All of life's wonderings culminate in one great question, repeated throughout history by most everyone on earth at one point or another. Why am I here? Is this all there is to life; wake up, go to work, come home, eat supper, go to bed only to start all over again? Those ruts we find ourselves stuck in where nothing seems to go right and all that we do seems for naught, are they all that there is to life? It seemed to me that my life was a constant rut, one after another crisis or problem to which there seemed to be no way out. Inevitably I would find a temporary creative solution to each one, only to be replaced by another. Is this all there is? Too many times throughout the course of my rocky marriage I had wondered the same thing.

When times were good and my husband was being reasonably nice (which would happen occasionally) it would slip from my mind as if by magic it didn't happen, but then, as always was the case, he would once again change back to the man I had learned to despise. It wasn't such a quick despisal though, it took many years of being told I was no good, useless, stupid and a many other choice words he liked to use. Then as I gained weight having children and eating myself through the pain of his constant barrage of remarks, his torments became more centered and more deliberate, culminating to a point about six years ago when I decided that I wasn't going to let anything he said get to me anymore. In my mind I made myself this promise, " He's not going to make me cry anymore. I'm not going to listen to anything mean he says about me, no more feeling bad because I was overweight.

Why did so much focus have to be spent of how I looked, couldn't he just love me for who I am?" Lately his cruel and cutting remarks had become riddled with jealous innuendoes as well as outright blatant accusations of adultery. The contradiction when I look back on it now seems almost funny. Tell me on one hand that I am fat and gross and disgusting and on the other hand accuse me of having affairs with people I worked with at the time. Tell me on one hand that no one would want me, that I was no good, lazy, stupid, etc; and then be jealous if I offered to help out a friend that would take me away from the house in the evening. I can look back on this now with new eyes, spiritual eyes, eyes having seen ones self through the eyes of another, who loves me for who I am, unconditionally, no matter how I look physically.

It has been a tough battle for him sometimes, there are things which become ingrained within the self. It is much easier to put ourselves down than it is to bring ourselves up, especially when you've been mentally and/or emotionally abused for many years. Although I was not physically beaten, came close a couple times, I honestly believe bruises of the body would heal easier. Emotional and psychological scars take years, sometimes lifetimes to heal. I am lucky mine are healing nicely.

Much of my life I've spent wondering why I'm here, you know that feeling where you look at your physical body and wonder how it ticks. What makes it work? For many years this was a puzzle to me and still is but as I grew into adulthood it became part of the background and was chalked up to child wonderment. Life flowed along in an otherwise monotonous existence of getting up, feeding children, going to school, going to work, cooking, cleaning. The same routine billions of women do everyday almost unconsciously. Why then did something seem like it was missing? Why did I constantly feel like there was something I needed to do, and yet when I would do whatever at the time I felt like I needed to do that feeling was still there. No matter what I did it remained. I thought going back to school was the answer, my children were all in school and I had begun to feel a sense of uselessness at being home all day with no children to care for. I graduated at the top of the class, got a job and began a new career but the feeling didn't fade. I decided to advance my accounting knowledge and enrolled in the Certified General Accountants program, which required internet access.

I went online in October 1996 and discovered a whole new world. I found chat nets, places where you could chat using your computer to type what you want to say and see the other peoples responses. This was wonderful! Now I could talk to people, be heard, make new friends and escape from my life as it was. Even though I could not see the people I spoke with I got to know them very well, it's odd that you develop a sense about people, who you want to talk to and who you shouldn't. This of course was something I enjoyed doing and I tried to involve my husband (at the time) with it, telling him about the people, how nice they were etc. He used it as a way to further humiliate me by making fun of my friendships, saying it was only a computer. You can't be friends with words on a screen. He was wrong.

By the time January rolled around I had become a channel operator, which means you have the responsibility to maintain control, if unruly people come into the channel and begin harassing people or are just generally nasty you can remove them from the channel and ban them, which keeps them from coming back. The people I spoke to online were very protective of me, my male friends would not allow any rude or otherwise unfriendly comments about me. It isn't that I can't handle myself, it's just that they felt I needed protection. Maybe it was the nickname, maybe my personal soul self shone through, and they could sense I was vulnerable to remarks designed to hurt. I first went online as NsAngeleyes because someone once told me your eyes mirror your soul. This was a long nickname to have and the people who knew me best shortened that nickname to Angel and it just stuck. I ended up changing it to NsAngel. And so it began.

My circle of friends had increased substantially by the time then. I now had somewhere I could run too when I was feeling especially low, and where, no matter how upset I was, I'd end up smiling. A place where I was liked for myself, not where I would be ridiculed because of my physical self.

When asked what I looked like, I would reply, short, fat and ugly, because that is how I felt. Cruel remarks have a way of becoming ingrained in a person to the point where they don't know who they are or what is true. They begin to see themselves as the person they are told they are, not the person they actually are. I had purchased a scanner and put one picture of me which I didn't consider too bad up so friends would know what I looked like.

TazDak came into our channel in December, he was fairly quiet, not saying a whole lot but was quickly accepted into our circle of friends. There was something about him, something familiar, something I couldn't put my finger on, but I knew it was there all the same. He would come into the channel say hello to everyone and just sit quietly, sometimes adding conversation and other times just be there. The draw I felt toward him isn't explainable in common terms, it just was there. I didn't know then what I know now, if I did then it would have made sense. As it was I continued through my daily regime, get up, work, come home, make supper, clean up, then go to the computer and chat for a few hours before retiring to bed. It's not that I ignored my family when I spent time talking on the computer. Most of the time the children were right there with me, watching and laughing at some or another comment that would be made, until I would chase them off to do other things.

I am naturally curious and someone who is deliberately mysterious just intrigues me more. One of our online friends was just like that, his nick name indicating a hiding. This made me very curious and I went on a finding out spree, with a little information I knew about him. That was a mistake. Once I found out about this peron, they became very verbally abusive to me, raining a long stream of verbal abuses. I sat dumbfounded at my computer not understanding how someone who was so nice most of the time could suddenly become so nasty just because he couldn't hide behind his cover. It was then that TazDak messaged me, he felt my pain, and knew that I was upset, hurting and totally devastated by the comments being thrown at me.

That night my life changed, never to be the same again. From the instant we started talking it was as if we had known each other all our lives. We shared our most intimate secrets, our deepest fears, with no fear of retribution or condemnation, our friendship blossoming flowing freely and easily through the words we spoke. We discovered other mediums of communication online using microphones and speakers we spoke orally. From the moment we began talking a sense of peacefulness settled in me and I realized that he was what was missing from my life, that feeling of something missing just vanished. I'd found what was missing, the other half of me.

I knew the dangers of internet relationships. All too many times in the four months since I'd been online I had heard horror stories of people being used, tormented, treated cruelly, strung along in a game. You see there are basically two trains of thought on irc (internet relay chat) one is that it is a game, purely for entertainment which, I believe this is not the case. The second train of thought online is the one I have, it is another form of communication, one without the barriers of physical appearance, people are treated according to how they treat others. TazDak, Taz for short, felt as I did. Little did we know at the time, the change both our lives was going to take as a result of our meeting, the amazing and wonderful experiences we would share and continue to share daily, how much richer our lives would be from them in addition to the peace from within.

Everyone no matter who they are have things in their lives that they never tell anyone, small secrets things they are either ashamed to talk about or afraid to for whatever reason. For the first time in both our lives that wasn't something we were concerned with. Our most private secrets those things from within us that made us who we are came to the surface, easing into conversations with no regret, no fear of condemnation.

My childhood, growing up with an alcoholic parent, my feelings about that as well as my fears. Each time we spoke more and more of our lives flowed forth freely, effortlessly, as though the other already knew. For the first time in my life I spoke about abuses I went through as a young girl, about family members who frightened me greatly with their verbal advances. All those experiences some which left me feeling ashamed at the time were released, fears abated, healing began.

It is really a wonderful experience to love unconditionally and be loved in return to the same degree. What fear can there be in exposing one's person to things that happen to them when the only concern the other has is for your personal self. To be loved like that is a gift, one that is treasured, nurtured, enjoyed, one which I would wish for every human being on this planet. To know love like that is to live like that. Think of the world we live in, think of the world we would live in if all loved and were loved like that. Oh what a heavenly place it would be. Heaven, yes that it is, truly and completely.

To say that loving someone unconditionally means that everything is always perfect would be a bit much for any person to accept. Just in the fact that we are human beings and not living in spirit lends to problems coming up. We are no different in that area. Daily we are given new experiences, some very pleasant and some are difficult. The biggest difference in these experiences is how we react to them.

Time creeped slowly along with the love we have growing along with it, seemingly the world was oblivious to our existence. There were some who weren't oblivious to the blossoming love and deep friendship. My family life was becoming more and more unbearable. Greg (not his real name) was becoming more and more intimidated by a renewed sense of self within me, as well as making as many attempts as possible to control my daily activities. Finally after 14 years I told him I was leaving him, that I wasn't going to live any longer unhappily, which didn't please him at all.

Now new events surfaced he began trying to be the person he thought I wanted him to be, he began giving me compliments that I felt were contrived to suit his purpose. I was his property, or so I felt and had for many years. Men don't like to lose what they think is theirs, especially not ones who need control. All the time he was playing these new games I waited for the old one to resurface, which he would, striking at the least provocation, with deliberate verbal assaults. Why I subjected myself to this constant roller coaster ride of emotion was simply because of my children, because at the time I felt that having two parents living in the same house was a better situation that having two parents living apart and battling for them. Much later I realized this was as hard for them as it was for me.

My saving grace was the knowledge that nightly I was loved for who I am, and sheltered and protected. Taz has high morals and one of the biggest obstacles we had to overcome was the fact that although I was separated I was still married. He repeatedly attempted to convince me that my marriage was more important than our love, that my children needed both parents. When he would tell me this my heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest. More unbearable than living in that house was the thought of living without my love

My living quarters became the basement, partially complete. An opening which served as a doorway lead into my room. Although I was not on my own I felt free in that room. Surrounded by three walls finished with an assortment of pressed wood, partially complete sheetrock walls and open cement my world began opening up. As I laid in bed at nights staring at the open beams and the wood of the floor above I began planning my new life. I knew I couldn't live in this situation for long, the tension alone was too much to bear. My husband would come downstairs at night expecting to be received with open arms and willingly provide physical relations. Refusing his advances enraged him, sent him into screaming fits which frightened me, this person whom I at one time loved had become someone I not only despised but feared as well.

The first time he pointed a gun at me and threatened me, fear was all that filled me, my body trembling, only concerned about what would happen to my children should he choose to pull the trigger. The second time he threatened me I was angry, this change from fear to anger unnerved him to the point that he changed the focus of the gun from me to him. As much as I despised him I could not bear to be witness to someone taking their own life so I wrestled the gun from him. I didn't realize it then but I was being controlled as much in his attempts to make me think he would take his life as I had been when we were together as husband and wife. There is only so much that a person will bear before they become desensitized, shut down emotionally to protect themselves. After living in an emotional void for many years my heart was once again open and yet I felt it beginning to once again shut down.

At the same time these were happy days for me.