This story has ended. I know it's not quite the Hollywood ending we were expecting, but that's the way life is sometimes. Thank you for taking this ride with me. I've matured so greatly since Oddfellow first began. I've celebrated new life and mourned loss. And more than anything, I've lived. But now this life has changed, and it's time to move on. The new story, the new life, the new journey begins ... now.Once upon a time there was a man who spent years of his life hiding away from friends and family for fear that they might discover his secret, which was that he drank too much. It was a shameful secret, and he couldn't bear the thought of revealing it to those he knew and loved. It was easier, he thought, to hide it away. But in the act of hiding the secret, he also hid himself. He was very meticulous in keeping his distance from everyone, especially from those he loved, because it was so shameful a secret. But then one day he stopped drinking. It took him a while to clear his head afterwards, but when clarity returned he saw how much distance had accumulated between himself and the rest of the world. He was an island. For a while, he thought this was his punishment for having kept such a shameful secret for so long. But then slowly he started reaching out to people again - both friends and family. At first he was terrified that he would be ignored; or worse, rejected. But that didn't happen. In fact, quite the opposite happened. The family he had tried so hard to push away began to reach back for him. He tried to explain to them that he'd had a secret, and he had not wanted them to know. But now they did, and they said it was ok. Suddenly they were all around him. The family that he had pushed away in shame had embraced him, and the friends he once thought couldn't possibly be friends with him because he had kept them at such a distance were strangely and beautifully welcoming. And he wanted to repent, to apologize for being so guarded and distant for so long, but he didn't. Somehow he knew it wouldn't matter; their friendship and love did not spring from contrition but rather was a byproduct of honesty. The true fallacy, he later learned, had been in trying to appear honest through dishonest means. His secret was that he drank too much, and he also tried to keep it secret that he was imperfect, flawed. But his flaws made him who he was, made him human, and it was the human in him that people loved, not the secret.So. We drove to Albuquerque last week for vacation. I have to admit I found mild humor in the irony of embarking on a 700 mile road trip with the woman who's decided she doesn't want to be married to me anymore. (And I know that's not entirely fair; it wasn't her decision alone that led us here.) I figured it was going to be either excruciating or exciting, but frankly it was neither. Instead, it was simply relaxing (at least for me, anyway; we stayed at my mom's house, which added to the irony for Ari, I'm sure). She and I were...