If any part of your life is shameful and secret, then you cannot be whole. This is the price of sin: our fracturing from a man into personas. My growth challenge is swapping regret for repentance. The smallest step down the path of accountability relieves you of guilt, although you have to keep going.

You can probably imagine the challenges of the urban gay scene as a place with endless opportunities for bad company and misadventure. I was just striking out in a saner direction when Covid hit and all benevolent venues shut. We all poison ourselves in some way, even if just sugar. Lockdowns were a gift to sickness.

It took one person, a dear friend and confidante, to show me true love… for me to be receptive to taking a higher path. Until you experience the higher vibe, you go round and round the same hunt for fake peace or temporary oblivion. I can’t judge the jabbed for foolish choices, having my own. I can only help to light the route away from self-destruction.