I was So Much Older Then,
I'm Younger Than That Now.
My body healed last winter, my energy returned last spring, my depression lifted last summer, and my will revived last fall. Considering that it took about three years to get as low as i was in December 1999, a recovery time of a year seems stunningly fast. But what is this about a revived will? What does that mean, exactly? That is the subject of this edition of ''F.W.E.”
What i did during my summer vacation...
I was miserable this past June, and i was not sure why. I knew that i had to get out of myself somehow (see FWE, Summer 2000), but hadn't the slightest idea where to start. I accidently swerved into a beginning of the process, however, when i gave up my cot at O’Hare Airport in Chicago that night in early June (also FWE, Summer 2000). That was the first leak in the dam.

The second one came when a friend of mine, Jackson Payne, mentioned that he had a room available for rent in a house he had recently purchased in northern downtown Columbia. It was like finding a secret passage out of a room with no doors. My younger brother David had come home from school for the summer, and the bile was neck deep in the house. The choler was running high in my bigger little brother (He's four years younger, but 3 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier, mostly muscle), and i kept getting in his way, no matter how i tried to keep out of his way. The anger and the bullying became unbearable after a week or two, but i couldn't see a way out, and it was beginning to take a toll on my health. Then Jack's announcement came to my ears one night at a fellowship dinner for the singles of my church. I waited a week or so more for no particular reason; i guess my will was finally waking up after a long slumber. The fourth week in June i asked Jack if he'd take me and then moved one or two carloads of stuff out of my Parent's house to 910 Confederate Avenue over a couple of days.

The third breach in the wall was two correspondences that came my way by e-mail. In the

spring, i felt like i was going crazy and losing hope. Mom was concerned enough for me that she had a suggestion ready. Dad was stationed in South Korea, and he was going to a Bible study for singles called ''the Upper Room". He was a kind of father-figure for the younger people who came. A certain young woman who was coming to the Bible Study was feeling a bit low as well, and my father suggested we correspond by e-mail. As soon as my Mom told me about this opportunity to correspond with someone else, i felt immediately better. This was the reason i felt the way i described in the last edition ("Clothed and in my Right Mind", FWE Summer 2000). Here was another person to speak with in a most non-confrontational way and a way to help me forget myself. Our zapping has petered out after a fashion, though i still hear from her every once in a while. At this writing, Lydia is now stationed in Germany. In any case, i am thankful for our correspondence, such as it is/was, because it got me one step farther away from myself, and redeemed the medium of e-mail, which had been rendered painful by the reminder of a particular bridge that i had been forced to burn not half a year before.

With the medium of e-mail redeemed, i initiated the second correspondence myself, a further sign of my reviving will. Being a big fan of the band the Vigilantes of Love, i am a member of an e-mail listserv dedicated to the subject. If you are a member of a listserv, you know that each one has its share of "regulars". One of the regulars on this particular listserv was a girl about my age, who sounded in her posts to the list as though she could use a friend. In mid-June, I said to myself, "Hey, why not?" and sent her an e-mail "off list” to see if she would like a “keyboard pal”. The next day i received a
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