Introduction: The Beginning of Becoming Seen

I hesitated, my fingers twisting in my lap. Asking for help was hard—I had never had anyone who truly seemed there for me. For years, I had perfected invisibility—sitting in classrooms without speaking, slipping through life as if my existence barely registered. Silence had been my only shield. But now, I held the faintest hope that help was possible.

It was my first week at Georgia Tech, far from the small town in Connecticut where I grew up. I had left behind my family, where love and validation were foreign concepts. I had known shame and abuse. And yet, as I sat in the counselor’s office, I found myself wanting something more.

“I want to be able to talk to people. Make friends. Speak up in class. Maybe… even date someday,” I said, the words feeling almost absurd.

The counselor nodded, flipping through the results of the MMPI I had taken. I had filled it out with deliberate care, wanting to seem troubled enough to deserve his attention. I wanted to seem worthy of help.

His response was measured but kind. “The results don’t show deception—they’re just not entirely valid, which isn’t uncommon. Let’s start where you are.”

Where I was, though, felt insurmountable. My world had been shaped by emotional deprivation and toxic shame. I had never known what love or connection truly meant. In my family, I had been an inconvenience—something to be tolerated, not cherished. But being away created a glimmer of hope: maybe life could be different.

What I didn’t realize then was that my journey wouldn’t just be about learning social skills or finding the courage to raise my hand in class. It would be about discovering love and all that it could transform. I didn’t know how lonely I had been or that love of a girl was about something more profound than attraction. And love, when it finally came, arrived in the form of a girl named Celta Camille Head.

I met Celta when I least expected it. She was warmth and light, a contrast to the loneliness that had defined my life. In the brief year we had together, she showed me I was capable of connection, of being loved, of being worthy.

There was a moment like many others that illustrated the transformative nature of this experience. We were having a picnic at the Botanical Gardens. I was talking about something I thought was ordinary, but when I looked up, her eyes were transfixed on me, her eyes met my eyes, her face showed delight. That moment, like others, filled me with a sense of awe.

I was seeing myself through the eyes of love and feeling love for her.

But love, I would learn, can be as fleeting as it is transformative.

The fire that took her away left me shattered, caught between the joy of what we had and the void. I thought love would anchor me. Instead, it was a specter in the form of a lady.

In the wake of her death, I retreated further into myself. I didn’t deal with the loss well. I worried about whether I could help others with the same struggles I faced. I felt stuck—trapped by grief and the toxic family I had returned to after college.

A job offer in Wilmington, North Carolina, gave me the escape I needed. There, I began to heal... really heal. I attended the open mics events—spaces where I immediately and for the first time ever stood in front of a group and spoke. And one night, that’s where I met Lynn.

With Lynn, I would come to understand love not as something fleeting, but as something enduring—even in the face of loss, even in the shadow of my past.

Sitting in that counselor’s office all those years ago, I could never have imagined the path ahead. I thought I was there to learn how to talk to people. I didn’t realize I was about to embark on a journey that would change everything I thought I knew about love, myself, and what I could offer the world, including those who had known pain as I had.

This is a love story and mainly about Lynn. But it is also a story about overcoming shame, building self-worth, and finding my voice—both for myself and for those I would one day help.