stamp

In 1996, I was in love – dangerously in love – with somebody who wasn't my boyfriend. His deep eyes could have drawn me all over the globe. And indeed, they pulled me to Amsterdam, away from my job, away from my boyfriend.

As I stretched across three open seats on the KLM flight, I wrote in my journal. With this relationship, I promised I would try to be only myself. Not the best producer, or daughter, or writer, or girlfriend – all the roles I tried to fill in my life. I would just be myself. In a sense, it worked – our trip was wonderful and romantic. We parted ways after 10 days with plans to meet again in a few weeks.

Our 10-minute reunion struck down all the wonder of those 10 days. He arrived from Prague on a Berlin train. Angry that I still had a boyfriend, he had hooked up with another woman. Moments before the parents of the other woman arrived to pick him up, he informed me of the situation.

I could feel my heart break.