Troy's break-up with Lori was clearly the most traumatic emotional roller-coaster he'd ever felt. On the face of it, the story is a simple and uplifting tale of how a guy moves on after losing the person he thought was his one-and-only, the love of his life. And yet right below the surface, Troy's story provides an empowering mirror for us to discover the magnificence of ourselves! This real-life story is personal to the author, yet universal in its appeal. We've all experienced feeling loss of love, and each of us has felt times of low self worth. That's why the book within this book is titled, “ME, A Common Connection to You.” Troy's manuscript, composed from the author's real-life journal, is filled with bite-size chapters of tasty and hearty food for thought. It's a journey of self-discovery and awareness, through prose and poetry. This story will allow readers to become aware that we, like Troy, do not need to seek someone else's validation of our own worth. We are worthy already. We just need to realize this.

Book Excerpts . . . Book Excerpts . . . Book Excerpts . . .

As the structural supports of love began to crack, Troy's relationship with Lori didn't just fizzle or fade. No, the walls came tumbling down, the sharp shards of splintered steel digging deep into his stomach.

Troy's normally powerful 6'4” frame lay bent across the length of the front porch swing. His left arm was flung backward, pinned against the backrest. His extended right arm and right leg hung limply over the edge of the seat, both hovering only inches above the gray porch. Even the strong yellow wooden swing while carrying Troy's heaviness.

“Al, help! It hurts!”

With this burst of confession, Troy's Ivy League vocabulary reduced to one-word-per-second monotone. Each syllable was now uttered with the anguish of someone who'd just had all four wisdom teeth yanked and the Novocain was wearing off.

“I can't hold this hurt inside any longer. I gotta get it out!”

Troy's fairy-tale romance with Lori had just imploded, the foundation for love disintegrating into a disarray of unrecognizable pieces. With the dust still flying, Troy was spilling his guts to his inner confidante, Al Terego, who sat nearby.

With painfully slow resignation, Troy whispered, “I just can't seem to shake her. What do I do?

“Troy, this isn't something you just shake,” replied Al.

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Alex paused at this pause in Troy's journal entry. He could tell, even without looking at the journal entry date of 11/11, November 11, that this writing represented an early stage in those five phases one goes through when experiencing a traumatic loss.

He heard Troy's anger. He was proud of his soul-linked friend for writing about his true feelings, of being in touch with his emotions. How many men are able to do this? Al wondered.

He also knew that back then, Troy couldn't understand how Lori's pain of lifelong abuse was being misdirected at her noble knight, the man she had previously thought could only be a dream and never a reality and yet was now standing before her. Although Lori easily and freely spoke with Troy about her history of abuse, he didn't know or understand how Lori's being forever abused caused her to both playfully sexually tease and then suddenly reject him.

Over their months together and as they became more intimate, Troy's bliss of fairy-tale love turned to torment, his life dream of joy supplanted by Lori's uncaged lifelong rage. The more compassion he exuded, the greater the confusion, and the darkness boomeranged back to his heart. It was unfair, it hurt badly and he couldn't help but become frustrated and angry with her. Something was terribly, terribly wrong, upside down and inside out. And as Lori led him through the Looking Glass, Troy twisted the blinding beam of blame directly upon himself.

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Whyfor, What

What are you saying when you speak in cool rhyme
With imagined words that transcend time?

Notes resounding with limits eschewed
Forming infinite songs dreamt by you.

How many thoughts in my mind can you read?
And how does love grow once we've planted the seed?

When do I ask where goes the next piece
Of the puzzled pictures to be released?

And with whom do you share who you wanna be?
What is spoken to all; which only to me?

Yet, when all is asked, I worry not --
I believe in you and what we've got.

Though exactly what and when and why
May not be known to my newborn eye.

With welling tears for my vision to feel
I'm coming to know that my dreams may be real,

Alive with great Spirit, O beckoning me,
Closing my eyes so I can see.

I tremble at letting go of my fear
Which has held me back until this year.

But dammit I'm ready to believe in me
And trust in wisdom's eternity

Ever present to guide me down Life's river
Into your arms, it would me deliver.

I want so much for you to feel
The essence of Love, pure and real

Embracing you and your spirit within
And drawing my soul to its sought-after kin.

Let the mirrors we hold for the other to see
Form prisms of rainbows 'tween you and me.

[written by Marcus three weeks after meeting Lori]

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