Estimated read time: 30 minutes
It’s impossible to put into words the way I felt when my husband Scott told me he was leaving me. My partner, my other half, my lover, my best friend… suddenly no more. We’d been together since I was 23 and he was 21 – about 14 years. This September would have marked our tenth wedding anniversary. I’m tempted to say I was blindsided, but a quick glimpse into the past reminds me that there were signs. I saw them. I felt them. I tried to pretend they weren’t there, or at the very least that I was mistaken. Unfortunately I wasn’t.
Last fall, Scott and I started going to couples therapy. Nothing was really wrong… we just wanted to be better, both as individuals and as a couple. We wanted to be stronger, we wanted to communicate more effectively, and we wanted to reignite the spark in our relationship. I’ve been in counseling myself a number of times throughout adulthood, mainly for anxiety, and it’s always been a positive experience. This time was no different. In fact, it was better. We learned things about ourselves and each other as we set out on our journey to becoming a happier, healthier couple. I felt encouraged, to say the least.
The other girl
About the same time we started counseling, Scott sat me down on the couch and said he wanted to talk to me about something. My heart sank and I must have turned as pale as a ghost, because he quickly said, “No, no, no… it’s nothing bad.” He went on, “I’m wondering how you’d feel about me hanging out with Jane.” No, her name isn’t Jane, but I’m avoiding using her real name out of respect, and because part of me still feels a bit rotten for being so forthcoming with this story. I write about everything though. Writing is therapeutic for me. And if ever I’ve needed some self-therapy, it’s now.
I knew of Jane – she and Scott worked together – but we’d never met. Scott had asked me a handful of times if we could hang out with her and her husband. In fact, sometimes he was quite pushy about it. It seemed like a higher priority than it should have been, given they’d known each other maybe a couple months. At least I think they only know each other a couple months…? I asked him, “You mean… like just the two of you? One on one?” He confirmed that’s what he meant. I told him that I wasn’t really sure. I didn’t necessarily like the idea, but I wanted to do a gut check with some close friends. They all said they’d feel how I felt, affirming that my skepticism wasn’t unwarranted.
Eventually, I did meet Jane. Scott and I went bowling with her and some of their colleagues. Her husband was there too. They’d been married just a year. I honestly was not suspicious in the least at this point. In fact, I thought she was very nice. Oddly enough, while we were there, she admired my wedding ring and asked if she could take a closer look. I took it off and put it in her hand. Little did I know at the time how symbolic that moment was. Regardless, I was glad to have finally met this person that Scott liked so much, and figured I’d see more of her in the future.
Fast forward a month or so, and things weren’t great. Scott was different. He didn’t look at me the same. He didn’t even talk the same. He always seemed upset. I felt like I was walking on eggshells every day. I finally confronted him one afternoon in late February.
The confrontation
“Is something wrong? You seem different lately.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.
He proceeded to tell me he had been thinking about going back to our home state of Minnesota for a couple weeks to think about the future and what’s best for him. I got a pit in my stomach and felt like I was going to pass out.
“Wait… what?” I asked, stunned. “What about counseling?” I honestly thought we had been in such a good place until Scott started acting so strangely. I couldn’t comprehend any of this.
“Counseling is what made me realize how unhappy I’ve been,” he replied.
I started crying hard and my head immediately went to Jane. “If it’s about Jane, I’m sorry. You can hang out with her one on one. I’m sorry I was so selfish in saying I didn’t want you to. I’m sorry.”
“Jane and I decided not to be friends anymore,” he said.
“Huh…? Why…?” I was stunned. Absolutely shocked.
“Because we realized we were developing feelings for each other.”
Believe it or not, while that did make me sad, I felt more encouraged than discouraged by his words.
I said, “You did that… for me? For us…? You decided not to be friends with her so that it wouldn’t impact our relationship?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
I respected that he made that decision, but still felt betrayed. The rest of that evening was incredibly difficult. I’ve always hated uncertainty and I knew there’d be a lot of it in the coming weeks… maybe even months. It felt unfair.
A few days later he told me he had decided that he would, in fact, make the trip to Minnesota in March. I didn’t tell anyone what was happening – not my parents, not my closest friends, no one. I was ashamed and embarrassed.
After he’d made the decision to go, I promised Scott one thing. I told him that if he did, in fact, decide to leave me, I wouldn’t beg him to stay. It broke my heart.
In the weeks leading up to his trip, we talked about everything many times, and it never got any easier. My outlook remained pretty steady, figuring there was about a 50/50 chance we’d separate, though he gave me every reason to believe there was hope for us. We continued to plan trips, we still made each other laugh, and we still said “I love you” regularly. We also decided to stay in counseling through all of this. We had one last in-person session scheduled before he left for Minnesota, and we planned to have one virtual session while he was gone.
Our counselor was quite surprised upon hearing about Scott’s recent revelation. However, she told him that it isn’t at all uncommon for these types of feelings – uncertainty, questioning, etc. – to emerge a few months into counseling. She added that when it happens, she encourages couples to look inward, toward the relationship, not outward… not away from it. For Scott, I guess that was easier said than done.
The song
Long before this happened, Scott and I had committed to helping good friends of ours move into their new house at the end of February. Given it had only been a week or so since we had our big conversation, trying to pretend everything was “normal” in front of others was painful and difficult. Scott drove the two of us over to their old apartment to load up some furniture, and during that car ride something happened that is forever etched in my mind.
We were listening to Lord Huron and Scott turned to me and said, “Isn’t this song so sad?” The song is called, “I lied,” and I wasn’t terribly familiar with it. It had already been playing for about a minute, so I told him I hadn’t really been paying attention. “Let me start it over… just listen to the lyrics,” he said.
“I swore that I’d become a better man for you and I tried,
Tried to change my ways and walk the line you follow.
I bore a flame that burned a thousand suns for you but it died,
Told you I could never love somebody else but I lied.”
I started crying and looked out the window. The song continued.
“I told you I’d be coming back again for you but I’m not,
Going way out where the world will never find me.
I made a claim that I would dance until we’re bones with my bride,
Told you I would never leave you all alone but I lied.”
It was as if Scott himself was singing to me. I tried to keep my emotions discreet.
“I read your letter in the morning by the lake and I cried,
They were tears of joy, my chains are finally broken.
I made a vow to stand beside you ’til the day that I die,
Told you I could never live without your love but I lied.”
The song went on to say “I lied,” several more times before it ended.
“Is this how you feel?” I asked him. My face was wet with tears; my breathing was unsteady.
“Oh no…. no, no, no baby. Not at all. I’m sorry.” He put his hand on my thigh and lightly laughed in a way that implied, “How could you ever think that?” I felt a little better, but not much.
The goodbye
I drove him to the airport early on a Sunday morning – it was still dark out and it was raining. When we arrived at the terminal, I got out of the car and hugged him. He was crying. I asked him why, and he said, “I’ll miss you.”
I was stoic on the drive home. I pulled into the driveway, went inside and crawled straight back into bed. I turned onto my side and our two cats promptly nuzzled their way into their usual positions: Penelope on my pillow, smushed against my face, and Luka behind my stacked, slightly-bent knees.
Knowing these two weeks would be awfully difficult, I had done my best to fill up my calendar in advance. Although I’m typically quite introverted, and tend to keep plans to a minimum, I knew I needed to be around people.
While Scott was away, one thing I realized straight away is just how lucky I am to have a job I love so much. Going to work was a welcome distraction. And lucky for me, my team is second-to-none. We all get along great and are friends even outside the office. I knew if things with Scott continued on a downward trajectory, they’d be there to support me.
One afternoon, almost a week into Scott’s trip, he and I were exchanging texts. We were both at work – he was at his company’s Minneapolis office. I knew that the virtual counseling session we had coming up in a few days was at an inconvenient time for him, as he would be driving back to Minneapolis from his sister’s house in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I told him I’d be OK if we canceled it and just stuck with the next in-person session we had when he got home. I’ll never forget what happened next.
“Sounds good,” he said. “I’d like to sit down and talk with you about some things (in person) before our next session anyways.”
My heart sank. I thought to myself, “How in the world am I going to make it through another week not knowing what he is going to say?” It would be pure torture.
I looked out the window, and I noticed something. The sun seemed… different. I still can’t pinpoint what it was, but its glow seemed stronger, and its color seemed to be more of an amber than the typical whiteish-yellow I’d been accustomed to. It was as if I was in a dream.
The call
I responded to Scott, “Can I please call you?” He said I could, so I stepped outside and started walking along the perimeter of our office building. One of the first things he told me was that even after just a few days, he was leaning toward separating. He went on to say that he realized he’d been “chronically unhappy” for at least five years.
“This has to be a dream,” I thought.
I could now feel the “strange” sun’s warmth beating down on me as I paced back and forth. My mind started racing, replaying all the wonderful things we’d done together over the last five years – buying our first new car, starting new careers, traveling the world, moving to Seattle, buying our first house. He went on to say his needs hadn’t been met and that he hadn’t felt cared for… he hadn’t felt loved.
I will be the first to admit that I’m a relatively selfish person. At home especially, I was pretty “needy.” I’m an only child, so growing up I tended to get what I wanted, and also didn’t have to do a whole lot for myself. I’ve also battled some level of anxiety for most of my adult life, and I know that the constant stress and worry I felt (and often expressed) weighed heavily on our relationship. But I was working on it.
I proceeded to tell Scott that I knew in all-honesty I was on a path to becoming a better, more selfless and more loving person. Of course the counseling was a step in the right direction, but I had also recently adopted a couple new hobbies after realizing I needed to do something to calm my nerves and keep myself busy.
First, I started reading. Scott had always been an avid reader, but I just never enjoyed it the way most people do. I started with a couple science-fiction / fantasy books, which allowed me to “escape” to an entirely different universe, helping to ease the pain I was enduring in the real world. I also started doing yoga. Scott had recently started practicing it, too, and that inspired me to give it a try. As I expected it would, yoga introduced a much-needed sense of calm into my life.
Scott then started talking about times in the past where he’d said “things need to change,” but they didn’t, and went on to say how disappointed and let down he felt afterwards. He said he just couldn’t risk going through that again. I could recall a handful of times over the course of our 14 years together where we hit some sort of “breaking point.” We would argue about something, Scott would threaten to leave, I’d beg him to stay, and in doing so I promised things would change.
“I promise I’ll be more selfless.”
“I promise I’ll be more affectionate.”
“I promise I’ll do more to control my anxiety.”
Those weren’t empty promises. But I’m sure I didn’t do enough, or do enough consistently, to completely fulfill them.
I think I had just gotten too comfortable in our relationship. But don’t most people? I knew there were things I needed to work on – namely controlling my anxiety and becoming more selfless – but I didn’t act on them with as great a sense of urgency as I should have. I just “knew” we’d always be together. We often talked about what it would be like when we grew old together. Not if… when. Scott has seen me at my best. He’s seen me at my worst. I couldn’t envision a life without him. But I absolutely took him for granted, and I regret that so deeply.
But this time was different. Scott wouldn’t be risking disappointment. We were getting professional help together for the first time. I felt so optimistic about our future – at least I had.
Before we hung up, Scott added one last thought.
“The other thing is… I’m still thinking about Jane.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calmly and confidently respond. “If you’re worried things won’t get better between us, or that you’ll be let down, I can promise you that won’t happen,” I said. Another deep breath. “But if you have feelings for someone else that are stronger than your feelings for me… well, I can’t do anything about that.”
The return
I’m still not sure where I got the strength to remain as “normal” as I did during those two weeks. I got together with friends, came to work, went on long walks, did my yoga, read my books. I even started cooking. My most adventurous recipe was a grain bowl with quinoa, roasted sweet potato, hard-boiled egg, avocado, spinach and cotija cheese, topped with everything bagel seasoning. I couldn’t believe I was roasting and boiling, chopping and sprinkling. Typically, making dinner for myself meant baking some meatless “chicken” tenders and putting together some sort of a salad or wrap. I was quite proud.
Of course there were still times where I sobbed uncontrollably, but most of the time… I was OK. In fact, when I told that to my close friends, they encouraged me not to ignore those feelings. “Maybe this is right,” I thought. “Maybe all of this is supposed to be happening.”
Scott was slated to return on a Sunday, but there was a blizzard in the forecast for Minneapolis, predicting roughly 9 inches of snow. Because of that, the airline encouraged passengers to switch their flights. Scott called me while I was at work – it was a Wednesday. “I’m coming home tonight,” he said. I got so excited. I was grinning ear-to-ear. “I thought you’d like that,” he added.
It really was great to see him again. He had tickets to a concert on Friday that he assumed would go unused since he planned to be in Minnesota. “Do you want to go?” he asked me. I was shocked. Over the past month or so, he opted to do most activities without me – whether that meant grabbing a drink, going for a walk or attending a concert. It was either alone, or with other people. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said.
I was really excited when Friday rolled around. We started the evening at one of our favorite breweries, where we played cribbage and ate food from a taco truck. We then browsed around a couple shops near the venue before the show. The concert was fantastic. It was at a small bar with an even smaller stage in Ballard, a hip little neighborhood just north of the city. During the show, we had our arms around each other, and I distinctly remember Scott looking over at me and kissing my head. “This will be OK,” I thought. “We’re going to be OK.”
The talk
The next day, Saturday, March 23, Scott opted to spend the day at the Seattle Art Museum. I had existing plans to hang out with another aviation photographer. He taught me some basics on photo editing before his wife cooked dinner for the three of us. Scott had already told me he wanted to talk that night. My anxiety levels were sky-high, but I think I hid it well.
I got home around 7 that evening. I sat on the couch and Scott sat beside me. He looked at me and smiled. “How’s it goin’…?” he asked, with his words drawn out and a bit of a laugh. I wasn’t really having it. It had been exactly four weeks since Scott first told me he was thinking of making his trip to Minnesota. Four weeks of this strange dynamic between the two of us. Four weeks of me knowing he had feelings for someone else. Four weeks of sadness. Four weeks of uncertainty.
He cut to the chase.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I do want to separate.”
As I mentioned earlier, I promised Scott I would not beg him to stay. So, I didn’t. I did tell him one last time how confident I was that we were on a solid path forward, but that didn’t matter. He had made up his mind… he was done. We were done.
I asked him to leave the house for a bit while I gathered my thoughts.
The aftermath
And so it began. I felt an immediate need to start sharing the news with my close friends and family. I knew I needed support. My parents were upset, sad and shocked. So were my friends. Everyone was immensely proud, though, of my strength and courage. I was upfront with everyone about what happened, admitting to each and every one of them that I knew I hadn’t been the best partner over the course of our relationship. More often than not, I put my own wants and needs first. I didn’t say, “I love you,” enough. I didn’t show him enough affection.
However, there’s one thing I know I did do enough of: communicate. I wear my heart on my sleeve… I always have and I always will. I never hid anything. I told Scott when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was stressed, or when I was worried. Sometimes I was honest to a fault. But in most cases, I’d consider my honesty to be a blessing, not a curse.
Scott, on the other hand, rarely shared a thing about how he was feeling. Especially if he was stressed or upset, he kept it all inside. He revealed in one of our counseling sessions that he did this to avoid adding more stress to my life. I respect that, but I don’t agree with it. Unfortunately, this meant that Scott was constantly bottling up his emotions. And then…
BURST.
It didn’t happen often, but when it did… it wasn’t fun.
The acceptance
I’ll admit that if someone is to blame, it’s me. I knew I wasn’t putting enough effort into maintaining – much less improving – the health of our relationship. I got too comfortable. But, after talking with so many people about this – many of whom have been in similar situations – they all said the same thing: that’s part of being in a relationship. That’s what marriage is… it’s constant work. It’s constantly learning about yourself and the other person. It’s realizing when something is “off” and working through it.
I suspect that deciding to start counseling is often a difficult decision for couples, but I am so grateful we did it. I learned so much about myself and what I could and should do to become a better “me” and a better partner. Though it only lasted a few months, it was fun and fulfilling to begin putting some of those lessons into practice. I loved Scott so much, and it felt so good to start making a better effort to show him that. I loved hugging him, and kissing him. I loved doing little things to make his day a bit easier. It’s such a shame that it was too late.
What if Scott hadn’t met Jane? Where would we be? I don’t know. And I don’t think it’s healthy for me to speculate.
As painful as all of this has been, I’ve come to terms with it, and do believe it is for the best. Something happened several weeks ago that really affirmed that for me. I learned that while Scott was in Minnesota, he had told his mom about what was going on. She asked him if there was “someone else” in the picture.
“No, there’s not,” he answered.
Not only did he and Jane embark on an emotional affair that would end two marriages, he lied about it to someone with whom he’s very close.
I do firmly believe that Scott’s going through some semblance of a mid-life crisis. In fact, I told him that and he actually agreed. From my perspective, I think a big part of it is an internal struggle with the idea of “getting old.” He just turned 35 and I’m about to turn 37, and whereas I gravitate toward folks my own age or even people 10-20 years older than me, he’s quite the opposite. Especially since moving to Seattle, he’s become part of a friend group with an average age much younger than us. In fact, he sought most advice regarding our relationship from his friend who’s in his mid-20s. That’s not to say people in their mid-20s aren’t smart or don’t know what they’re talking about. I just think back to when Scott and I first met…
I had just turned 23, having graduated from college two years earlier. I was living with my mom and working at Starbucks because I couldn’t find a job related to my journalism degree. Scott had just turned 21. He had dropped out of college, was a smoker, and also worked at Starbucks (yes, that’s where we met). I gave him an ultimatum with the smoking… it was cigarettes or me. He chose me. I also encouraged him to go back to school, and he finally did. I’m so proud of him, and proud of myself for helping him to make positive, lasting changes in his life.
We each changed a lot over the course of 14 years. In fact, several weeks ago Scott said he had been thinking, “What if we met today? Would we end up together?” I sure thought we would, but Scott said he didn’t really know. I think we both “grew up” to become really great people, and I think a lot of it’s due to the fact that we were together. We made a great team.
The memories
As I mentioned earlier, Scott and I met while working at Starbucks in Minneapolis, where we both grew up. We bonded over our love of crossword puzzles. For our first date, we went go-kart racing (Scott’s idea) followed by pizza at Fat Lorenzo’s by Lake Nokomis (my idea). I think I only ate one-and-a-half pieces. Now, it wouldn’t have been uncommon for me to ask Scott if he cared if I “ate all the toppings” off of a sixth piece.
Not long after we started dating, he told me he heard a song that made him think of me. He found it and played it for me.
“This is the first day of my life, swear I was born right in the doorway…
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed, they’re spreading blankets on the beach.”
Scott teared up while we listened to it together.
“First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes ended up being the song I walked down the aisle to at our wedding four years later. We held the ceremony at a beautiful late-1800s mansion in Minneapolis. Our first dance was to “The Luckiest,” by Ben Folds. Years later, we finally saw him in concert, and that was the last song he played.
Scott and I moved all over the place – mainly within the Midwest. Our house in Seattle was the tenth house we lived in together. Back when we moved to Kansas City in 2011, we adopted a tabby / tortoise shell kitten, Mrs. Peabody, whom we promptly renamed Penelope. Not long after, we adopted Marcus, a lanky orange cat who sadly passed away after only a couple months due to feline coronavirus. Then came Luka. Over the years, Penelope and Luka became “Beans” and “Buddy,” respectively. They’re now 13 and 12 years old – my best little fuzzy friends. I feel sad for them knowing they won’t see Scott anymore. But I never would have made it through all of this without them.
Minneapolis -> Kansas City -> Minneapolis -> Chicago -> St. Louis -> Seattle
That was our path over the course of 10 years. Seattle probably wouldn’t be where we ended up had it not been for my “big bang” moment in 2015 when I realized how much I loved airplanes.
Scott and I traveled the world together. In 2017, when I was writing as a freelancer for Airways Magazine, I went to Istanbul to cover a Turkish Airlines conference. I got appendicitis on day one, and the airline flew Scott out to be with me. We loved Türkiye. We went to Morocco in 2019 for our fifth wedding anniversary. In 2022, we traveled to Korea with a good friend of ours, and the following year Scott visited me in Australia while I was working there on a temporary assignment. We traveled to New Zealand as part of that trip as well. We’ve been to all four corners of the U.S. and many places in between. What a ride it’s been.
Shortly after we met, Scott taught me how to play cribbage, and it became an integral part of our lives. On warm, sunny summer days, what did we do? Bike to a brewery to play cribbage. On a cold and rainy winter day, we cozied up and played cribbage at home. We brought our travel cribbage board on almost every vacation we took, and most nights in bed we played a game against each other virtually.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we finally bought a Nintendo Switch, and that’s when our “Mario Kart” story began. We both grew up playing Nintendo – NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, you name it – and, in fact, one of my friends gave us a Super Nintendo console as a wedding gift. But having the ability to play virtually with friends near and far is what made the Switch so much fun. Scott even gave me my own Switch for my trip to Australia, just so we could still play Mario Kart together.
Scott and I were connected for so long, and in so many ways. It’s very strange to think that we won’t create any new memories together.
The dreams
I’ve really surprised myself with the ability to not think about “us” very often. And it’s not like thoughts are constantly creeping into my head and I’m having to force them out… they’re never really there at all. Why? I don’t know.
But when I am asleep, it’s different.
Over the years, it was not uncommon for me to dream about Scott leaving me. I would wake up in a mild panic, and turn to my left to find him sound asleep. I’d tell him about it the next morning and he’d always reply with something like, “Oh no… my baby, I would never leave you.” I believed him.
Now I have those dreams, and I wake up alone. There’s no more panic, just sadness. The dreams seem to get weirder each time, too. Some do still revolve around Scott leaving me and me begging him to stay, but others have me running away from him as he chases me with mal-intent. Those ones are scary. My subconscious mind never ceases to surprise me.
The end
It all happened so quickly. Within a month, I had the keys to a new apartment, the sale of our house had been initiated and all of our joint accounts had been separated. Scott agreed to stay in the house while it was on the market, and because of that, I was able to very leisurely move all of my stuff into my new place.
Saturday, April 20, was my last night in the house. Oddly enough, this was exactly four weeks to-the-day after Scott said he was leaving, eight weeks to-the-day after he said he was thinking of leaving. Sunday morning was difficult. I was taking my last load of stuff over to my new apartment, and planned to come back later that evening for the cats. As I opened the front door, I noticed Scott crying. I asked if he was OK. “No,” he said. Seeing him upset crushed me. I started crying too. “I don’t want to go,” I said.
I knew he wasn’t planning to be home when I came back for the cats. He said it would (understandably) be too difficult for him. So this was it… this was the last time we’d see each other for at least a few weeks. “Can I have one last hug?” he asked me. “Yeah,” I said. We squeezed each other tightly. “I don’t want to go,” I said again. “I’m sorry,” he replied.
“You’re my best friend,” I said in a small, quivering voice. My face was soaked.
“You’re my best friend, too,” he said.
In that minute, it hit me all over again. I couldn’t comprehend that this was really happening. Scott and I were admittedly each other’s best friend. I knew him like the back of my hand, and vice versa. Why couldn’t we have just worked through this?
For me, it really sunk in when I came back for the cats. I managed to wrangle them into their carriers, put them in the back seat, and talked to them for the entire 20-minute drive to the new place. Yes, they “talked” back.
When we arrived at my new apartment, I let them out of their carriers and they did their typical exploring – zipping from room to room. They seemed quite happy, which was a huge relief for me. Having come from a very small house that often felt quite “dark,” to now being in a much lighter, brighter and more spacious apartment, made quite a difference for all three of us. I’m certain the cats sensed the tension between me and Scott over the past few months, so I think this move instilled a new sense of peace in all three of us.
My little apartment is quite charming. It’s a sizeable one-bedroom on the second floor of a 1920s four-plex, very close to where Scott and I lived when we first moved to Seattle. It has all hardwood floors, a fully remodeled kitchen, and beautiful wainscotting throughout the living room. The windows are huge and the ceilings are quite high, making it feel even bigger than it is. Oddly enough, my apartment is about 10% bigger than our two-bedroom single-family house.
The cats love sitting on the wide window sills to watch leaves and birds fly by. There’s more room to play here than there was in our house, and it’s not unusual that I’ll wake up in the morning to find a few toys scattered about in the living room. They still make their way to the bathroom when they hear me filling the bathtub, Penelope flops on the bath mat, and Luka sits on the counter by the sink. And within a minute of me laying on the couch to watch a movie, Luka’s lying between my calves, and Penelope is curled up in a ball on a pillow next to me – her “throne.” They greet me each time I come home as though they haven’t seen me in months.
And for me? I’ve been keeping quite active, doing a lot of walking, biking, and more recently, kayaking. Also, a number of friends and family members scheduled trips to come visit me when they heard the news. May and June are when most of those visits are happening, so it’s been great to have something to look forward to.
So… that’s it. Just like Minnesota’s own Semisonic said in the late ‘90s, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” I suppose this is my new beginning. I’m ready to greet the world with a newfound sense of independence, optimism, love and strength. Thanks to my family, my friends, and yes, to my fellow av geeks – especially those who knew what I was going through and offered so much kindness and support. To blue skies, tailwinds and new beginnings.
The photos
Note: Click on an image to view the full-size version.
The Great Planes 