"Oh, the wild joys of living!"

Almost seven weeks ago I received a telephone call from my partner of thirteen years. "I am romantically in love with someone else," he said. "I don't think I want you as my partner anymore."

The pronouncement abruptly changed my entire life view. I had believed that I would grow old beside this man. No matter what challenges existed in the relationship, I felt that we could have resolved them because we loved each other. Or so I thought up until that moment.

As my world came crashing down, I broke into frantic tears. How would I go on? Where would I go? I looked around at my home, a house that I had purchased together with my partner years before. I had spent many hours making improvements both inside and out. I walked to the back door and opened it to look at my lovely yard full of fruit trees and vines, and my annual tomato plantings still waiting to bear. What would I do?

More than twenty years before my friend, my brother, my mentor, Al D Sowers, had helped me through a difficult break up and it was to him again that I turned. In spite of the fact that Al left this life more than ten years before, I recalled his words. His advice came to me as if it were yesterday.

During the last few weeks Leather friends have asked what steps I took to recover from so great a loss, the loss of a partner, a home, and my plans for a happy life in old age. I simply followed the guidance that Al provided me years ago. The steps to healing are really quite simple:

1. Ask for help from friends. Do not be shy about stating your needs to others. During this time your true friends will emerge and others who you thought were "family" will fade into the background. A very important lesson.
2. Maintain sobriety. Avoid alcohol and all mind altering substances so that you can look at things clearly, so that you can see clearly the opportunities that will present themselves.
3. Avoid Leatherplay. Many years ago Guy Baldwin told me that play is not therapy. The inverse is also true. Therapy is not play. Play can be volatile during traumatic periods. Anyone worth playing with will understand and wait patiently while you heal. 
4. Resolve to care for self. Good nutrition, exercise, sleep, and meditation. If necessary, create a schedule of care for the next month. Self care is crucial during the first few weeks of a break up because it serves as a reminder of self worth.
5. Do not date. I am not recommending to avoid sex. Rather, I am stating that it is a bad idea to become romantically involved with someone while healing from the loss of a partner.
6. Enlist the help of a therapist. I worked with a therapist for six weeks. As she put it, "Therapy is like  car maintenance. Sometimes you need an engine rebuild. Sometimes, a tune-up. And sometimes, an oil change." I had an oil change. To not enlist professional help is not wise. When a person breaks a bone, he must go to the doctor for help in healing. When a person's heart breaks as a result of the termination of a long relationship, professional help is usually required to insure healing.
7. Do not make any rash decisions. Running away from issues simply means that you have left issues unresolved. They will resurface but in a different context. This is the principle of karma. 
8. Address your issues, do not run from them. After a few weeks, you will find that issues will present themselves again naturally for examination, and that the nature of them will be revealed. This can only happen if you bravely face the situation. Once again, sobriety is key.
   

Today I sit and look out the window of my new home, a small apartment on the south shore of Sesttle's Lake Union. My feeling this evening as I watch the sun set on the water, gratitude. I am so thankful to the wonderful friends who have helped me over the last seven weeks, and to my special alpha boy and my property. To them, I owe far more than I ever could repay them. 

At 57 years old, life feels like it is just beginning. I like who I am. My life has drastically changed and I look to the future with far more excitement that I could have dreamed. I wake every morning and look around at my new home. I smile and look back on a difficult period. I am glad to have endured it andbto have grown from the experience. And I want to proclaim with Robert Browning's protagonist, "Oh, the wild joys of living!" I feel good!