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I could have called Brian to tell him what I wanted to say, but I wanted to see him. And I needed time to clear my head and to shed the past, to leave the fall and the past three years behind me. So, at 4:00 in the afternoon, I started walking.

Every step I took felt as though I were leaving a little piece of it behind me. Each footprint that I left in the dirt on the road felt like it was keeping some of the guilt and shame, some of the pain and humiliation, like I was being stripped of the identity that I'd forged for myself.

Just as shearing the hair had unlocked a part of me, every mile I covered unearthed another layer of my heart that I'd stowed away somewhere deep within. I was rediscovering a man inside me that believed in
hope, that believed in love, that believed in life... that believed life was worth living.