I will be taking a break from going to Crack Chicken for a while. I don't know when I will be back, but I know I will come back someday. As for why, it's a personal thing, but I'll share. However, I will be ambiguous to protect the privacy of this person.

Simply put, I fell in love with someone.

This person makes me happy, and everything becomes a vastly much more colorful world because of this person. This person knows how to calm me when I get upset or stressed. My memories of him are positive and enriched my life so much. And because I knew him, I have been changed for the better, and for good.

But the hardest thing is letting go when you waited all your life for someone THIS special. But he was in love with someone else. And because I cared about him so much, I had to let him go so he could be truly happy. I cried. Not from the loss, but the helplessness of how I could have made him the happiest man on earth. It took me seven years in finding someone this special.

Seven years ago, I came out of the closet and started dating. Many ups and downs were experienced, many were harsh lessons.

I tried the long distance relationship. He was my first boyfriend. His name was Gio. He's a cuddly nerdy kind of guy. He loved music and we were together for almost two years. However, we only saw each other in twice in those two years.

It was a day of "Firsts". I had my first date, kiss, and romantic click. We were both nervous, and we tried to relax but we couldn't. Then came the moment. I remember Gio sitting down with me on the baseball field bench and looked into my eyes. He took a lemon drop from his pocket and put it in his mouth.

"I hope this calms me down, John," he said.

"Why?"

"So that I can do this..." Gio said with a nervous tinge.

At that moment, he leaned in. He hesitated for a short moment and then kissed me. At that moment, the skies rained. A moment that I never forgot.

When I moved to San Jose, it then came to a point that I had to break it off with Gio. It was only fair. I was holding him back from his own opportunities for happiness and for a person who could make him much more happier than I ever could. We still talk, and I heard he's happy with his new boyfriend now.

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After that, came Jon. He also loved music, but classically trained as a pianist. We had a mostly "IM" relationship. When I first met him in person, I fell in love. Well, at least I THOUGHT I was. I will always enjoy the moments when he played "Aerith's Theme" from Final Fantasy 7. I confessed my feelings to him, and he did not feel the same way. Needless to say, it got awkward after that and he stopped instant messaging me.

When it came to Jon, I faced a nearly unbearable bout of sadness and depression. It was a very dark time in my life, and I anguished over it for two years. Every Valentine's Day, I cried to myself realizing of what we could never be. It hurt, knowing that a guy that I felt was so right for me.

I was blind. I was hungry to be loved. But I eventually snapped out of it. I realized that Jon was not good enough for me if he were to ignore me like this. To this end, I thank Danny, my friend, in showing me.

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The most complicated experience I ever had was Mike. He was a radio editor and DJ for a certain radio station in Berkeley. I learned a lot from him, romantically and sexually. He's a big guy, and very sweet to boot. Too sweet. He was a cheater, and a very prolific one at that. He cheated on me from the very beginning of the relationship.

There's a lot to cover, but to sum it up. I moved in with Mike. He then broke up with me four months later, and had the new boyfriend move in while I was still there. The cheating was not what hurt most. What inflicted the most damage was the fact that I could hear them make love through the paper-thin walls of the house. Every morning, I had to hear of how much they love each other and cared for each other while I was unloved, brokenhearted, and alone. I seriously doubt most people could mentally withstand what I had to experience.

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Eventually, I moved back to San Jose. Back at home, I felt refreshed and redetermined to accomplish my personal goals. Then came Brian. Brian was a man of massive intelligence. He had the mastery of English, Spanish, and Arabic under him. But as intelligent as he is, he was a massive failure in social situations. We never fought, we never had the opportunity to really express of how we felt about each other. We never had conflicts.

So it came to a climax when he called me over the phone to break up with me. The saddest thing of all? It was that he was dating someone two days after and pledged his love to someone else two weeks after that. Even worse, I had to learn that from Brian's best friend. Talk about intelligent, right?

To this day, I still have yet to resolve this problem with him.
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You see, I had to go through therapy in order to get over a lot of the issues I had. It was massively purifying. I confronted Mike, and I told him of the damage he did to me. The mental scarring was still there, and I was writhing in pain. All I asked was an apology. An sincere apology of the damage he did to me, the insecurity and the lack of trust that festered and grew from it all.

There was a long sigh from the cellphone, and I could sense the deep thought that Mike was going through...

"John, I am sorry. I'm sorry that I cheated on you and took advantage of you. I am sorry that I made you go through all of this. I failed you as your boyfriend at the time and you deserved more."

I broke down, and started weeping. After so much time, after so much pain, and after so much anguish. This man, on the other line, a man who had hurt me so much, apologized. In that moment, I had forgiven him.

"Thank you Mike. Thank you for giving me so much more than I could ever hope for."

We are still friends to this day.
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More to come...