“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as meaningless experiences go, it’s pretty damn good.” (Woody Allen).

“It’s wonderful fun. Why, it’s just about the most fun you can have with your body, if you’re talking of strictly physical experiences alone.” (From Conversations with God — Book 1).

As Viktor Frankl writes, in addition to our primal need for sex, “sex is a mode of expression of love…love is not understood as a mere side-effect of sex; rather, sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love.”

I included all of those quotes in my first deep exploration of who I was at the time--in December 2013, barely shared until I found Medium in 2020. It foreshadowed much of whom I would become.

This is the current introduction I added last year:

"Writer’s Note — October 1, 2023

Do you fondly recall your firstborn? I speak not of children but of personal writing. This is mine and I love it more than anything I have written since. Doesn’t mean it’s my best piece, but it’s damn good, and some of it certainly feels downloaded and foreshadowed much that has followed. I covered a wide range of topics from heavy — substance abuse, depression, suicide, and codependency — to light — love, my children, my favorite foods, and my favorite music and lyrics. A true self-portrait in essay form. The good, the bad, the ugly — and the beautiful. I wrote it in December 2013. Published it on Medium in 2020. As Conni Walkup Hull reminded me yesterday when I read her You Don’t Need Permission to Tell Your Story, You own everything that happened to you, this is my story. A few of you have read it. I share it now with all of my subscribers (at least the ones that Medium will not fail to email) and I hope you enjoy it and get something out of it. I did. It’s my story."

If you're intrigued as you recover and can tolerate a 17-minute read: https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/self-portrait-in-essay-form-circa-12-2013-7bdac6f1510e