2HousePlague

I went back to New York for the first time after 9/11 in June of 2004. For me, it was also the first visit since I was there last in 10/1999.

All I can say about the events that happened in my life between July, 1999 and December 2002 is...

When I visited my Stricken City, the place where I had lived so long, I measured the changes in myself, I measured the changes in New York...

I decided we had been equally traumatized, since we'd last met.



This is a vast story with many, many strange turns. The only way it makes sense to tell it here (for attempting to encompass ALL of it) is with bullets.



But before the list of bullets, it is important to know the themes of the lesson learned:


1. Thou shalt not exert thy will ABOVE the will of others.

2. There are no short-cuts -- go through it this time, or start all over again.

3. Don't try to rudder from your head, "listen", instead for the direction you should go.



And now the bullets...

I culminate a life-long tradition of selfish acts by leaving a woman who loves me, whom I have told I love her, because she is not intellectually my equal.

I follow the prospect of "that WANTED love" from IBM to Venezuela to San Francisco.

She freaks out for my willingness to come so far.

I am alone (in a new place).

I go on more than 200 online dates.

I meet the one who changes everything in one night.

She freaks out for my willingness to go so far.

I am alone (in a strange place).

<insert Yosemite fall>

I go on more than 300 online dates.

I make a really bad mistake.

I meet Lauren, the love of my life.

I try to "run away".

<insert Egypt adventure>

I can't get away.

I pay for my mistake (and the love of my life pays with me).

We catch a break (conditional upon growing up).


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For as long as I can remember, whenever things got to be too much for me, I have crawled into my bed and wished that I were dead.

I don't do that anymore.

I couldn't begin to tell you how to get there. But something definitely happened to me, and things were never the same after that.

I found all the evidence I needed to convince me that there IS a purpose, and there IS a reason for everything that happens.

Define it any way like -- I WON'T OBJECT TO YOU.

But, offer me the occasional indication that you see me as much as I see you.



This is what I looked like JUST BEFORE...




j-

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tada!