My first ever piece of self-expository writing, in December 2013, included:

"I love how music triggers memories — often bringing me back to a time that now seems simpler and yearned for — but in reality those times were no simpler than the present — maybe it just seems that way because I survived them — because they are safely in the past?"

I didn't write again until Lindsey died when I started journaling. I published that first essay, a self-portrait in essay form, as one of my early Medium posts. I don't think you've read it. In many ways, it's the precursor of so much that I have written since. It covers many topics in vignette form and thus doesn't feel like a 17-minute read https://medium.com/p/7bdac6f1510e

It even foreshadowed the relationship with Sitara that I poemed about this weekend:

"Perhaps because I am not driven by sex, but by connection, is also why I am capable of platonic love of a woman. It seems that most people do not believe that such can exist because they are not capable of it. For me, the choice between no relationship because for whatever one or many reasons romance is not in the cards, or having that person in my life and deriving shared spiritual pleasure from each other’s non-romantic intimacy and company and connection, is a no-brainer in favor of the latter."