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
On National Dog Day, remember how love can change any of us
How miserable does someone have to be to ‘troll’ a cute dog picture?
Three years after she sneaked in, World’s Happiest Dog® is queen
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
Economic Man needs no heart, because love and God are dead
How do we start over and give ourselves parenting we needed?