Part I:
Marriage for me was a very bad idea.
Not marriage itself—I know that I am marriage material.
I mean marriage out of necessity.
ANYTHING out of necessity isn't an option for me.
I just can't put my heart into anything I didn't choose to do.
Of course, I did choose to get married.
I could've opted out.
Who am I kidding?
There is no way I could've let Maysa marry someone else while she was carrying my child!
And she would have.
She wasn't going to get an abortion, and she wasn't going to become an unwed mother.
No way could I have let another man claim my progeny!
So, yes, I really didn't have a choice at all.
I don't regret anything; I just had no idea what I was getting myself into: the lies, the secrecy, the plotting, the unethicality of the women of the family I was marrying into and the blind denial of the men.

There's a lot I've done since I got married that I never imagined myself even contemplating!
My past is not exactly flawless:
I'm a drop-out who's been using drugs since I was 9, and regularly since I was 14, but I was always open and honest about my life.
At the very least to my family.
And if they didn't like the truth, that was their problem.
Never before my marriage did I deny or lie about what I was or was not doing in my life.
After all, it is my life!
But since it overlaps with my family's life so much, they should be privy to at least the basics; the yeses and nos.

Yes, I'm a pothead.
No, I'm not going to school.
Yes, I deal every now and then—just the basic facts.
I believe it's their right to know these things.
I had to hide the fact that I was going to be a father.
I had to actively lie about it.

Obviously my family knew.
I told them everything, and my mother-in-law knew, and her sister knew, but we had to hide it and lie about it to everyone else.
OK, we're in the Middle East.
I can deal with not making it public knowledge that we got married because we got pregnant, but why do we have to hide it from absolutely everyone?
I mean, why wasn't her family in on it?
Why couldn't we treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve just by sharing blood?
I guess to some people blood runs as thin as water.

Part II
Has there ever been a manipulator to match the skill of Maysa?
Yes, just not in my life.
She manipulated me into hiding the greater part of my life for the better part of two years.
Me, the most blatant, in your face person who has probably ever lived.
She manipulated me into staying with her, into sleeping with her, into marrying her for Kermit's sake.

But I must admit, she was my rock when Plutonian crossed over.
She was there for me and mine in a way I had no right to expect of anyone.
Maysa and Spliffy were the ones who actually prepared her for burial.
Maysa even made sure her hair was properly brushed—a point of great importance.
Plutonian, like Samson, held her considerable power in her hair, and until she crossed over, very few people were granted the privilege of handling and caring for it.
Me, Mom, sometimes Mon and None, and of course, she let Samia handle it the few times they met.
Plutonian and Samia had such similar power it was impossible for either not to recognize the divinity of the other.
Divine they are, without a doubt.
And now I have neither of them; one moved on, the other I threw away.
How could I have underestimated the rarity of a divinity such as Samia?
Oh well, I still have no regrets, after all, I have my pride.

I suppose Maysa had to become such an amazing manipulator to have any power at all, seeing as to how she has none of her own.
The only way for her to wield any power and have an effect on her world was to harness the power of those around her, and she had to become a master actress in order to allow persons of power to allow her into their lives.
Thank the heavens seeing is something everyone with power can do, so she hasn't been able to pull any of us off our Tao, at least, not for long.
At least, not yet, but she is developing her skills still.
Heaven save us all if she ever meets a person of power who can't see—if such a thing exists in an infinite universe.
Who knows.
How could it have taken me so long to recognize Maysa’s truth?
I had her chart, her scope, her spell wave. How did I not see it?
She's like Carlos C., to one who sees she looks like a person of power, but she has no power. She has the makings of power, but not the actuality of it.
And to think I tried to give her the tools of power and knowledge.