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| Concha and I before a Spring dance. |
Exactly ONE person has known me the longest, the deepest, and the most consistently.
It’s not a parent or a relative, as is usually the case in a person’s life.
No.
I met her when I was 15.
She was GORGEOUS (she still is). She was close to a year older, and she drove a car.
Do you know how cool it was to be a sophomore getting picked up by a junior? Can you understand how siiiiiiiiiiiiick it was to have a blond cutie drive up, honk, and ask you to jump in HER car … in front of your friends?
If you’re a guy reading this, you’re eating your heart out.
We met through our mutual interest, baseball. She played softball, I baseball. But, like me, she started as a varsity player early in her high school career, and she was a better than average defensive player (she kinda sucked at the plate). Both of our school’s teams were awful, and I believe her squad lost nearly every game all four years she played (we were only slightly better). She looked fantastic in her uniform, and I could not believe my luck: hot babe who adored me AND the game I loved.
6th period physical education class was amazing for about two years.
What struck me about her, and hit me hard, was her command of feelings. She could articulate them. To me, it was simple. I wanted to see her naked. Easy. For her, she confused me with long letters about commitment, love, and destiny. She’d write about our impending marriage, our children, and my near-assured baseball career (yeah, I was delusional even back then).
SHE WAS 16.
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| Concha, me, and her cousin. |
That was HUGE.
Though I was raised by a woman, my strongest impulse was to imitate my mostly absent father – a womanizing, philandering douche. He’d compare women to car parts. You know, typical guy shit.
After I met and fell in love with Concha, I began to hate him, loathe him for reasons I didn’t quite understand until much later. I tried to see Concha, my high school sweetheart, as an object in the way he viewed females. But I could NOT objectify my Concha, ultimately. She was so animated, so full of life. She satisfied me in every way, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. She was a lover, best friend, and confidant. She introduced me to commitment, to passion, and to loyalty.
I wasn’t worthy of her expressions.
When she told me something, she BELIEVED it. Nothing about her was pretentious or fake.
She was baldly honest, scrupulously kind, and worked for my every happiness. No woman in my life has ever been able to live up to her example. I almost hate to write that and expose it to something other than my own thoughts, but it’s such a Concha statement. It’s so true. She gave and gave and gave of herself. She gave her heart to me, dedicated herself to me, and never let go.
No, not now. Not in the way you might suspect. No. In a way, though, it continues.
After my arrest, years and years since our courtship, marriage, and divorce, I was all business. I had to execute, get things in order, and get things done. I had to focus in a storm. Very difficult. Concha came to my rescue. She held what remained of my little family together. Without her, and this is no exaggeration, I would be dead.
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| Concha and I at my Junior prom. |
She was COMPLETELY disgusted with me (her famous line during a phone conversation when I was inside, where she empathized with my then-wife, now ex-wife, went something like, “If you would’ve done that to ME, I would’ve beaten you with a bat!” Then she went on to apologize for verbalizing homicidal thoughts during a time when I needed her support).
It was typical Concha: honest to a fault, but full of love and correction. She remained in my life, and she was an integral link to my eldest daughter (LPoS). She literally held what remained of my life together for nearly three years of turmoil and insanity.
A commitment she made to me in April of 1986, at Robb Field in Ocean Beach when I gave her my gold chain, has lasted to the present (over 25 years).
Naw, we’re not romantically linked at all (and she’d DIE laughing at the mere mention).
Her friendship, however, has never faltered.
Never waivered.
Various people in her life, who seem only to have time in theirs to focus on mine, screech and howl to her about me. It's as odd as it reads, and it proves once again what a steel set of ethics Concha retains. Her circle googles, pretending at outrage and to better understand all that happened (they're positively entranced with media accounts).
Concha goes to the primary source, me. She isn't at all enabling, not at all offering emotional shelter. She knows better than really anyone what I did, and the implications for her and our LPoS are forever ongoing. Maybe it's time to push away from Concha, then, and go outside and grab some reality, folks? She won't bow to your hysteria, and not even a little bit.
She has been given MANY, many chances to completely separate from me, and NO ONE would ever blame her. Family, friends, and officials have advised her to make great distance. She refused. She did the exact opposite, offering me all the help I could possibly want.
Fuck, what do you tell someone like that? What do you say to them? Thanks? You’re nice?
I’ve taken her for granted.
I’ve used her.
I’ve let her down.
I’ve insulted her.
I’ve lied to her.
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| Concha and I at her parents' home before her Senior prom. |
I will NOT regret another single episode in my life than the day when I made her cry in horror (I confessed my crime). That face she made haunts me. It is the ONLY thing I’ve ever done I regret. A strong statement, especially considering all the stunts I’ve pulled.
I regret it because I know I cannot erase it from her experience. I cannot make up for it. I cannot intellectually dance around its happening. Hurting her, a real-life saint, is next to stepping on a puppy or pissing on a crucifix.
It’s just LOW, man, LOW. Yeah, she’s THAT version of great.
She is the best person I have ever known, and I have known a lot of great people. She beats them, every single one.
And I mean it.
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CONTACT: checalaloskelsos@gmail.com
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