Still life with Sushi and Bike

It's difficult to not become dark. Maybe it's in my nature - some unfortunate series of base pairs that manifest into a cacophonous roar on any given day. More likely, I've seen enough of the cowardly and ugly side of people and I feel a thread of despair in me.
My idealism and hope for some generalized future is unaltered - that is, my belief and expectations for the work that I wish to do remains high. But my belief in my personal happiness is...more grounded. I suppose this reflects itself in my generalized theology: 'yes' on the god of particle physics and quantum field theory and 'not so much' on the personal god who responds to my need.
It is in the moments of contrast when I seem to have the most difficulty. Professional success contrasts with personal ache. At the conclusion of every training session in Africa when I had given my soul and was elated to see that the group had taken up the knowledge, I would crash into an agonizing darkness: a realization that the professional joy was the only happiness I would feel and that it was insufficient compensation to justify continued existence in such pain.
It is the anniversary of my time in Den Helder and Amsterdam: when I gave my best effort in support of the Dutch African mission and when I met with Johan - the Dutch special investigator to tell him what Mac and his gang had done. I asked for support and help. Johan carried the news to his leadership: that I had filed a criminal complaint against Mac in the Italian courts. This knowledge, combined with the panic that I had stimulated in MIVD by writing to them directly on their online web form was the impetus for the drastic turn my life has taken. They slandered me and...here I am now.

In a couple of days, it will be the one year anniversary when I saw Sjors for the last time in Amsterdam Centraal and where he spoke the words that finally broke the connection that entangled our souls: "It was real".
These past two weeks I've felt the anniversary approaching and I've done what I can to ignore it. But it is difficult to ignore something that had such lasting and awful consequences. It is difficult to ignore the man who loved me so dearly for ten months and then turned on me like a rabid dog. When I was engaged to Geoff, I understood the transformation from gentle to cruel (at least intellectually) because he was mentally ill. But what Sjors did was a conscious choice rooted in fear. Again and again he wrote terrible lies before taking his lies to the internal case in MIVD. And this has been far more difficult to manage. His cruelty over such a period of time shocks me still and makes me ache. I have, fixed in my memory, the way he looked on that day I saw him in the station: dark and corrupted. It gives me a wave of sickness.

I have good news professionally. I'm working with International law enforcement and (likely) with the U.S. Military again - this time as an independent consultant. This work takes up most of my time. My work is good and I do not doubt I will build my reputation and influence and spread my ideas. But this good news carries with it the old pain. I do not think I will ever be free of it completely, but I do what I can to prevent the pain from taking over.

I took a 38 mile bicycle ride today in the cool spring weather. It was a beautiful day. I'd invited "J" but he didn't respond to my message so I rode hard by myself. I rode along the Potomac up Mt. Vernon trail - across the Memorial Bridge and to the Rock Creek trail. Capital Crescent intersects Rock Creek up by Chevy Chase Maryland, so I veered off on that. I stopped for a sushi lunch in Bethesda at the 20 mile mark, and took the remaining 18 miles with gusto.