I had been traveling for over three years. First, living in a tent in National Parks, then my SUV in Moab, UT, and wherever I sprawled out to from there. Finally, I lived in a van for just under a year as I galivanted around Australia, Rock climbing and exploring as much of that country (and New Zealand) as I could. When I got sick, my travels shifted. Nearly a year later when I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, it all came to a halt. That same week my partner at the time, who I thought I might spend the rest of my life with, slept with someone else. I left him. Within twenty four hours, it felt like my world crumbled. 

At first, I resiliently faced Lyme disease head on while searching for forgiveness for the infidelity. I had after all been seeking a diagnosis for about a year, so I viewed this newfound knowledge as power and the diagnosis as the silver lining to my current predicament. Plus, I had the excitement of being in one place on my side…this might not sound exciting to you at all, but it was.

I was mourning the relationship and grappling with what had happened. It also quite honestly felt like I was grieving parts of myself; traveling, hobbies and overall lifestyle. I was asking many questions of myself:

“What is my body capable of now? What do I have the energy for? Can I get back into the activities I love? How do I tell new people I have Lyme disease? Do I tell them I have Lyme disease?”

I appeared to be a perfectly healthy, fit and capable individual-but I wasn’t. And I was broken hearted.

I had managed to find forgiveness for the man who did me wrong (let’s call him, Bob). I had turned him down the last time he pleaded at my feet but now I was willing to give “us” another shot. This time however, he didn’t know if he wanted me. To him, I was sick. I was broken. “Well then, good riddance!” I wished I had thought. Taking this looming rejection was anything but easy.

His words about all the hobbies we had as outdoor enthusiasts still strike a nerve:

“There are a lot of things I want to do, and you can’t do them anymore.”

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, what a dick.

I don’t think it was even a month later that he was back. This time, in tears saying “biggest mistake of my life” pleading with me to take him back. Well good. If you always remember this fuck up then you’ll hopefully be better next time you’re faced with a moral dilemma…which will be with someone else. This time around, the good riddance came easy. As I write this, an Anne Lamott quote comes to mind:

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

Touché Anne, touché.

In all fairness, Bob is a good man. He just did a bad thing. That bad thing was a blessing in disguise because the months to follow revealed that he did not possess the level of emotional intelligence, experience and bandwidth I desire in a life partner. As my Mom put it, “better to find out now than later.” So, no hard feelings Bob, and best of luck in love and life.

I tried to heal my body and soul, in doing so I relied heavily on those closest to me. There were people in my life I could count on, unconditionally. These people were my glue; spending hours on the phone with me while I cried, panicked or vented. They would conspire to surprise me at the airport after I flew across the country (twice) with everything I owned. Thanks to them I had a plethora of love and support on my side. This included a room to rent and couches to sleep on until the room opened up. Nearly everywhere I looked there was a loved one lending an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, a place to stay, a story to induce a laughing fit, or a shitload of tequila. I found what felt like a decent regimen for my Lyme disease (this did not include tequila on paper) and I continued to try to work myself off Lexapro (an antidepressant), which I had been on since my first year of college (there’s a whole lot on that right here). I also unexpectedly met another man.

So, October had been the month of the diagnosis and the infidelity. The remainder of that year was working on Lyme disease, building a foundation while doing so and working on what to do with the man we didn’t like so much anymore. Late January was meeting Adam (we like him) and February brought a trip home to…Wisconsin! My Mom was going to be in a play and she landed the lead role. Daughter of the Year Award was on the table; I just had to surprise her for the debut.

This story, however, really doesn’t have much to do with what I’ve revealed thus far. That was mostly to build context. This story, is about Andy. Remember when I spoke of those people who were my glue? Andy was one of them. In returning home for the play, he was to pick me up from the airport. He didn’t, we met at Whole Foods instead. We’ll come back to that at some point.

I don’t remember exactly when Andy and I first met, though I do know it was in junior high. I remember us being at a little dance hall inside one of the middle schools where we grew up. I have a memory a couple years later of him picking me up the Thanksgiving of my freshman year of high school from my parent’s house to go drink Keystone Light and smoke weed. He didn’t realize I was sneaking out of the house, even though I had him pick me up at the end of our three hundred foot driveway. He was a year ahead of me and we had gym class together. I remember him telling me I was “raw” because for some reason I announced without hesitation that I had a bladder infection (in hindsight, wow). Fast forward to 2010 and I’m in my final year of college living in Chicago and recovering from a traumatic incident there. I was also recovering, once again, from a breakup. Coming home that same year to Wisconsin for a mutual friend’s wedding, Andy and I connected. By connected, I mean we slept together in my hotel room after the wedding while a friend of ours was passed out in a chair on the other side of the room. We came to find out some time later that he was only somewhat asleep. Classy move on my part, I know, but I was in college, so let’s move on. A group of us went to breakfast, then Andy and I continued to nurse our hangovers by indulging in a little “hair of the dog” (Andy’s favorite hangover cure) at a pub near my parent’s house. A weekend trip for him to visit me in Chicago was already in the works. 

We would date for four years. We lived together for three in a little two bedroom apartment on the East Side of Milwaukee near Brady Street. It was a happening area with bars, restaurants and festivals along the river with hiking and biking trails.

To this day my best anniversary gift, possibly best gift of all time, was from Andy. Our apartment was on the second story and I could smell the bacon as soon as I opened that first downstairs door. By the time I made it up to our front door I was frothing. There was no sweet “happy anniversary!” declaration upon entering, just Andy appearing overwhelmed, flustered and exhausted from having spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen. He had been baking and twirling pieces of bacon into little spirals and attaching them to plastic flower stems he bought from Walmart. He had then displayed them in a vase. He had made me a bacon bouquet.

“I’ve been cooking bacon all day,” he said with an exasperated chuckle. I was elated and told him I could tell he had been at it a while. I laughed at the sweet gesture and his need to sit down. Bacon was one of my favorite things during those years…along with cigarettes, tequila, steak, Coors Light and vanilla long johns (think doughnuts, not underwear). I was also very fond of Funfetti Cake, stuffing and cocaine (not together, obviously). I was still at the age when the party lasted longer than the hangover, and my body allowed me to eat whatever the hell I wanted, so I racked up calories, lines and tales to tell in old age. I honestly didn’t start eating fruit (except tomatoes) until somewhere around age 26, whereas fruit had been Andy’s favorite thing to eat, and fried fish…Wisconsin is famous for Friday night fish fries. Alas, I digress, back to the bouquet…

Andy pointed to a bowl filled with bacon “flowers”  that were separate from the bouquet he had on display.

“Those are for you to eat now.”

He had planned for me to want to devour the bacon without dismantling the bouquet. Thoughtful. He knew me well.

I had tried my own sweet gesture on for size some time before the bacon bouquet, but not successfully. Andy’s favorite fruit was pineapple and for his birthday I thought I’d make him a pineapple upside-down cake. I was in my parent’s kitchen slaving away with the help of my Mom (avid baker) with my Dad (avid eater) to taste test. I detest pineapple and so does my Mom. Baking this cake was no small feat. Luckily my Dad loves pineapple and this was prior to his radiation treatment so he still had working taste buds to provide feedback.

Andy came over, tried the cake and bashfully grinned while nodding his head a bit…

“I think I don’t like cooked pineapple.”

And that was the day Andy realized that his favorite thing to eat was only to be enjoyed raw. Pie was more his thing, and from that day on my Mom was sure to feed him a lot of it.

Another year for his birthday I gifted him a camping trip to Grand Island, MI. This was long before I did the whole get-rid-of-my-shit, buy camping gear, live in a tent and embark on my travel hiatus. Basically, I had zero camping experience. Andy, however, was an avid outdoorsman and was thrilled at the idea of the trip. The only exception I imagine was his hesitation for how I would do on the trip, and therefore I suppose essentially how he would end up doing. We hit the ground running with two packs filled with backpacking gear and more weight in beer, wine and flasks than anyone who isn’t from Wisconsin should hike with. Given the fact that we were headed to an island, we took a ferry then had a decent hike to where we’d camp. If memory serves, we saw only one or two other humans, who had been on the way out. The entirety of the trip was about thirty-six hours. We enjoyed three of those hours without rain. 

“We need to put the snacks in the bear box,” I told him as we got in the tent about to call it an evening.

Cue Andy’s chuckle:

“The bears aren’t coming out in this shit.”

That night in the downpour we worked to start a fire. Being resourceful as always, Andy ran to the one outhouse we passed and returned with hand sanitizer…highly flammable. Good thinking. We made a fire (ehemm, Andy made a fire) and we still froze our wet asses off. The only thing to warm us was tequila, Jamison, red wine and beer. As our stash became increasingly low, we contemplated our options for getting more booze. The discussion went something like this:

Me: “There are two ferries out a day, one first thing in the morning and one in the evening.”

Andy: “We could wake up really early, hike to the port and catch the ferry to restock booze for tomorrow night.”

Me: “Deal. Pass the Jamo.”

We drank the rest of the booze and woke up about two hours after the ferry left. I recall us being pretty perturbed about our second night in the rain with no alcohol.

In writing this now I’m thinking more and more about what a problem our alcohol consumption was. It wasn’t just us either. It was everyone in our circle and honestly, kind of everyone we knew. 

Andy and I had a riot together. We played pool at our local Brady Street dives and I beat him at Buck Hunter at least a hundred times (or however many times we played). We kayaked and took late night walks along the river. One time we moseyed up onto a hill late into the evening that overlooked the city…where we passed out, wine drunk. We woke up to the morning dew about twenty yards farther down the hill than where we started. I’ll never forget slowly peeling my face off the wet blades of grass to peruse my surroundings in search of Andy, only to see him face down as well several feet from me. We’d bar crawl on our bicycles and on one occasion as we headed back home near bar close I repeatedly crashed into parked cars on my bike. Not my finest moment.

We hosted annual Christmas Shindigs with our closest friends. Well, I hosted and Andy helped prepare by taking orders prior to the event. On one occasion this meant him halving jalapenos for my bomb diggity bacon wrapped stuffed jalaps. He cut them in half instead and an argument ensued, resulting in him going back to the grocery store to buy another twenty jalapenos.

We traveled a bit, but not much. I remember a trip we took to Minneapolis, where a man at a gay bar looked at Andy, put his hand on Andy’s leg and said:

“Your face looks like it was chiseled from stone.”

Andy blushed, grinned, nodded his head and replied awkwardly but sincerely:

“Thanks man.” 

Sweet as pie (not pineapple upside down cake).

Over the years we attended countless weddings, spent five Christmases together, went to Packer and Badger games and my oh my, did we have plenty of Brewer Games under our belts. I don’t even like baseball. I literally never watched the game but there were $5 long islands, the company of all our buddies and a smoking section (which was very important to me at the time). While on the topic of long islands, we used to pre-game for the movie theater at Applebee’s (I already feel the judgement here and trust me, it’s warranted). Applebee’s also had $5 long islands, and I think they had some all-you-can-drink specials (we certainly weren’t there for the food). I don’t remember us ever making it to the movie after we got done at Applebee’s but I do remember us really enjoying ourselves; we’d put our phones upside down about a foot away and whoever touched their phone first “lost”. 

We went fishing with his friend Ilgen, had bonfires at his Dad’s house in the country and went to Summerfest year after year. I have some wonderful pictures and videos of Andy dancing at one of the shows, specifically the “shopping cart” move. We were passengers on the late night all-you-can-drink boat cruises on the river into Lake Michigan (Edelweiss) dozens of times. Unlimited miller lite and nachos with a dance floor and dj circa 2012? Yeah, I think so.

When we lived together, we would fight and I’d storm out. He’d come find me shortly after at one of our local dives (the one that pulled out the ashtrays for everyone come midnight after the statewide smoking ban took effect).

We thrashed around our living room to 90’s grunge and early 00’s alternative, and belted out Alanis Morissette or the Wallflowers from the shower together. I’ll never forget walking into our apartment one evening with my friend Alycia to find Andy and our buddy Meurer completely bombed with a couple dozen empty beer cans on the coffee table, passionately singing Alanis Morissette at the top of their lungs.

We would drive through the Kettle Moraine to see the colors of the changing leaves in Autumn. We had friends stay from out of town (almost exclusively friends from an hour away). Overall, we had a fucking riot together. Andy wasn’t nearly as social or outgoing as me but he knew how to have a good time whether in a group or solo. That man partied just as hard by himself as he did at a live show (played music just as loud, too). We drank too much as you’ve clearly gathered by now. We lived for the weekends like everyone in our circle did at that time.

• 

• 

We endured some tough shit as well. Some silly, like bedbugs (even still, no joke) and him breaking his foot as a carpenter really put him out. Though also some real tough shit. I’ll never forget sitting on the couch with Andy to my left and Alycia to my right, their heads each turning towards me in an instant when they heard my Dad on the phone after a doctor’s appointment:

“It’s cancer.”

Andy and I had an increasingly rocky romantic relationship but during those years and the years after we separated we were there for each other unconditionally. He was there for me throughout, or in the aftermath of, some of the most challenging times of my life. I was there for him during both light and dark years as well. The night I flew home for my Mom’s play was the last time I saw Andy. Today, March 6th 2021, marks two years since he took his life.

Thank you for reading! Be sure to subscribe, then continue on to my other Health & Well-being essays (including “The Space I Hold for You,” another about Andy that was curated on Medium). Or check out my Adventure & Nostalgia articles, like how I went from pantsuits to nomad!

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