About 12 years ago, I was at the height of my outward success. I was making a lot of money as a political consultant. I was well-regarded in my field, so I could choose my clients. I dated attractive women and I was about to make my first film.
From the outside, everything looked great.
I had the material things I wanted. I drove nice cars and took the sorts of vacations I wanted. One of the women I dated was a model who was just starting to get into managing models. She was convinced she could get work for me — at least local work — as a model/actor in advertising. (She took this photo when she was trying to convince me.)
On the inside, though, nothing had ever been quite right for me. I didn’t know why. Something was missing. Something was wrong — and I had come to realize that the world doesn’t work the way I had been taught. I was lost.
My journey from then to now has been a complicated one. But as I look back on it — a trip which took me into poverty, loneliness, shame and embarrassment — I realize it all made sense. I had to finally become strong enough to throw away much of what I thought I knew — and start all over again.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love