It was April 15, 2000. I had a few books stacked beside the bed—reading material that reflected the many states of mind I moved through in a week: psychodynamic theory, ego state therapy, even a book written by a woman with dissociative identities using collages and magazine cutouts to represent the parts of herself.

I had been reflecting on all of it—how we carry different selves inside us, how trauma and healing play out over time—when Lynn appeared at the doorway.

She had that mischievous smile I loved.

“I want sex,” she said, straightforward as ever.

My heart lifted. “Me too.”

We undressed quickly, comfortably. Familiar, yet new each time. The kind of comfort and chemistry that only deep love can produce. When she moved toward the bed, her gaze locked with mine, I felt the same awe I always did. Like seeing her again for the first time.

She climbed on top of me, our lips finding each other fast, hungry. Her body pressed close, arms wrapped tightly around me, the space between us seeming to vanish.

“I feel like I can’t get close enough,” she breathed, her mouth pressing into mine like she was trying to merge with me—hungry, urgent, needing more than just touch.

“I know,” I said, pulling her even closer.

She shifted, her breath catching as our bodies moved together. Then, gently but firmly, she paused.

“You’re too close, sweetie,” she said with a soft sigh, her meaning unspoken but understood.

We had talked about it before—her health, the impossibility of pregnancy due to her condition. It was the one boundary we couldn’t cross, no matter how much we wanted to become one in every way.

But still, we held each other. Moved together. Loved each other as fully as two people can.

The intensity built. She clung to me, her body not arching but wrapping itself around mine—like she was trying to become part of me. Our mouths met again and again, hungry, urgent, like we could dissolve into each other if we just held tight enough.

And then—suddenly—I let go.

She felt it. Paused. Still. A quiet smile crossing her face.

There was silence, the kind that only happens when two people have given something wordless to each other.

She whispered, “We should shower.”

I caught my breath. “But you…”

She looked at me, her eyes soft. “I'm happy,” she said. “It’s okay.” 

I was confused a bit and wanted more for her.

This was about connection. About wanting and being wanted. About love so deep that it didn’t need to be measured. It amazed me that this kind of passion was still happening nearly every day - like we were newlyweds. Yet, we were years into the life as husband and wife. It didn’t feel routine. It felt alive. Urgent. Sacred.

Afterward, she went to start the shower while I stayed in bed, a wave of serenity washing over me.

We were in love—because she was in love with me. Because I was in love with her. Because we had become, in so many ways, one.

“I love you,” she said as we stepped into the water together.

“I love you so much,” I replied, heart full.

Then I laughed softly.

“What?” she asked.

“I was just thinking of that song by The Moody Blues—the way the singer repeats those lines like he’s overcome, like he just can’t hold it in.”

I spoke the words that the singer in the song sang:

'Cause I love you,
yes, I love you,
oh, how I love you,
oh, how I love you…'

“That’s how I feel,” I told her. “I want to tell the whole world that I love Lynn.”

She smiled, the way she always did when she knew I meant every word.

And I did. I would have shouted it from rooftops. Not just after making love, but anytime. Every day.

That night, as I lay beside her, I started thinking about her dreams. About how much I wanted her happiness. She had talked about getting her Master of Fine Arts one day. Maybe I could help with that. Maybe I could buy her a kiln so she could fire her pottery at home. Maybe, with this practice I was building, I could give her more than just love. I could give her the things that filled her dreams.

I was in love. Not just based on the passion we shared but the peace and serenity that matched our connection together.

There’s a kind of silence that doesn’t come from others—it comes from inside. It’s the silence born of shame, planted early, before you have the words to resist it. It tells you your body is something to hide. That pleasure is dangerous. That certain fluids—mucus, discharge, even tears—are “unclean.”

That silence shaped me long before I ever met Lynn.

It started in childhood. I had a single memory of something like anal continence when I was young perhaps in 2nd grade, and instead of comfort or understanding, what I felt was dread. Not just of the accidents themselves, but of discovery. Then later I discovered Freud’s pleasure principle and discovered what happened. It could not possible be discovered. But why? Because for a moment I embraced pleasure as a young child?

I lived in fear that my mother might find evidence of my body’s betrayal—and reject me for it. There were no open conversations. No space to ask questions or seek reassurance. Just shame. Shame for being seen.

Shame for being human.

So I learned to hide. To compartmentalize. To disconnect.

Then, as an adult, I met Lynn. And Lynn lived in her body with honesty. She didn’t apologize for it. She wasn’t provocative—she was present. When she undressed, it wasn’t for show. It was for trust. For closeness.

Her body was not a performance. It was an invitation: See me. Hold me. Love me. It was also something she knew I wanted.

But I was still unlearning.

Cystic Fibrosis is a disease of the lungs, but its calling card is mucus—thick, persistent, impossible to ignore. It wasn’t abstract. It was physical. It showed up on tissues, in coughing fits, in the way her breath caught just a second too late. It interrupted kisses. It was a signifier of something I wanted to deny.

And I HATED it… wanted to destroy it. It wasn’t just frustration—it became a fantasy of justice. A yearning for something I could see and fight.

More than once, I dreamed that CF was a demon. Not a metaphor. A literal monster. Like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I pictured it stalking through hospital halls, feeding off the weak, coming for my beloved. In that daydream, it came for stalked Lynn and I wanted to kill it. Not for a second did I consider whether this monster could hurt me. I was eager and ready to kill it.

Because this thing—the mucus, the coughing, the breathlessness—it wasn’t just a symptom. It was a violation. A thing that didn’t belong in the sacred space that was Lynn’s body. And I couldn’t do anything in reality. I was powerless.

But the shame - the programming - still whispered. It got mixed into a combination of secret discoveries of pleasure and signs of a disease that interfered with the normal life that we were building.

Lynn never kept me at a distance from her illness. When we met with the respiratory therapy team or sat through hospital consults, no one asked if I had the right to be there. They didn’t question whether I was her husband. They didn’t blink when I was invited into the examination rooms or into conversations that would typically remain private. They knew. Everyone knew.

I wasn’t just a visitor. I was her partner. And I needed to understand everything—how Cystic Fibrosis worked, what it did to her lungs, what we could do to fight it. I needed to know the terrain of the body we were both trying to protect.

I wasn’t just the person giving her a ride from Wilmington to Chapel Hill. I suppose Lynn conveyed something profound in calling me her fiancé.

The respiratory team showed me how to help. How to tap her chest and sides to loosen the mucus. There was no awkwardness. No question of whether it was appropriate for me to touch her there—across her chest, her ribs, even over her breasts. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t foreign. It was sacred. It was care. It was love.

It was our life that I tried to normalize - we were just two poets, two creative types who fell in love.

And what’s more: Lynn never flinched. Never acted like there was anything I shouldn’t see. Her body was never a battleground between intimacy and decency. It was our terrain—hers, yes, but shared in trust. I knew how to soothe it. How to support it. And how to mourn it, quietly, when she needed more than I could offer.

There was no shame there. No performance. No false modesty. Just the raw, necessary truth of what it meant to love someone whose body was fighting a battle it never chose.

Her body—beautiful, fragile, strong—was the first place I ever felt truly wanted.

And it was also the battleground.

I never saw her as broken. But I sometimes feared I was. That the silence I’d learned in childhood had cost me something sacred. That my uncertainty, my hesitation, my effort to unlearn shame was something she had to bear with me.

Years later, with someone else—Codi Renee—I found myself embracing physical pleasure more freely. I offered the kind of tenderness and desire that, in truth, was always meant for Lynn—the one I had truly been in love with.

But in my confusion, I mistook that willingness—my openness, my eagerness to give—for something deeper. I thought it meant I loved Codi Renee. I wanted to believe it. She even insisted it must be true because I said so.

But it wasn’t love. It was never love.

It was physical attraction wrapped in the illusion of connection. Desire masquerading as devotion. I see that now. And it feels tragic—not because I gave myself too freely to someone else, but because Lynn, the one who had loved me fully, the one who had taught me how to open, didn’t get to receive the fullness of what she awakened in me.

She deserved that depth. That freedom. That joy.

What I gave Codi Renee was shaped by what Lynn helped me discover. But the motivation with Codi Renee wasn’t love—it was the desperate hope of being good enough for someone who kept me at a distance. The desire to be chosen. To prove I could be desirable.

Lynn never made me prove anything. With her, I was already enough.

This isn’t a chapter of regret. It’s a chapter of recognition.

I recognize now that Lynn didn’t just teach me how to love—she taught me how to stay. To sit with what’s hard. To touch what’s vulnerable. To stop pretending that we need to be “clean” (whatever that means) and whole to be worthy of love.

CF never gave me the fight I wanted. No monster in the hallway. No thing to destroy. But Lynn gave me the chance to fight in smaller, truer ways. To stand beside her. To learn that sacredness isn’t found in perfection—but in discovery of each other with no expectations.

In every tear, in every kiss, in every quiet act of care—we were writing a new language. A new covenant.

One that said:

You are not disgusting. You are not broken. You are not alone.

You are loved.

The life I had with Lynn felt like the culmination of a lifelong dream. I had a career that was beginning to take shape, but more than that—I had a partner. A family. Even though we couldn’t have children, we were a family. That truth carried weight and meaning.

From the outside, some might have seen our relationship through a distorted lens. But it was the ability to argue, to disagree—and to talk about anything—that made our connection so strong. I don’t remember my parents ever disagreeing about anything, which now seems bizarre to me. It was like they were afraid to have different opinions. That kind of silence doesn’t feel like peace; it feels like avoidance.

My friend Jean, years later, once remarked on how much Lynn and I argued. But he only ever saw the tension—not the tenderness that followed. He never saw the repair, the softness that always came after.

In fact, in one moment that I mentioned earlier, he missed the part where, after a disagreement, I’d handed Lynn a signed copy of his book and said, “Just because we’re fighting doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” Her face softened, and that amused, radiant smile returned—because she couldn’t stay mad.

That was us. That’s what he missed.

We never let distance fester. If Lynn was upset or hurt, I couldn’t stand it—I had to make things right. Once, in a moment of frustration, she asked, “Then why are you with me?” and I blurted out, “I don’t know.” But I caught myself instantly. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice clear and without any uncertainty. There were some things I knew for certain and my love for Lynn was one such absolute truth. “I’m with you because I’m in love with you.” Spoken with the solemnity that was both profoundly passionate and yet simultaneously matter of fact - a truth so undeniable as it was almost a contradiction that passion could co-exist with simplistic truth.

Some of our arguments came from the tangled roots of my religious upbringing—beliefs I’d inherited but never questioned. Absolutes I mistook for truth. But Lynn was patient. We didn’t avoid hard conversations. We challenged each other, disagreed out loud, and always found our way back. Our arguments weren’t threats to our love; they were part of how we strengthened it.

Our Home

Our home was a space that reflected who we were. We adopted two cats—Tip and Boo—and Diane even installed a swinging door so they could reach the garage where their litter box was kept. We each had a car, though we parked them outside because we used the garage as a workspace. It had a treadmill, free weights, and even a punching bag that became my occasional outlet, inspired by Gestalt therapy.

We worked together to make the house our own. Diane helped us build bookshelves using stained ladders and a stud finder to anchor them into the wall. We set up a computer station and eventually had cable internet—cutting edge at the time. One room was turned into a cozy guest space for Lynn’s cousins, with a larger television. In the bedroom, we kept a smaller TV near Lynn’s nebulizer and medication equipment, often falling asleep to Star Trek.

We took turns cooking, cleaning, and organizing. Lynn, ever practical, often directed how things should be cleaned, and I was happy to follow. We both handled litter box duties when possible, though I now regret letting Lynn do it at all—it wasn’t healthy for her to be near the dust. At times, I denied the seriousness of her condition. That was something I had to grow through.

I obviously had to mow the lawn and while I didn’t see the same urgency to do this as Lynn did, I respected her desire that it be done - by me.

Serenity and Intimacy

Growing up starved for nurturance, I often craved closeness in ways I couldn’t explain. With Lynn, I found peace in the smallest gestures—resting my head in her lap, letting her caress my forehead, feeling my body finally exhale into someone else’s care.

We hadn’t had sex before we moved in together, but that changed as our life together deepened. I remember asking Lynn, somewhat shyly, to pick out something sexy for Valentine’s Day. She did, and it meant everything. Not just because it aroused me—though it did—but because it showed how deeply she saw me. It wasn’t performative. It was for us.

That’s the thing about our intimacy—it was always new, always unfolding. There was a mystery to it. We weren’t just reenacting some cultural script. We were exploring. Learning. Responding. Lynn didn’t wait for me to initiate every time. And when we didn’t know what the other wanted, we asked, or listened to each other’s bodies.

Our connection was unusually in sync. We rarely faced the awkward imbalance of one person being “in the mood” while the other wasn’t. We just responded—open, mutual, unguarded. Even a glance, a smile, could spark something between us. And it always felt right.

I’d grown up with the idea that men had to lead, that sex was a duty or an obligation. But Lynn and I had none of that. We moved together in rhythm, equal, attuned. We honored each other’s cues, joys, hesitations. And that felt like a kind of healing, too.

She sometimes slept nude, a quiet gesture of closeness and trust. Sometimes I’d hold her breast gently as we fell asleep, feeling peace and desire mix in a quiet kind of bliss. Even then, I’d check to see if she was in the mood and respect her response that might be something like “I need to sleep now, sweetie.”

She wasn’t fragile. But I needed to know I was giving her pleasure, not pain. That mattered more than anything else.

This, I think, is what love should look like. Passion and tenderness. Respect and desire. A home built not just with furniture, but with trust. And each night, a little miracle in the ordinary: we turned toward each other, and found the same warmth waiting there.

After we got engaged, life didn’t transform overnight—but the horizon began to shift. Our conversations became more grounded, our hopes more tangible. I had moved out of the place I shared with Donna and Terri, and sometimes Lynn stayed the night with me, or I with her. We were growing closer in every way.

Even then, we weren’t “sleeping together” in the way most people would define it—not yet. That final boundary remained unspoken, uncrossed. But something had changed between us. Lynn, always attuned to me, may have sensed that I was becoming more at ease, less tangled in the old religious shame I’d carried for so long. When she removed her shirt—no longer stopping at just dropping her bra—it felt natural. Not bold, not calculated, just... right. She was honoring the space I’d opened. And in truth, the hesitation had always come from me. My toxic beliefs.

It wasn’t about a lack of desire. We had that, abundantly. It was the religious programming—those lingering voices whispering rules I no longer fully believed. And still, they haunted me.

And yet—our bodies were already speaking the truth. We held each other longer, touched with deeper intention. Every brush of skin seemed to say: this is good. This is safe. This is love. Nothing in me felt confused about those moments. I wasn’t struggling to reconcile them with morality or scripture. Instead, I found myself quietly letting go of what no longer made sense. The unspoken language between us—how far we’d go, how much we’d share—was shaped by mutual respect and gentle restraint. She knew where I stood, without my needing to say a word.

And then came Diane’s offer.

Diane—Lynn’s mother—offered us a home to rent after our engagement. That gesture was more than generous—it was symbolic. It meant we were stepping fully into a shared life, one defined by commitment and love, not by paperwork or permission. The decision to move in together wasn’t taken lightly. It was the turning point where I had to reconcile what I’d been taught with what I knew in my heart to be true. And Diane didn’t need a marriage certificate to take this step.

Until then, even during our most passionate moments, Lynn and I had kept our clothes on. I had still been holding onto the last fragments of the religious ideas I was raised with—teachings about what sex was supposed to mean. And even though Lynn never pressured me, I think we both knew those barriers weren’t really about her. They were about what still lived inside me.

But once we accepted the house—once we knew we were going to share a home—everything settled. The clarity came.

We were no longer visiting each other’s spaces or planning around separate routines. We were going to sleep in the same bed. Wake up under the same roof. Share meals, memories, bills—and a life.

And with that new home came a new level of intimacy. Not forced. Not rushed. Just… natural.

We undressed without shame. We touched without hesitation. We slept skin to skin. We made love—not because it was overdue or expected, but because it was an extension of everything we were already giving each other.

There is something sacred about being fully wanted. Not just emotionally, but physically. There is something healing in knowing that another human being longs to be close to you—not just out of desire, but from love, from a hunger to belong.

I think of newborns placed on a parent’s bare chest. That skin-to-skin contact, that grounding, that wordless affirmation: You’re here. You’re safe. You’re mine.

That’s what it felt like. That’s how natural it became. Not performance. Not shame. Just presence.

And I knew I had made peace with it. Not gradually—decisively.

I didn’t see it as “living in sin.” I saw it as something sacred. We weren’t hiding from God—we were honoring what He had given us. I believed then that if marriage was meant to be a covenant of love, fidelity, and mutual care, then we had already entered into it. The legal part had been denied to us, but the spiritual part was already real.

But not everyone saw it that way.

The Church didn’t.

When we approached the priest, hoping for a religious ceremony, he refused. Without a legal marriage license, he said, he couldn’t perform the sacrament. He knew what a legal marriage would mean—that Lynn could lose her health insurance and risk her life. And still, the answer was no.

Lynn wasn’t religious, but she was spiritual. She respected my beliefs. But I’m still stunned that I wasn’t driven away from the Church right then—by its coldness, its rigidity, its failure to act with compassion or common sense.

A sacrament, denied. Not because we lacked love. But because we wouldn’t risk her health.

And strangely, the greatest tension didn’t come from within us—it came from outside.

Especially when we visited my family.

On one trip, Lynn suggested we sleep in separate beds. I remember being shocked. Hurt, even. But she was trying to show respect for my parents. And I went along with it.

Looking back, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had said, No. We’re a couple. If that’s not accepted, we’ll get a hotel. Or we won’t come.

It wasn’t about shame. It was about honoring the truth of our relationship.

I could have told our friends: “We’re more than engaged. We’re already married—in every way that matters.” They would have understood. No one would’ve alerted the state. There was nothing to hide.

We weren’t pretending.

We were living it. With tenderness. With intention. With love.

Even without a wedding, we were a family.

This section of the book is about the life Lynn and I built together in Wilmington, North Carolina—not in some idealized, picture-perfect sense, but in the daily, soulful way that love takes root. We were a family. That’s what mattered most.

Lynn was a poet and a potter. I was on my way to becoming a psychotherapist. We met through poetry—through words that tried to make sense of the world—and found ourselves surrounded by a creative, passionate community. The artists she knew through pottery, the poets I met at the Coastline readings—they became our extended circle. But she was my home.

We dreamed out loud together. Lynn wanted to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in poetry. I was preparing for graduate school in the mental health field. We supported each other, not just practically, but with awe and belief in each other's potential.

And we got engaged—not to prove something, but to honor what already was. We were building a life together. Like any two people in love, we wanted a future shaped by shared joy, comfort, creativity, and care.  

In the last chapter, I spoke about attending the poetry readings at the Coastline Convention Center. It was April of 1992 when I arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina. I started attending the poetry readings on Sundays.

This was part of my new identity that I was discovering.

Somehow, at these poetry readings, I felt a sense of belonging. Everyone was so welcoming, and the atmosphere was serene and accepting. However, I was aware of the fact that most of these other poets had a degree in English.

I wanted to understand a poet and the ideas that poets have - these poets. I wanted to connect with people who express themselves through the written word.

Martin, my poetry mentor, gave me enough courage to believe that I could be a poet. As a reminder, I had been visiting him and his wife (I might have left her out of the story earlier) for coffee, tea, and reading poetry – his, mine, and that of famous poets. He was a professor of English.

Some of the craft of poetry would allude me, such as meter and rhyme, but I learned that there is a form of poetry called "free verse" that doesn't require as much effort to be expended in the craft and I could get to the point of communicating ideas and sharing ideas, which was the most important aspect of what I wanted or needed.

I'm only saying these things because I have always had some insecurities about my talents.

At this point, as I started this phase of my life, I noticed that for the first time, those insecurities were virtually gone. I know this because I was making friends and connecting with others. I was a part of something that was important. Something special was happening on those evenings and at those poetry readings and other events.

There was something serene about the setting that made it easier for me to get up in front of a group of people and read my poetry. The sun would reflect across the Cape Fear River casting the soft rays of sunlight into the room.

My ability to get up in front of a room of people every week was an amazing accomplishment for me. Again, I have always been shy, fearful, quiet. I NEVER put myself at the center of attention anywhere EVER... until I started coming to the poetry readings.

This ability to be the center of attention would have a profound impact on my choices and my future as I built a career for myself. I would reflect upon the struggles and accomplishments that brought me to this point.

Dusty, the emcee for the poetry readings, made it easier too. She worked at the lounge on the fourth floor of the Coastline Convention Center, where we had the readings. She had a magical quality of attending to the guests of the Convention Center whether they were there for the poetry or not.

Something about Dusty made you feel welcome and comfortable. She was a motherly figure in a way because she was older than some of the other regulars who were like me in our twenties.

I also had noticed this other girl that was coming every week for the poetry readings. There was something about her that got my attention. Her name was Lynn.

She was very thin. She had a cough and that's related to her condition, Cystic Fibrosis - a genetic illness. I must have overheard Lynn talking about that. It's not the kind of thing that you ask someone about... like "why are you coughing all the time?"

Lynn was quiet but I didn't think she was as shy as I was.

She did share her own writing and she would share or read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. I'm not sure when I first noticed this.

There are so many little things that you observe when someone intrigues you.

Lynn definitely intrigued me.

What was it about her? Did I already think that she was the most beautiful girl imaginable? Do I dare admit to myself that I am entertaining such irrational thoughts? I don't think it was love at first sight but something about her intrigued me. I was a bit surprised that I was thinking about finding a girlfriend after the loss of Celta.

When I had previously "dated" someone in 1991, the year following the death of Celta it was at a time when I was still in shock – something akin to what a heavyweight boxer must feel right after he has just been hit with a few blows to the head, he staggers, trying to stay on his feet, stumbling about, dazed, confused, disoriented, not thinking clearly at all, on the verge of passing out? That was me for most of 1991 and into 1992 in the wake of the loss of Celta.

Back then, if you had asked me if I was ready to date or find someone meaningful to love, I would have said that the question makes about as much sense as it would to the boxer in that state of mind.

I had not been thinking or feeling for so long ... until sometime in May or June of 1992.

This was different. Undoubtedly, being on my own and living as an adult had allowed me to grieve normally and heal.

I wish I had known about my weakness and vulnerability around losing someone important. That would have been helpful later in life. But at this point in 1992, I was blissfully unaware of this coming darkness.

I should add that it wasn't only Lynn's looks that made her attractive to me. There was something that united all of us who were regulars that came to the readings and I held everyone in high regard. There was a connection that I felt to the people I was meeting.

That being said, Lynn was stunningly beautiful. Her voice was hypnotic and alluring. She had all the things that one considers in feminine beauty and shape or so it seemed to me very early on. She seemed perfect.

I loved her voice both when she was at the microphone and when I was close to her. And her face, her skin, her legs seemed like gentle features I might have created in my own mind if I had the imagination to do such a thing.

Yet, I noticed she was alone.

I would come to the readings and try to get a sense of whether or not Lynn had a boyfriend. I didn't want to risk rejection.

Asking a girl out was a very difficult thing for me to do. I would calculate the possibility of rejection.

To avoid that I was trying to come up with a plan for seeing her outside these readings that would be something easy and without the burden of her having to size me up to determine my value as a male companion when she heard the question that I was trying to pose or the request. 

I was wanting to see if she would want to spend some time with me - as in just me.

I was like a shy person in recovery. That's a phrase I just made up. It's the best way to describe the way I thought of myself and my fear - my concerns, my judgments about how to proceed.

We were coming up on July 4th and nearly 3 months after I started going to these readings. My social life involved going out a few times with my roommate, Donna, who was nice, but we were not making a connection like I was making at the readings. Plus, I wasn't into Donna romantically.

A big poetry reading was coming up this Sunday the day after the 4th of July. I thought of Fort Fischer where Jean Jones works. Fort Fischer is a historical place. There's also the aquarium nearby. And there is this jetty that goes out to some tiny island which is a mini-animal conservation spot of sorts.

Anyway, the poetry reading was a big deal. Flyers were everywhere it seemed. Maybe I just noticed them in town because I was into that kind of thing.

Yeah, we (Lynn and I) could go together. I was pretty sure she wasn't seeing anyone else.

How it was possible that she didn't already have a boyfriend, I didn't know.

On the last Sunday before the 4th, I found myself at a table by the window at the lounge where the readings were held. She seemed receptive to me. Sure, why not. At some point, I found the courage to ask her "do you want to go to the poetry reading next Sunday with me?"

"Sure," she said.

"Oh, my God," I thought. "It worked. Okay, I need to do more."

"Can I call you?"

Before long I was getting her phone number. 

The sun was still above the Cape Fear River and reflecting back into the room a kaleidoscope of orange and blue. It seemed that my awareness of a room full of people had departed and I was only aware of us.

While this was happening, I added, "We could go down to Carolina Beach on Saturday too. There are things to see down there."

"Okay," she said in a voice that was soft and warm.

I was surprised too... not because I expected to be rejected but because of how much I wanted this. I wasn't reflecting on matters at this point. I was just acting on instinct.

In the back of my mind during the next week, I was thinking about what to do. I wanted to have lots of suggestions to offer Lynn. I wasn't sure what she would like.

I had called her and said that I knew of a peaceful and scenic spot where we could go. Maybe we could go to Fort Fischer and see if Jean was working there, or to the aquarium.

So, now, it was July 4th of 1992. I picked her up at her home on Wrightsville Beach. We drove through Wilmington and continued toward Carolina Beach. It was somehow amazing just how easy the conversation was going for both of us. I would have expected that I would have been nervous.

There is a jetty that runs out to a tiny island south of Carolina Beach where the Cape Fear River meets the ocean. It's the farthest point south if you drive down Highway 421/Carolina Beach Road from Wilmington, North Carolina.

We decided that we would go to this spot.

This is our first date. I think it's a "date." I don't have much experience dating and so if you are wondering, dear reader, what I mean by saying I was shy, these are just a few examples of what it is like. I don't think Lynn had a great deal of experience with these kinds of things either.

Since I was driving, I double-checked to see if this was where we wanted to stop first. She agreed.

So, I parked the car near the beach near that jetty that I mentioned.

The jetty is not on the open ocean, so the waves only gently lap against the beach and the rocks that form the jetty. It's just a bunch of rocks that have been stacked against one another to make a bridge of sorts. On top of the rocks, they put pavement to make it into a bridge that could be crossed.

A photo of one such jetty/bridge is shown below.

We walked out there toward the jetty together, but we were both shy a bit about the nature of the relationship that was developing.

As we started walking onto the jetty, I noticed it was a bit slippery because the saltwater had washed over the bridge recently.

I had not expected this to be slippery. I could not let her slip and risk anything bruising or scratching her perfect skin... not to mention the fear I would feel if I saw her fall.

But I was so nervous.

I had to do something. I reached out my hand to her.

"Wow!" I thought, "She took my hand. Wow! And why am I repeating this thought?"

My fingers crossed over her palm between the thumb and first finger on her hand. I felt a tingling sensation beginning in my fingers and rising up my arm, like the small soft waves beside us. The sensation came to rest in the center of my chest.

I took a breath as if I needed air. It was a lightness that I felt in my chest as if a weight had been taken off me – as if my own weight was pressing down with less force than previously.

I wasn't expecting to feel anything like this. I was just catching her to keep her from falling.

"Do you want to keep going?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, pausing to take in the scene with me. Her straight blonde hair swayed in the gentle wind. The gentle waves washed against the rocks below us. It was peaceful.

There was something interesting that I was feeling. Holding her hand was "exciting" - like I had

never felt excited before (which isn't true) ... AND this moment was also relaxed and peaceful. It might not make sense because being excited and relaxed are usually different feelings.

We walked for a bit further but then decided that this was getting too slippery.

"What's next," I thought. Then I said "Jean works at Fort Fischer and they have a tour of the historic site. We could go there."

She agreed.

I guess I was eager to spend as much time as I could with Lynn. I didn't want the day to end. I didn't want to drop her off and leave.

We let the windows down and Lynn eased back into her seat, letting the wind blow softly – we weren't going fast. She looked comfortable and dreamy. I wasn't sure what that meant other than that she was "comfortable" or relaxed as she sat back in her seat looking out the window. I didn't have much time to see if she was looking at me at this moment.

That same feeling continued as we walked the grounds at Fort Fischer – a Civil War historic site. We spoke to Jean for a bit.

It's hard to recount everything that we did that day, but I wanted to say that while I was coming up with things to do, Lynn was contributing to the conversation and helping come up with ideas. She wasn't just saying "sure" or "okay." For one that would have been discouraging to me and secondly, Lynn didn't seem like the type who went along with things.

I was desperate to find out that Lynn wanted to spend time with me and was therefore an equal participant in these decisions about what we were doing together. 

I had a feeling then and later that the reason she didn't already have a boyfriend was because she didn't need a guy to complete her nor was she looking to be in a relationship. That would happen to both of us but perhaps neither of us was looking - to be honest, I was more inclinded to desire a relationship with a girl than vice versa.

The day faded into the night and we made our way to downtown Wilmington.

We saw the fireworks that night, over the Cape Fear River and near the Battleship.

After the fireworks, we were walking back to the car and we walked by the place where she worked at a historic home that had been converted into a shelter for youth runaways. A co-worker of hers asked her if I was her boyfriend. I heard her say "No, we are just friends."

Darn. I thought this was a date. Actually, even if it was an all-day date, we were still just friends.

I could wait.

The next day I picked her up again and we went to the poetry reading down in Carolina Beach.

There must have been a few dozen people when I read my poetry. This was a major accomplishment. I had an awareness of being nervous and I wondered if others picked up on the shakiness in my voice. There could have been a hundred or more people and I would have felt equally anxious.

Lynn took a seat on the side of the stage facing where I was standing after I read. She took the microphone and read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot.

I was taking photographs, including photographs of her.

As I reflect on these two dates or days spent together, I realize that I cannot fill in any more details. Decades have passed.

Looking back at the nearly three months when I was sharing my poetry, it's interesting to note the subject matter of my poetry... It had been about grief and a special friend named Celta. Yet here I was totally focused on this new girl named Lynn.

It's hard to overstate the meaning and importance of this.  

In the last chapter, I told you about the joy I found in finding someone to love and someone who loved me. I told you about the experiences I had, and I hope it was clear just how meaningful this was in my life's trajectory. It was so important to present the profound and positive impact this had on my life.

This was life-altering.

The experiences I had growing up, in my home environment were toxic to the development of the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that I would need to achieve my career goals. Something had been missing despite all the improvements I had made in my sense of worth.

It's hard to know what you need to overcome a problem that has existed throughout your life. My therapist or counselor in college was very talented, competent, and profoundly helpful. However, we failed to fully appreciate all the negative impacts of abuse and devaluation that I had experienced in my home life from my parents.

Then I met Celta, and something happened. She seemed to delight in me. She was so interested in my experiences. She also was concerned about my well-being and happiness. I knew she was thinking about me for most of the day each and every day! Her diary-style, stream of consciousness letters told me this.

I knew she was thinking about me for so much of her day, each and every day, because of the letters she wrote to me - her diary of sorts composed with me in mind as someone she wanted to share her life with. I had realized that I previously thought that I was not that important to anyone. This is what I meant by seeking a relationship with some aspect of exclusivity or the idea that I could be the most important person to someone.

I knew that I was the only one that Celta loved the way she loved me. Previously, I had friends, but they all had a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse or the relationship wasn't as close.

After I was with Celta, I felt like I was ten feet tall... confident... worthwhile, and deserving. My self-esteem was higher than it had ever been in my life. I also felt safe trying new things. This idea might seem unexpected. She was just a small girl (woman). I sensed that she deeply cared about me and thought about me and that was transformative.

It's important to underscore these important points before I move on with this story.

When I say that our relationship was platonic, I mean that we were not boyfriend and girlfriend. We didn't have a physical relationship. That being said, we did exchange "I love you" on a daily basis or whenever we talked on the phone or saw each other. We were close and perhaps somewhat intimate and physical but not in a sexual way. Then later there was the fact that she said in September that she loved me but wasn't in love with me.

What did that mean? What made it so complicated was the fact that Celta knew exactly what I was feeling and experiencing. It bordered on two people being psychic and connected to one another. I didn’t have to tell her much about the abusive and toxic experiences with my parents when I came to see her. She knew. She comforted me. In her presence I experienced something no medication ever offered - total and complete serenity.

As time passed after she said she was not in love with me back in September, I was afraid to ask if that changed. It wasn’t because of anything that we were doing together physically. It’s just that she would have known how I felt and wanted me to experience love. Instead our eyes and our time together screamed that we were in love without her saying “I am now in love.”

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as we spent so many countless moments of perfect serenity together holding each other, arms wrapped around each other. It was impulsive.

Her lips were so thin that I didn't feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She didn’t turn away or suggest that this should not happen. It just happened. It was what we did that day. If either one of us had not wanted or let it happen it would not have happened.

I discovered for the first time that some expressions of love our outside our control. This is relevant when one thinks about the religious brainwashing to which I was exposed. At this point, the words from September that she was not in love, would have been something I would eventually have asked her to clarify if she had not more likely reflected the truth that we were in love.

She had such tiny lips due to her low weight, a fact of her condition of anorexia. This made it seem like not what I expected. It was on the drive back from the visit that I realized that this had to be explored further. We needed to do something more to express our love for one another.

Sometime later I pictured my face turning to the right and moving closer to her as she moved toward me. I had been in sync with her and felt so comfortable. I knew that she might have said that one time that she was not in love but when we were together there were so many times when she had that look of someone who was so happy, comfortable and it sure looked like she was in love. Well, she definitely had "romantic" feelings.

Also, when I was with her, I could see myself and my feelings. You just know those things. There were so many subtle behavioral cues that told me what she was feeling and how she was responding to my touches... how I held her... where I touched her. Everything had been welcomed. I played back memories of how when I touched her she moved closer to me.

No, what a minute. This was NOT about the ways I touched her. By saying that, I am leaving out so much. What was so profound is the way she touched me. She was NEVER an object to be approached and desired. I was comfortable enough to be close to her all the time and at those times, she was touching me - it was so natural and right… Dreamy eyes looking at each other with my leg on the side of her bed and her leg moving over to rest on mine. Moments after my arrival when we faced each other in the fetal position staring into each others eyes.

Those were some of the moments in which I was the first to say “I love you” with her immediate response, “I love you, too.” Indeed, I would reflect on whether I always said it first.

As I replayed that imagined kiss – next time - I would begin to tilt my head to the right, bend down, she would be acting on instinct, without taking the time to over-think it – that's what I would do, and she was my mirror. Sometimes we do things as if the moment is such that it is inevitable. She would move to meet my lips... she would be transfixed upon my eyes and I hers. I felt excited as I replayed this in my mind.

It was as if it had happened already, almost.

It would never happen.

On New Year's Day of 1991, I received the most devastating news of my life. A phone call shattered my world. I was in my room on the second floor of my parents' house when I heard the words, "Celta died last night."

"How?" I demanded, unable to grasp or accept the harsh reality. I was paralyzed by shock, desperately willing it all to be untrue! The question of “how?” seemed like every part of me was challenging the mere possibility that this news could be true. The person I told every single day that I love her was gone! No, that couldn’t be true.

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation." The fire had ignited from an exposed electrical cord on a TV.

As details of the funeral, its location, and time filtered through my numb mind, I struggled to articulate the turmoil within me. I had spoken with the caller a few times before—a family friend—but now, tears blurred my vision. "Okay, I'll be there, but I can't talk..." I choked out, my voice breaking. They needed to know I would be there.

I let the phone slip from my hand and erupted into a storm of anguished tears.

The pain was unbearable!

Tears streamed down my face as I drove to the funeral, my heart heavy with sorrow. Standing before the closed casket, a tidal wave of emotion consumed me. A fleeting, irrational urge to open it and confirm that it wasn't Celta inside gripped me.

At the funeral, my grief overflowed, my sobs louder and more profound than everyone else's combined. I was beyond caring about appearances.

It was at the Episcopalian church, the place Celta and I attended together, where I would sit beside her mother and Celta herself. I was still a practicing Christian, attending church regularly, but now, everything felt unbearably different.

Standing outside after the funeral, I was caught between murmurs of consolation and the overwhelming sight of the closed casket—a painful, unyielding reminder that this was real. My tears streamed unabated as I grappled with raw grief, and all the while, Celta's mother, with a mix of stern protectiveness and unspoken pity, forbade me from witnessing the burial. She believed, as did I deep down, that I was too fragile, that I wouldn’t survive the storm of that final goodbye. Torn between obeying her and my own desperate need to honor Celta, I felt pulled apart.

At the burial, it was as if the universe had decided that the one heart that loved Celta most, the one whose grief cut deeper than anyone else’s, would be absent from that final tribute. I wasn’t there, having followed Celta's mother’s command by fleeing Athens (Athens, Georgia). In that absence, I was consumed by a bitter sense of betrayal—not just by fate, but by God himself. I questioned why the one force that should have sheltered me had left me to drown in my sorrow. Why was I shown something so beautiful as love is only to have it suddenly taken away.

Despite this inner tumult, I sought help at a grief counseling group led by a nun at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia—a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. The sessions, revolving around guided imagery, relaxation, prayer, and scriptures, felt at once both comforting and painfully clinical. I met with her a few times and even asked for tape recordings, as if locking away her words might somehow patch the gaping wound inside me.

In those group sessions, where the stages of grief were laid out like a cold roadmap, the members shared mementos of memories with their lost loved ones. I listened intently, a wide-eyed outlier among older, seemingly more stoic souls. Yet, I felt like I fit in and belonged. The cold reality of death screamed and cried out that I was meant to be here. I had been in love and she was gone. That was true.

And then there was my family—the constant, yet strangely absent, presence. My parents, with their indifferent instructions and vague expectations, never quite understood my inner chaos. There was a persistent, stinging desire within me to share with them the overwhelming experience of having been loved so wholly by Celta. But instead, I was unable to share my story with them because I never did share things with my family.

It would never occur to me that they would know how to comfort me. This silence about something so profound was a reminder of the callous indifference of my parents. They had NEVER shown me compassion, empathy, kindness, comfort. Having never had real nurturing parents, not ever, I couldn’t even imagine what I would want from them.

As I recount this, it’s painfully clear that it was the first time I had ever truly been loved, and that love both illuminated and cursed me. Could it be that my parents sensed I had never truly loved them in return?

Anyone who saw me regularly would have noticed that something was terribly off—that I carried a secret sorrow beneath my composed exterior. Yet, it was as if my parents and even my brother were haunted by their own denial, unwilling or unable to confront my transformation. Despite the emotional chasm that separated us, all I wanted was to celebrate the unique, transformative relationship I had with Celta. But how does one begin to articulate such complexity?

That year with Celta, brimming with vibrant meaning and fleeting joy, now felt tainted by loss. The experience of being loved and loving in return can never be fully grasped until it is lived, and in its absence, I was left wrestling with both euphoric memories and unbearable pain.

In the midst of all this conflict, I found myself turning to alcohol—a desperate, self-destructive attempt to drown the duality of love and grief, to escape from the inescapable truth of my shattered heart.

I was put on a tricyclic anti-depressant by a psychiatrist. I had developed panic attacks as well. The anti-depressant had the effect of creating a sense of positive feelings even with my mother standing there one morning ironing something for work with my father getting ready too. Those fake feelings were only transitory. It is reminiscent of the song by REM titled "It's the end of the world as we know it."... and I feel fine. I guess I felt "high."

The days flowed around me like a mystical experience in which I flowed in and out of my body. I wasn't fully alive or so it seemed... betrayed even by God.

It was all a blur. My entire existence.

I stumbled across a high school yearbook photo of Celta Camille Head on Ancestry.com—years after we met—and it sent shockwaves through my body. She would have been sixteen in that photo, radiant with a kind of quiet, haunting beauty. I never knew her in high school. She was eight years older than me. And yet, when we finally crossed paths, it was as if something long dormant had stirred awake.

The few photographs I once had of her—the ones I took in those fragile months we spent together—are gone now, lost before the age of digital backups. That loss still stings. But her memory... her memory has never left me.

When we met, I had just graduated from Georgia Tech, riding high on the belief that the future was mine to conquer. I had mapped it all out: career success, independence, a new life built by my own hand.

Instead, I moved back in with my parents—a decision that would cast a long, oppressive shadow over everything that followed.

Yet somehow, even within that suffocating darkness, a spark ignited.

In 1990, I met Celta.

At the same time, I was volunteering with the social work team at Georgia Regional Hospital, a sprawling state psychiatric hospital. The work was profound, humbling, and exhilarating. It awakened a passion in me I hadn’t known existed: an instinctive call toward psychiatric social work, and toward healing.

I had come so far already. College had been my laboratory of transformation: five years of brutal work to overcome shyness, social anxiety, and an aching sense of isolation. I was ready for professional success. What I wasn’t prepared for was to meet someone who would see me in a way no one ever had.

Celta was that person.

I met her on a cold Wednesday afternoon, January 3rd, 1990. She had been admitted for anorexia, her tiny frame whittled down to less than sixty pounds. Four-foot-eleven and dangerously fragile—and yet when I first saw her, pacing in frustration across the hospital room, she emanated a presence that seemed impossibly larger than her body.

When our eyes met, I felt a strange calm settle over me. Not the fear or clinical distance I might have expected. Just... recognition.

"Hi, I'm Bruce," I said, stepping toward her. "I'm a volunteer with the social work team. I'm off duty now. I just wanted to meet you."

She smiled—truly smiled—and in that moment, a connection was forged.

She suggested we go outside. There was a porch swing out front, and we sat together, side by side, letting the world drift away. For once, I didn’t rehearse my words or second-guess myself. I simply was. And so was she.

I told her I wasn’t there to gather information. "I'm not here in any official way," I said. "I just wanted to talk."

She smiled again. That smile—the way it reached her eyes—felt like an invitation into a world I didn’t know I was longing for.

She listened to me with an intensity that startled me. No one had ever listened to me like that before. Like I mattered. Like my voice wasn’t just tolerated—it was wanted. She made no demands, offered no judgments, and for the first time, I felt seen not as a project to fix, not as a future professional, not as someone who needed to achieve something to matter. I was seen as me.

Celta had very little family support. She spoke only of her parents in passing, and her loneliness hovered around her like a second skin. In her presence, something ancient in me began to heal—the part that had always wondered if I was invisible to the people who should have loved me most.

We sat together almost every day until she was discharged. We walked the grounds. We talked about pansies and how their petals seemed to hold faces, their expressions mirroring our moods. We marveled at small things. I told her stories about my life, and she listened with rapt attention, as if every detail mattered.

And yet, even amid the sweetness of those early meetings, I knew there were risks.

Ethically, there were supposed to be boundaries between patients and staff—even volunteers. Even I, just starting my journey in the mental health field, understood that dimly. And there was another complication: I was still living with my parents. I wasn't free to defend someone I loved if she were judged or criticized. I didn't have the independence yet to say, without fear, "This is someone who matters to me. You don't get a say."

Still, no one on staff ever warned me off. Everyone seemed to sense the purity of what was growing between us.

Celta soon began writing me letters—long, sprawling diary entries where she catalogued the smallest details of her days. Sometimes she mailed them. Sometimes she handed them to me when I visited. She wanted me to know her world. All of it.

It was magical. It was terrifying. It was confusing.

Was I breaching some invisible ethical line? Was I betraying the standards of the field I hoped to build my career in? Maybe. But it didn't feel like exploitation. It didn’t feel like imbalance or coercion.

It felt like love.

She trusted me. I trusted her. We were two broken souls who, for a moment, found wholeness in each other.

In March, two months after we first met, she pointed to a bed of pansies and said, "Look—they have faces." I paused, and for a second, I could see it too. Their petals smiled and frowned back at us, as if the flowers themselves were alive to our joy and our sorrow.

Celta asked me once if I would draw her—how I saw her. I told her I couldn’t draw, but that I could paint her with words. Maybe she wondered if I saw her as beautiful. I did. So much more than beautiful.

Her name, I later learned, was chosen by her father, a nod to Celtic and Gaelic traditions. Her sister’s name, Gael, followed the same theme. There was a kind of poetry to it, as if even in naming, her family had gestured toward something ancient and mythic without realizing it.

When she was discharged, she returned to Augusta, Georgia. Our friendship continued to grow. I worried about her constantly—her health, her loneliness, her future.

I had met her during one of the darkest periods of my own life. And yet through her, a new world cracked open—a world where love wasn’t a reward for performance, but a reflection of being seen, cherished, wanted.

And though I couldn’t have known it then, Celta taught me the first lesson I would need to build the life I later found with Lynn:

That it’s not enough to love. You have to be willing to stand for the people you love.

I wasn’t ready yet. But I was beginning.

In this section, I will describe a very special person who came into my life in 1990. Her name was Celta Camille Head. This was before I met Lynn but it is an important story about my development and the development of this larger story depicted in this book.

It’s impossible to overstate how important, meaningful and life changing this was for me. It might have been just one year but three and a half decades later, every moment, every second of being loved by Celta speaks to me in a way that says I am worthwhile. This reality was not something I would have realized from my family of origin.

Preface

There are moments in life that quietly divide everything into before and after. You don't see them coming. You don't mark them as history when they arrive. They slip into your life like shadows - unnoticed at first - and when you finally look back, everything has changed.

This is a story about how love found me, how it changed me, and how the eventual loss of that love shattered everything I had come to believe about who I was and how life works. But more than that, it's a story for anyone who has ever felt fundamentally different - invisible in a crowd, uncertain of their worth, carrying wounds that others can't see.

As both someone who lived this experience and later became a therapist specializing in trauma, I've learned that our stories of struggle can become bridges to healing, not just for ourselves but for others walking similar paths. This memoir weaves together personal narrative with insights I've gained through my professional work, particularly as a Peer Support Specialist who uses his own pain to help others find their way through theirs.

This is not just a story about love and loss. It is a story about attachment - what it means to be seen, held, chosen. It's about the lasting impact of childhood emotional deprivation and how trauma can masquerade as personality, making us believe we're fundamentally flawed rather than wounded. And it's about what happens when those crucial bonds are broken, when the very foundation of safety we've built comes crashing down.

If you've ever struggled with social anxiety that felt like selective mutism, if you've wondered whether you might be on the autism spectrum only to discover your differences stem from trauma, if you've lived with the deep shame of believing you're unlovable - this story is for you. For some reason, this seems to be the latest fad where being on the “spectrum” is being embraced by many to celebrate their differences which is good but it might not fit you.

It's for those who understand what it means to feel like a ghost in your own life, for survivors of narcissistic abuse, and for anyone grappling with Complex-PTSD symptoms that seem to emerge just when you thought you'd healed.

As a child, I knew emotional deprivation. I knew how to hide and survive. But I didn't know how to want - because I had never been taught what it meant to be loved. The transformation that followed wasn't just personal recovery; it became the foundation for my life's work helping others who carry similar wounds.

Then, I met Celta. And then Lynn. Through these women, I tasted the kind of connection I once believed was reserved for other people. I built a life. I became a therapist. I knew joy and purpose and secure attachment for the first time.

And then, in 2000, everything fell apart.

What I discovered in that collapse was that healing isn't linear, that attachment wounds can reopen, and that Complex-PTSD symptoms can resurface even after years of apparent recovery. But I also learned something crucial: our capacity for connection, once awakened, never truly dies - even when we can barely remember what it felt like to be held.

This book is told in two parts.

Part I is a love story. A story of healing. Of what it means to be truly seen and how that visibility can transform a life built on invisibility.

Part II is about what happens when that love slips away - when loss becomes trauma, when the past you once survived comes roaring back, and when you must learn to live with an activated nervous system that remembers danger everywhere.

This is not a tale of tidy recovery. It is a story of endurance, dissociation, searching, and longing. Of trying to find one's way through the fog of Complex-PTSD while holding onto the professional identity of someone who's supposed to help others heal. And of wondering whether hope, once lost, can ever be trusted again.

But it's also a testament to the human capacity for resilience, the power of peer support, and the radical idea that we don't have to love ourselves first to be worthy of love. Sometimes, it's through being loved that we learn we are lovable.

Whether you're a fellow traveler on the path of trauma recovery, someone who loves someone struggling with these invisible wounds, or a professional seeking to understand the lived experience behind the diagnoses - I offer this story as both witness and guide.

We all deserve to be loved. We all deserve to know we are loveable. And sometimes, sharing our deepest wounds becomes the very thing that helps others find their way home to themselves.