. And being nervous didn't help. So then I got to Astoria, & I got off the train & I was afraid to go to their house, so I stayed there at the station thinking & trying to calm myself down. I don't know how long I stayed there. Probably too long, but not as long as it felt. And even though I still wasn't ready I started walking over there, real slow. Sweating. Profusely.

You build these connections in life, & sometimes they get broken. And sometimes nothing can break them. You underestimate people because the world is not what it is in your head. And there's people out there that are so much greater than you are. Some people hold those connections more tightly than you do. And you fear the worst while others hold the best. People understand those conections where you don't. They see the world the way it really is, or the way they make it.

It was supposed to be simple. I was going to stick to the plan of what I was going to say, & I lost it. It didn't go the way it was supposed to go at all. And mabey that's a good thing, because I feel good about how it went, & yet disappointed with the result.

I knock on the door. We always went right in, but I couldn't do that since I was alone. And the next thing you know everybody's so happy to see me, while I was dreading the whole thing. Everything hinged on what happened, on what I said & how they reacted. For all I knew they were going to yell at me & blame me for everything. But then Ma wouldn't have been the way she was on the phone. She wouldn't have said it was okay to go over there.

So once things get back to normal, if you could call it normal, we sat down in the living room, & started the how are you's. How are you? Fine, and you? Fine. Good, great, wonderful. And I was back to being a bundle of nerves in no time at all.

Everything is the same in their house. I sat on the chair I always sat in. I never saw any one them ever sit in that chair, so that makes it my chair. Right? They gave an odd house, & they keep it that way. Funny smell that I haven't smelled in a while. Two walls have these big tapestries. One scene is of the country, mountains & trees, & the more you look at it the more little stuff you see in there. The other one is an old village, people everywhere. It looks like something out of old Europe. No doubt it's Hungary, or supposed to be. I like the one with the mountains better. So we sat there talking about nothing, & I felt bad because obdviously I was there for a reason, to tell them something, & I wasn't doing that because I was still nervous.

I didn't really start to talk much until we started eating dinner. It was a big production, & it was all for me. Everything was for me & my benefit. Eddie's here! All that food, & you know I still can't eat much. But once we started eating I started telling them about my "new" job, which isn't really new anymore, & where I work & what I do, & once I got to that I started getting more comfortable, & it just came out of my mouth. I wasn't even supposed to talk about my job. It wasn't in my plans, even though I like to to talk about work. I had the whole routine planned out. What I was going to say, how I was going to say it. What I wanted to stress, what I wanted to ask them, what I wanted from them. It was supposed to be short & sweet. Honest & direct. And then everything went kablooey in my head.

So in the middle of that something got me on my old job. I don't know how it happened. It was like as I thought about it perfectly trained me for what I do now. I'm an accountant. And I told them about everything I was doing, & what I could do. And it just led me into how I had made senior accountant & everything leading up to what happened to me. And I didn't want to explain what happened, but it seemed right. To tell them everything.

I told them about mom & dad & sophie, & about how I grew up & lived. What kind of home we had. dad's drinking. The beatings. The belt. I told them about when I ran away from home, & about who I became inside. How I've always been broken & hurt & filled with pain, & self hatred. The depression. And you know I told them about Lina & who she is to me because of what we went through together. About how it wasn't supposed to be us falling in love, & how it wasn't for so long, & about what it did to me. What it made me in to.

I wasn't even thinking. It just spurted out of my mouth. I told them about what kind of person she is. I don't know whether they knew it or not. Because you know your parents don't even know the real you unless you let them know. I told them about how strong she is inside. I know they didn't know that. I told them about what she did for me after 9-11, & how that means everything to me. No matter what she told them she could only tell them from her perspective, not from mine. I told them about all those years, & how everything was different after them.

I remember when I lived at their house for a couple of months after Lina brought me there. They didn't hate me, but I know they didn't want me there. I know they didn't understand anything about me. And mabey they suspected the worst. So I told them how I feel about her & how I treated her, & what kind of a relationship we had. I told them about how we went to church, & sort of renewed her faith. I went through all of it. And that's when I told them what really happened between me & dad. No bias, just the truth, & all of it. What really happened, & what mom & sophie tried to do to me. What happened in jail & why I did what I did. Why I decided that Lina & I shouldn't be together anymore, how I decided that & why I thought that. Everything came out of me like a volcano. I wasn't even thinking about what I was going to say. It just poured out of me, this lava that came out of my mouth. I couldn't have stopped myself if I had wanted. And I'm glad it happened that way, because if I had tried to say all that stuff, the way I said it, I wouldn't have been able to say ut the same way, with the same passion.

I tell you no one has ever understood why I broke everything off with Lina. And I know I never really wanted to tell anybody. Yet I was able to get everything out of my head, all my feelings & reasons & everything. They just sat there listening while I half cried through it. Because I hate thinking about myself the way I was then. I start hating myself again. Hating everything that happened. You know I screwed up in many ways. I gave her everything I could, & I know I was held back from giving everything I should've given. But I couldn't because I was broken, I wasn't who I am now. As a matter of fact I probably couldn't give everything now. I know I'm not ready yet. I'm still this new guy, still discovering things about myself, what I want to be, still overcoming the past, still understanding why I am the way I am. And I want to work on that. I want to make myself as I right as I can get. And I explained all that to them. The whole transformation, how it came about, & what I want to be in my new life.

Once I got through all that stuff, & it flew by, yet still took forever because I had to get everything out. Every thought, every feeling, every reason, every explanation. And let's face it, I can be long winded. I never told anybody that much stuff about myself before. And looking back on it, it was easy, even though it was hard, & hurt to do it.

I told them everything about my life, & why I was that. Everything about who I was & what I went through. All the feelings & all the pain. The lies I told to cover everything up. All my faults, all that stuff built up inside of me. I told them about me & dad, Even about the time he put me in the hospital, & how I covered it up & lied for him, & even why I lied.

I told them what happened on 9-11, & what I tried to do, & who I was when I lived with them during that time. I told them about how they ought to be proud of their daughter for what she did for me. For the strength she has inside. For the purity she has. How she gave everything of herself for me, & for the love she has inside. Not even the love for me, but for the love she has for everybody, for the spirit she has inside. For the innocence, the acceptance & understanding. For the way she helps everybody. I'm nothing compared to her. Really. And you know a parent doesn't know their children like everybody else does. They know this fifteen year old girl, & I know this ninteen or twenty year old woman. They don't know her like I know her. They don't see how she is when she's away from them. They don't see how she gives of herself. You know these kids in the neighborhood, & how they act one way when they're with their parents & another way when they're away from them. And they're alwways shocked when they find out. They say not my little Johnny. He'd NEVER do something like that. Because they don't really know their little Johnny. I've always been like that with my parents. Not that I was doing all these terrible things when they weren't around. They never knew me for who I was inside. They never knew what I had in my head. Not that they cared, but that's not the point. They probably thought that I was a little them. What they thought I was or what I'd become. False expectations. And I don't suppose they'll ever know.

So I'm going through all this & I get to the point where I think it's not going right. And I'm agonizing because I'm pouring out the truth to them while they're lying to me about how they don't know where she is. Stop lying to me. Stop the games. I wonder if they're doing this on purpose or if they're playing a game with me. Mabey even set up by Lina. I don't know, but I know something's not right. And I love these people. I love them so much, & they're lying to my face. Because I know these people. I know them as a family, & what kind of family they have or are. And people like that don't not know where their daughter is. That's a load of bullshit. Mabey they want me to go through the agony. Like I got to prove myself to them, or to Lina. Like my feelings aren't genuine. But they're not crying, they're not all upset that their daughter is missing, & they haven't seen her in two years. That's a fucking lie. I ask them this stuff & they tell me that she had a friend who moved to Connecticut. And what am I supposed to believe? That they haven't gone up there looking for her, or calling around, or calling the cops, or whatever? I know they don't think I'm stupid, I know they care about me, but why make me go through this? Was I not honest enough or complete enough, or mad or sad enough for them? Didn't I put on a good enough show for them? Didn't I cry enough tears? And in some way I feel like I wasted my time going to them. And I know they love me. Like they're trying to teach me a lesson or something. Is that what I have to go through? I got to do pennance, as the catholics say? I got to wait for them to pray me out of pergatory? I didn't even expect them to tell me where she is. They could just say that she ain't ready, or even that she or they want to punish me first. They could tell me the town where she is. They could tell me that she don't ever want to see me again, if that's the case. But why lie to me? I never lied to those people. I always treated them like they were my real parents, & I loved them. And you know they could've offered me some help in some way. They could've steered me in the right direction, or given me some clue. Give me a good faith gesture, a wink even, to show that they were only doing what Lina wanted. But they gave me nothing. And I'll go on loving them no matter how much they obstruct me.

This is the temtimony of Edward Daniel Raban, that I am a new man created alone by God above, and that I am happy, determined, and proud of who I am. I am good inside despite what I have been led to believe by those who claim to be my family.

I am separated from all whom I love. I am alone in the world, not by choice, by what others did to me & what I had no other choice but to do on my own. What I did I did because I had to do it for the good of myself & for the good of others, & in so doing I destoyed everything that meant something to me. I did it for love, something no one understands. But I understand. I showed my great love by keeping others from the kind of pain I've lived with my whole life. And no one will understand that.

I bring pain to everyone in my life. That's what I've always done. That's who I am. And it happens because no one understands. I was made to blame myself, and I did blame myself. So I believe in a code, but I've never explained it to anyone because I seem to live in a world all my own. My code is my world, & I will be true to myself to the end, even if that means pain to others.

My code is based on love, & doing what's right, the antithis of this world. And I remain silent when it suits me.

My code is to be true to myself, & damn with the consequences. I've been pretending to be somebody else all my life. I've pretended to be someone to different people, to different friends, someone altogether different to my friends families, someone else to teachers, bosses, girls, coworkers, neighbors, you name it. I got more personalities than I got anything else. Of course they're pretty much the same variation on a theme, but the idea holds.

I've never really been myself, that guy in my head or my heart. And I'm saying no more because I reached the point where I was even pretending to myself. It just dawned on me one day when I was put into this precarious situation, forced to do something I didn't want to do, & I began scheming. Who should I be to this new person, I wondered. What do they expect me to be? How will they react, will they like me (even though I didn't want to be with this person)? So I'll say it: it was Rita. And you know she royally screwed me over. Man I never felt so stupid, so abused in my life. And mabey that was punishment in some way for trying to be somebody I wasn't. Alright, that had nothing to do with it. But this idea crystalized in my mind, just the concept. Here I was trying to be different again, & it dawned on me that I could be anyone I wanted to be in reality. And that blows my mind, even now.

You're trying to be what somebody expects you to be, who they think you are, what will make them like you, what will get what you want, what you thik you ought to be like. There's a hundred reasons to be somebody else, but what about me? What about who I am? And you know there's a conflict in that. I think I've instictively known that all my life. Because you know I was no good all my life. Never good enough for anybody. Never really deserving of friendship, or love. Who would ever love you? You don't want love because it's a game. It's a way to hurt you. It's that conflict inside.

I wanted to be what would make my family happy. I wanted them to love me like I loved them. But no matter what I did, no matter who I was they still didn't love me. They live in this destructive world, & they tried to destroy me. They did destroy me. Look what happened with dad. And I'll never see them again. Yeah, & I still have that conflict in my head. But I realize some things now. I realize that I got some worth, & that I can be good. I can be someone that people like, & I don't have to hate myself anymore.

Truly, I don't live in this world. I have nothing in common with it. But I have to live in it, & that's frustrating. The world doesn't work the way I want it to, & it's gonna go up against me.

I don't know how to explain this. My life was over. I knew it, everbody knew it. And I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. It's like everything came to a head, everything came together in a minute. One minute of rage. One minute of love. Because no matter what there's always been something inside of me that understood the truth. And I never wanted to admit that truth, because they're you're family. There's still the whole love shit there. I never wanted any one bit, but I was born into it, & I was raised in it. And I can't get that love out of my head. I still have it, & I guess I always will. There's this dichotomy between those who are supposed to love you, & the terrible things they do to you, the evidence of which you'll have for the rest of your life. I bear these scars, physical & emotional. And I can see it happening right now, it never goes away. It was like my head was empty, like going through the motions. Instinct rather than thought.

So there's this stigma attached to what I did. And rightfully so. I'll never live it down. The conflict will never go away. I know it. Love & hate at the same time, yet unknowing. Something that tells me how bad I am, every proof that I was taught right there. It's like a mirror of the internal conflict. The fabric of your being. The definition of who you are. That's what I'll always be. Always.

I hurt inside even now, despite my transformation. Here I have this new life, but the old one still lives on, & I have to deal with the consequences of what happened then. It hurts to know that I am what I am now, & that she doesn't know it. Even the fact that she had to live through who I was. She's never known me as someone whole, or at least on his way to being whole & right in my mind & emotions. She never saw the real me behind the mask of misery. All she knew was the wounded little boy I was. But even so, I think she knew something of what was behind the bandages that love has a way of unraveling.

She still lives on in the center of my heart, as I know I do in hers. I am her Cardenio & she my Luscinda, & just as they lived mad lives apart, so do we, & as they were at last reunited in love, so to will we. I roam these mountains in madness while she lives in her convent wailing the loss of her beloved 'till fate brings us back together.

I know that I have to find her. That's what love tells me, the love that she taught me. And even if she hates me now I know that I did the right thing. But I did do wrong, even as I did right. I deluded myself into thinking that I had protected her from all that pain when I knew that I hadn't, & that I had casused it all. I deluded myself into believing that she was right around the corner, she was still right there for me. But she wasn't there because I had destroyed her, too. That's the thing that I never wanted to admit. I wanted to shield myself from the pain that I'd caused, as though it didn't affect her. I didn't want to believe it. By protecting her from the pain of what I did I brought that pain closer to her. The one I love. And by isolating myself, more delusion, I left her powerless & alone, & unable to help & support me, as I know she wanted. I abandoned her. I kept myself hidden away, refused to see her, because I didn't want to hurt her, even though by doing so I was.

I gave up my life to protect her, & in doing so I ruined her. And more than that, I deceived her while we were together, because I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want her to feel my pain. And I knew she knew it. I didn't want to think those things, or live them again by telling her. All I wanted was for us to be happy. I didn't want her to see the hate in my life. Even though she knew about 9-11, & as bad as that was, the other stuff was worse. The other stuff is the black of my life.

And I didn't trust her enough, or value her strength as I should have done because if I had then I would've known that she was stroing enough to overcome what I'd done, not to condemn me or think the worst about me. All those years she's known me better than anyone ever has. She understands me better, she believees in me, & despite all that I let her go as if she were nothing. Of course I known my own reasons, & none of them were in consideration of any of that.

I wanted to protect her from the pain of what I'd done & what associations come from that. I didn't think I had any future left, that I wouldn't be able to get a job, & so I wouldn't be able to provide for her. I was afraid of how I'd be seen by my friends, the people I know, & of course her own family. They would all hate me & have nothing to do with me. I would be alone in the world, empty, & forced to live with what I did. And what kind of world would that be for her? I was a total failure, & I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I thought she might hate me too, because what I bring on myself I also bring on to her. And how could I live with that?

I couldn't run away from myself after what happened, although I tried. I wanted to hide away from the world & grieve & feel sorry for myself. I wanted to blame the world for what I did, what happened to me, blame what everybody's done to me all my life, blame God himself. Truly the Lord giveth & the Lord taketh away. And I wondered why he didn't take me as he took everything else. I wanted to die once again, & through it all I was trapped in a world that I created without even knowing it. That's the way it's been my whole life. And I'd rather have died than live in it. And there I returned to where I was on 9-11, wanting to die again, when I was saved by my beloved. And here now I recognize that it wasn't only her who saved me, but the Lord acting though her. And here I've felt abandoned all this time, even by God, who loves me so much that he sent Alina to me at the darkest hour when I surely would've died. My salvation has been his love for me, which I didn't recognize at the time. And I took that love & let it go because I didn't feel worthy of it, which was manifest in the hate I had for myself.

I've been punished all my life, & so punished myself in turn. Made it worse than it ever was.

And then one day I found a job & went to work. And it's a funny thing what work does to you. Work has been like the only normal thing I've had throughout my life. It's given me the only normalcy I've ever had & felt & recognized. It's given me confidence & purpose & determination. It's built something up inside of me & made me into something I feel proud about. It's given me an outlet for the desire I have & allowed me to rise up & prove my worth to the world & to myself. And one thing becomes another, & another, until I find myself as I am now.

What would my life have been without my Lina? What without her kindness, her gentleness, her support, her strength, her love, her giggles, her squeals, her calmness, her warmth, her friendship, her family, her heart, her softness, her weaknesses.

I want my life to be right, & I'm gonna make it right.
i'm going to start being a man
I'm goibg to stop feeling sorry for myself
I'm going to tell the truth
I'm going to be honest with myself
I'm going to be firm
I'm going to be happy
If I'm angry then I'm angry, & if I'm sad then I'll be sad
I'm going to be more open, more friendly
I'm going to build up my faith
I'm not goin to hate myself
I'm going to right the wrongs in my life
And I'm going to get back the girl I love

I vow that from this day forward I will not stop searching for my love Alina, no matter how long it takes, no matter what obstacles, no matter where she may be. All my energy & thought will be directed toward this one goal. I will never give up, never get discouraged, never lose sight of the place she has in my heart, & I will find her & maker her a part of me forever.