The following is the original text from an email that I sent on 12 May 2010:

I had a minute to write so I thought I would jot down a few thoughts that I had this evening.

There is something we both have been searching for a very long time and I think we saw a great deal of it in each other. I am grateful for that and I know you feel that also.

Tonight when you told me that you and Pam do talk about marriage, I decided I wanted to give you a gift — maybe the kind of gift only real love like mine can give.

I want to give you blessings.

I celebrate you.

I have made personal witness to watching you work on how you deal with relationship. I have seen your personal growth efforts and you should be proud for where you have come.

I started by saying we are both looking for something… I hope you may have found it. That is amazing… a gift from the universe to be lovingly and tenderly regarded.

You have brought light into my world and have been a good friend. We have grown up together in many senses.

I hope you celebrate the joy of partnership now that lies inside of embraces and soft kisses that speak of a future that includes the bond of marriage.

I have had that joy too, even planned the whole darn wedding and wore a ring two times and then took another path.

I am still looking for someone, but I do have memories, joys, laughter, delightful friends, and passion.

A long time ago a friend named Ricky told me to celebrate the difference that I make in this world. I held onto those words and I will be open and honest that I can speak of how I do celebrate the difference I made in your world.

In the end, I don’t know if it is so much a someone I search for or just a joy. If it is joy, than I am also richly blessed because I have that experience every day.

My work keeps me vibrant, creative, “smart”, and able to hold my own in this tough economy. Oddly, I often find myself waking up from a dream where I have created a new solution for a problem at work. I have worked damn hard and held my own for a long time.

I have done life much on my own during these past 18 years raising my children into outstanding achievers.

Recently, it came to my attention that I need to bring more “fun” just plain “fun” into my world. I know the party is a small event in the scheme of a life, but it has made me thrilled to know that I am going to host my own party, to laugh, to delight in the gifts of each of my friends, to watch their quirky natures and laugh at their corny jokes.

I hope I have more parties, more joy, more fun, and continue to find people that I can share my light with.

As I become more able to meditate and “sit with myself” I find that part of my true core is pure happiness.

I have spent too much of my life hurt, sad, afraid, unwanted, and sometimes abused. But, I am a pure soul filled with wonderment and I will manage to get my bearings and move my bare feet along a sandy beach and gasp at the beauty of the earth and when I do that…

I know a part of me will whisper across the waves…

“Ernest”