LITTLE BLACK HOLE

It was 12:35 am, July 2018, I was in my bed, when the ground began to move sideways. It's California, have you seen San Andreas. Well, I thought 2 things: this is going to pass or this is it. Sure enough, it stopped. However my heart could not stop pounding. I decided to do what all Californians should do, and prepare an emergency bag just in case. You should always be prepared. Here I was, packing my emergency bag and I decided to look into my old box of pictures and memories. Decided to pack some of that too. Even packed my little black book.

Oh I remembered that black book. It carried my notes, jokes, my true love numbers game, it had my notes of MASH romances. If you don't know what I am talking about then you weren't born in the late 80's early 90's. It contained notes of loves past that could of been and then random notes of class information I needed. As I went through the pages of my little black book, the aftershock hit. This time it was a little stronger and it had a magnetic pull. It was strong enough to make me close my eye and wish I wasn't there.

As the after shock became the actual earthquake, I could not help but wish that this would stop. All I could think of was my family. All I could think of was my friends. All I could think of was that I had not yet lived my life to the fullest, I had not gotten married, I had not had kids. The things you think about when you think you are about to die. After the earthquake was over, I decided to go back to bed and hoped that the night just calmed down. I watched pimple popping videos until I fell asleep.

In the morning I was ready to go meet with friends that I had not seen in years. I decided to take my little black book and make fun of how crazy I was when I was younger. I got to Corky's where my friends and I go because why not. It doesn't have mimosas but it has good pancakes, so that is a priority once you get older than 28. We sat down and I showed them my book. We were making fun and replaying some of the MASH games I had done, when one of my friends said, " hey girl, you even have lottery numbers on here." Of course I did. Who doesn't want to win the lottery. Weird enough, I did not remember seeing those numbers there last night after the earthquake.

As we left, I decided to play those numbers. During the day, I kept looking at that names I had played in MASH. One of them kept standing out for me. Raul. What was he up to, had he gotten married? Did he have kids? What was he doing with his life. I remember having met him when we were 18/19 years old. He had this huge smile, big bright eyes and a soul that could be felt through the heart. He became a really great friend. I remember him so well as he was my first real kiss.

I came home, ate with my family and watch movies with my nieces and nephew like I always did when I had free time. And after feeling those earthquakes there was nothing more that I wanted to do than spend time with my family. Thankfully there weren't anymore aftershocks or the "big one" as we like to be told could happen at any moment. I go to sleep. I wake up and hear everyone in the kitchen talking really loud. I went over to them wondering what was the fuss about. My dad goes " Se sacaron la lotería aquí en la gasolinera," meaning that someone won the lottery at our neighborhood gas station. As I looked up at the news I saw that it was the same gas station where I bought my ticket yesterday. I said, " si, alli lo compre yo!" So I go get my purse and grabbed my ticket. I saw the numbers on the screen, and looked at my ticket, and looked at screen, and in a moment my body went numb, kept hearing a ringing sound in my ear and for a split second I feel to the ground. I looked at my dad. I could not speak. I felt like I was yelling but no one could hear me. And then I came back to reality yelling " ME LO GANE" meaning " I WON!" I couldn't believe that sense of excitement, nervousness, freedome, relieve and anguish all at once you could feel.

I had won $989 million dollars. I did not take the buyout. I wanted this money to last me a lifetime. Life would soon be different. I got my parents their dream home. Helped my sister and her family, made sure her kids have their education paid for and a trust fund set up. Helped my brother begin his business and set him up for success. Now it was time for me to find my happiness. I never forgot those who helped me along the way and those who had remained my great friends. I decided to make a trip to Chicago. See all my great friends there. There was a festival that usually runs for 4 days and I wanted to have a good time with all the people I had not seeing in years. I looked for my good friend Raul who was a paramedic. He usually ran his first aid booth at these festivals and so I decided to pay him a visit.

That moment that I saw him again after a long time I will never forget. The Earth Stood still. The universe had slapped me silly. He was the one made for me. He was the my heart. He was taken. He had a lover. But I knew I could wait. Besides, it was time to live my best life.

Months past and I traveled, lived, ate and dreamed like a goddess. It was the perfect life for me. I kept talking to Raul almost everyday. It was amazing. I was there when he got his first house, when he got into the fire academy and I was there through tough moments too, like his breakup. I gave him time to heal. I knew that he was meant for me, so I waited until he was ready to move on. He visited me when I was in Las Vegas and that is where the magic fairytale happened. We realized that this was more than just to old friends taking the next step to lovers. This was the forever type of love. We dated for 5 months before we decided to take the plunge and get married. Not before I went all out in the proposal.

We knew we wanted to get married after our families had thanksgiving together. I knew that there needed to be a proposal. So I rented out an art gallery by the location we met. I invited all his friends and family to the proposal and he had no clue. He was as shocked as can be. With over 10 years of friendship and 5 months of romance, marriage seemed like the icing on the cake. 2 months into our marriage the pandemic hit. We did not know how this would end. Did we just get married before the end of the world? We were happy to know that it was us that were meant to be together. As a first responder he had to be in the frontlines but it was something we decided to stand strong for. We got 2 beautiful dogs, and we got married at a church a year later.

A vaccine came out of the woodwork and we were fortunate enough to get vaccinated. That is when things started to get interesting. The vaccine left a lot of women with the inability to have children. After years and years of a lot of love and a lot of sex and a lot of willingness to have kids, we ended up not being able to conceive.

The population slowly started to deteorate throughout the years. As I hit 79 years old my health was depleading and my husband was there to hold my hand. We had a beautiful life. We traveled and saw the world we wanted to see. He made me the happiest woman in the world. We coped with our losses and we pushed for our dreams as best we could. All I know that is our love could do miracles. We bought a house to retire on the shores of Malibu, CA. He always liked the ocean and so we made it our goal to move there at some point.

On this particular day, I was not feeling well. I was feeling very heavy in my heart. As the day ended and we were both in bed, I felt the earth shaking. It was getting stronger and stronger and I realized that this was it. This was the end of the world. I looked at my husbands big eyes and we could see the beautiful life we lived. We could feel the love we had for each other was real and everlasting. As the house started to fall apart he held me tight and I said to him, "I will find you in the next life, I promise. I love you." He replied, " I love you more."

The world went dark. and I opened my eyes. I was back to the very start. Before the earthquake of July 2018. I realized that I had gone into a really deep sleep. It was all so real, I could not explain it. I had a plan in motion, that maybe this was my other life. My Next life. How do I find my life back. I knew that I was going to be with my best friend. I knew that there would be a pandemic. What to do with so much knowledge. Should I be exposed and called crazy. Did everyone just go through this and nobody wants to talk about it. I flew to Chicago like I had planned, and no I did not play the lottery so I did not become rich. I did not want that money. I ran into my best friend, and he looked at me like he was waiting for me. What if he was. He looked at me and smiled and said what took you so long.