In 2011, I was in love.
I trekked forty-five minutes for the best cappuccino in Rome.
I waved at Mona Lisa in Paris.
I smoked in the streets of San Francisco.
I smuggled pot lozenges into London.
I had my feet massaged in a Chinese massage parlor in New York.
I cursed at the traffic in Los Angeles.
I moved from my own lovely studio on the Westside to cohabitate on the Mesa.
I moved from the Mesa to buy my first home in Santa Barbara.
All with a wonderful, challenging, patient, exacting, intelligent, ambitious, thoughtful, loving man.
I cried horrifically when I didn't have enough space and when I had too little affection.
I laughed ecstatically when we swam together in the Pacific and ran through rainy Parisian streets.
I read so many books - Jhumpa Lahiri and Roger Ebert and Margaret Atwood and David Foster Wallace. Joan Didion and George R.R. Martin, T.C. Boyle and Cormac McCarthy.
There was only one book I reread, every time I was on a plane: Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky.
I didn't write very much.
I became a teacher, was offered money for one of my passions.
I found my padmasana.
I lost degrees of friendship.
I fell into a long-distance relationship.
I descended into myself.
Now I am seeking help to pull myself out. I don't want to be scared of relying on other people. I don't want to feel exhausted at the thought of holding a conversation. I don't want to have to think so much that I take substances that stop the thought process.
I want to trust myself, and therefore others.
I want to support myself doing the things I write about here.
I don't know if I want to take a more proactive role in my life. I tend to be better served by the opportunities offered to me. But I want to act on my intuition less hesitantly.
More than anything else, I suppose, I don't want to be scared of myself anymore.