I was carrying my TV down to the car (with the thankful assistance of an elevator) when I had a quick little ping in my back. I set the TV down — carefully — and remembered when Jennifer would help me with my back. “You’ve got to be careful,” she told me. “Careful with that back –”

That’s when it happened. Actually, it happened at “careful,” but it took until “back” for me to realize that it happened.

This weekend, I watched what I thought was a robbery taking place. Without thinking about it, I jumped up, and chased the bastard.

It felt good to do it. I didn’t realize that at the time, but it did. I felt the adrenaline, the… rightness of it.

And there, in the elevator, I realized something. If I was sitting at that table with Jennifer, I would have never done that. She was cautious. Still is, actually. Very careful about everything she does. Step-at-a-time.

When we met, I was careless. Reckless. Letting my luck carry me wherever I went. And, it did. As long as I trusted her, Lady Luck would never steer me wrong. As soon as I adopted that philosophy of caution, I betrayed her, and she abandoned me. Actually, I abandoned her.

I broke her heart.

I broke her heart.

That happy-go-lucky Discordian John who pulled pranks and stunts and practiced guerilla philosophy — he was gone, replaced by the careful, steady, safe, and secure John who didn’t want to make his neurotic wife anymore nervous than she already was.

All of this, in the span of a moment.

The marriage really did change me. A lot. More than I thought.

The John who rode down the I5 at 88 miles an hour, strapped to the top of a car without brakes.
The John who snuck into that abandoned part of the restaurant in Millwalke with John Tynes and saw the naked room with a single light, and the dress dummy hanging limp and discarded and we skiddaddled as quick as we could, convinced there were ghosts on our heels.
The John who wasn’t afraid to dance and sing.

And love.

Hey Jared: “You’re going to die.”
Yeah. Like, tomorrow.
I’m not afraid. Veritas Coragio. I wrote those words, but I didn’t believe them anymore. I didn’t live them anymore. My Rilisciare. I abandoned them and left them in the hands of those who didn’t understand the truth of those words. In the hands of people afraid to live — afraid to lose.

I’ve lost. I’m still alive. Lost the one woman I ever wanted to be with for the rest of my life.
I’m still alive. And there are a lot of women in the world. A few in particular. One in singular.

I was afraid to live.
Not anymore.