Expect Delays

With nowhere left to go and a girlfriend who just hung up on him mid highway, David drives nine hours to his father's doorstep in Ohio, chasing the only open door left in his life. What follows is a raw, unflinching account of a two day bender that takes him from a hollow homecoming hug to a rundown motel room on the east side of Columbus, where addiction, shame, and a genuine brush with death collide. This is the episode where the fairy tale falls away completely and the real cost of the collapse comes into focus: a father who shows up despite his own history of absence, a body ravaged by cocaine, and a man forced to ask himself if this is really the freedom he'd been chasing all along. Listener discretion advised; this episode contains frank discussion of substance use and suicidal ideation.

Beneath the mysticism of Episode One's Bermuda romance was a man in freefall: a marriage hollowed out by addiction, secrecy, and quiet retaliation on both sides. In this episode, David pulls back the curtain on who he really was on that scooter, a functioning alcoholic hiding cocaine, using pornography as a weapon in a sexless marriage, and watching his career quietly disintegrate as his hours got slashed. He traces the last, brutal unraveling of his marriage: the surveillance, the separate cars, a nine year old daughter's tears at the kitchen table, up to the morning his wife found his Apple Watch and everything came due at once. It's the moment the fairy tale meets the facts, and the bill for two mystical days in Bermuda finally gets presented in full.

A man flies to Bermuda to repair his relationship with his mother, and instead walks into two days that rewrite the rest of his life. Between a near-miss on a scooter, a prophetic conversation about divorce, and the best grouper sandwich of his life, David finds himself on a reggae-soaked dance floor face to face with a woman named Scarlett, sharp tongued, sun-kissed, and impossible to look away from. What follows is a whirlwind of dancing, a moonlit kiss by a pirate fortress, and a connection that feels less like chance and more like fate. A story about destiny, desire, and the moment before you know your life is about to change.

Loneliness, sometimes the days can be long, in the last year there have been times that I’ve spent my working hours without any human interaction, to go into the evening, make myself dinner, watch a movie, and not have any contact with another person. I got a cat at the East Orange Animal shelter, Bowie. He talks a lot and is very handsome, we have those two things in common. I think we are going to be very good friends.

Why do affairs hurt so badly? I dunno the science behind it, but it breaks your fucking heart in ways that are sometimes unfixable. Is it the betrayal, the lust, the deceit, the lying? Wouldn't it be easier to just resolve it with your partner and have a difficult conversation, get therapy or not, then get a divorce and move on. Unfortunately no, because affairs are not about respect or balance, they are about secrets and lies... Fantasies. The act of lust and carnal desire excite and stimulate us to the core of our beings as humans, enough so to risk a 20 year marriage for a fling that ends in embarrassment. The maths don't math and yet affairs happen everyday. Here are some cheating statistics 16% of married couples admitted to being unfaithful at some point in their marriage. 30% of individuals started cheating on their spouse with someone at work. According to research, 57% of marriages ended in divorce due to infidelity.

What is rehabilitation, sobriety, temperance, AA? Living a sober life is more then just not drinking or doing drugs. It's about finding your purpose, finding hope to live again in a world that is totally unfamiliar and frightening without the crutches you've used in the past to face it. I am not perfect, I've relapsed, I've abandoned my principles and promises to myself on multiple occasions, but I always come back to the same reality. That drugs suck the soul and the life out of an otherwise hopeful and meaningful existence and when I indulge, things start to fall apart, and I begin to lose a grip on the basics. I'm a better person when I am not using. That’s the reality. 

What is a home to you? Is it people? Is it a place to lay your head? A building? Maybe it might be hard to define. I think for me, it was simply, a consistent place to use the bathroom again after not having one for awhile. That was home to me. Now, my person lives half way across the world, but when I'm with her, I feel like I'm home but we don't live together. When I'm with my kids; that feels like home too, and were never even static for too long, or stay in one place long enough to establish residency. I'm sticking with my definition, i.e A place to use the bathroom alone, in peace, quietly... with a bidet. preferably.

Have you ever tried to teach your child how to ride a bike? It can be an arduous and fruitless process. There's a small war going on. It's a strange power struggle, you're trying to protect a little person from hurting themselves, and of course they're desperate for your guidance but want their independence at the same time. Going through a divorce breaks your heart one million times multiple times as day, but I've found losing access to my children was one of the most challenging burdens to carry. Sometimes though, you have to "let go" let them fail on their own, and be there to help them back up when they fall.

There's nothing "good" about saying goodbye, so maybe it's better to say... See you L-8er. A long goodbye and the long ride home back to Dirty Jerz. I found a place to to live temporarily, a camper behind my old Jiu Jitsu school. Reconnected with Scarlett. Going to perform and dance for the elite at the private school my son wants to attend and was recruited for to play football.

What do you do when the person you've been in love with for 22 years tells you that they don't love you anymore... If you're an alcoholic, you drink. So, that's what I did. I drank and drank, and drank, while crooning at the moon. Coldness and detachment is part of divorce and a natural process of separation. That doesn't mean you have to like it or even endure it - If you decide to leave your person and there is still love, avoid this part if you can. Don't play games, try not to manipulate. Don't drink. Be patient, be kind and courteous, be nice. It's worth it in the long run. My person couldn't do this part and to be honest, I was a little late to the party myself.