As my amazing wife Bonnie was called into the office today, I am working on a chapter of my autobiography titled “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. It covers the period between November 1980 and December 1983. The tag is appropriate in that was the end result. So much change occurred during that period. I was in a love relationship with an elfin beauty filled with delight, the depth of which I had not known before. Her family also accepted me and I was treated by them with more genuine emotion than that of my own. Whereas before this time I had consistently written with a partner, I found my own creative voice. Finally, my hunger for knowledge spread into areas of philosophy that irrevocably changed my perception of life, purpose and meaning. Yet, at the close of this era, I lost it all and fell into a place best voiced by Bob Dylan: “Where black is the color and none is the number”. Though there were young women who wanted to build a future with me, I was in no psychological shape to contribute to one in any positive way—in fact, I drove even my closest friends away from me. My work fell into the darkest pit of despair where the words that came from my pen were nothing more than the restatement of my dejected mental state. By the time I left my hometown in August 1986, I had become what writer Robert Heinlen termed “a stranger in a strange land” with only the forlorn hope that a stark change of scenery would jump start my recovery process. If I had not endured those years of feast and famine, I would not have been the husband and father that I am now. I was destined to learn of deep love and loss; intense ecstasy and melancholy; and, of feast and famine before I could find the place I had sought all my life: “Home”. Yes, this was, in many ways, my most formative period, for it wrought changes that I continue to experience to this day. It has been said by many before me that one cannot fully appreciate the view from the mountain top unless you have sojourned through the valley below. Though we experience trials and tribulations, they are, in fact, medicine to our lives. It is too easy to mourn that which we have lost; but, it is harder to embrace what we have gained. That was the most important lesson taught me in an era of metamorphosis; and, I am truly the better for it.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 15:43:28 +0000
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