I looked for images taken on a 26 February in my past, but didn't really find anything special. I chose 26 Feb 2005 - and remember that when i existed the subway station of Sandsborg - that the light felt special. The sky's blue contrasting with the very warm lightning from Sandsborg and Nynäsvägen highway.

Around this time, it was the coldest time of winter 2004/05 which was a mild one with up to +9°C in January), but during these days, we had snow and temperatures down to -9°C at the most (in the city of Stockholm). Later in March it would go up again, even reaching +10°C at some time.

Day of 26 Feb 2005

used to be a very special day (since 2 years earlier). But in reality, it was a gloomy, kind of final day. It had something truly definitive. Something important - that is truly written in stone. Something, with no return.

So, you dwell in a strange state of confusion, because it is like standing between two realities coexisting at the same time in your heart and mind. So close, and yet so far away, as if your beloved had died. It is almost like a cheat-death, and yet so real that i couldn't be unwritten or made undone.

In some instances, the truly best thing you can give your partner (and yourself) - is to leave.

Never looking back.

Introspective

Albeit i do look back sometimes - even today - as an introvert perspective - because Perry [2003-04] as a person was and is puzzling. To me he is - especially these times with Epstein files, and the countless many Israel connections that stretch like a vast network globally and locally... Often makes me (and made me) wonder what was Perry's general roll. The dualistic nature of his made me sometimes wonder. It wasn't in what he said.

The pudding was in all he didn't say.

And those "black holes" - radiate a certain type of presence. Which is a bit difficult to explain. But you can sense in people sometimes, that the substance of significance isn't in what they say or claim. It is in the untold, unspoken... where you find substance. You can't grasp it - but you can sense it like a compact "something". Which from within steers the things, encounters, situations - without you can identify the true reasons for certain behavior. Or the lack of behaviors / reactions.

Perry in that regard sometimes felt like an agent. One who was schooled, trimmed and highly skilled in certain ways - but all that was kept in the dark. Wrapped around an innocent, sympathetic, calm as well casual appearance.

Perfect spy

I told him once; "you would be the perfect spy. You are so nice and lean and friendly - so casual - that nobody would ever expect from you to be a spy". After all, he worked as the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm. Today, I realize that all of them are more or less spy centers. I mean there are always many agendas behind such places, especially the Israeli Embassies around the world.

Assuming anything less would be crucially native.

The dualistic nature of Perry

which in large parts was obscured / hidden - albeit gave me sometimes a weird vibe. In subtle ways, I should add. Nothing major. At the same time it was difficult to pinpoint that. Later in our relationship, he reminded me of a man with a mask. More often than not. And there i had several indications and proof of it, though others, in which he showed a very different nature. At least that was an occasional hint which I got aware of, and not fetched out of the blue.

I am not saying he was a bad guy - i don't believe he was. I mean the classic image of a man who is really bad. It simply isn't that simple cut. He could however be cold calculating - all, in a lovely, calm / alt behind a restrained mask. Which altogether isn't enough to be titled as a real bad guy.

He was a man with hidden agendas (ultimately serving oneself), as well schooled in (for others) secret disciplines, in ways most people are not. I was the dumb, funny blond (then annoying), serving as younger than my age looking trophy, he could show off to his Israeli friends (at least at first). Later he gradually started to realize, that i was anything but your average or "blonde" Joe. In good and in bad.

In one way I believe I was highly predictable to him, while at the same time, did create headaches to him due to being highly erratic at times. E.g. unpredictable. That's when his mask sometimes would crack a little... showing a different nature in his otherwise clean, white well-kept shirt.

Naive - that i was

However, as i see it now, i was naive. Way more naive than I realized. Which is a truth with modification. I mean it is easy to say "I was naive" in hindsight. I would almost claim, that i chose to be naive. (I even remember that very well during the first months when we met back in Spring 2003). It was a time, in which i felt relief and joy when i met Perry. I wasn't interested in asking question, or calling him in question or anything like that. I also felt no reason to do so.

Maybe I should have ?

There were funny, almost strange signs in the very beginning. Brief moments of very unusual behavior of his - but i let it pass. And boy was i in love with him. Endlessly deeply and without any doubt. So, I guess I didn't want to give too much weight to any kind of signs.

I think that is called cognitive dissonance ?! You almost excuse the other's sudden, brief, weird behavior - because everything else seemed to lovely and genuine.

We tend to subdue signs we notice

- but never follow up, nor give any attention to it. Then there is the other aspect of falling in love - that it is after all - a period where we choose to trust, and lover our guard. It is a risk taking, and that is what you have to do with life and people.

And learning from it - but also to learn from our own mistakes, including to scrutinize ones own errors. It aint always pretty. But it is a great way to get to know yourself. Which often tend to emerge with awareness much, much later, as you get insight about your own nature. So, yeah, sometimes you have to see your own ugly pages, too. They cannot be excluded if you try to find your truth.

In truth, I've never been an easy relationship guy.

It took many decades until I started to be ready for it - with a lot more self-knowledge (which helped me a great deal later with Sal, if we had a conflict).

When i least searched for it - i bumped into Sal in 2014/2015. And we too had our cornerstones as well glitches. However, every glitch brought us together: as a couple as well individually closer to a truth; about our own mistakes, errors, projections and "sensitive spots" (why how, why and where). We learned to identify the trances back in time - correlating them with other events in our lives and partners. Why we react as we do. Which programs are going off "almost by default" in a conflict.

How to stay truly honest - to oneself in the first place, in order to be honest to your partner. Also to see both light and shadow sides - while learning to live with them in a better manner. And that not all programs are truly our own - but deeply buried from a past long time ago, which tend to get "triggered". Not to be avoided - but to be made "harmless". Like you take the wind out of the sails. That only works, if you dare to be honest to yourself in truth. Then you see, how two people sometimes get into conflict, when we can see what we ourselves contribute to it.

Gaining deeper knowledge

In that regard, Sal and I have gained large amounts of knowledge - and adapted and integrated that into our marriage and "partner in crime" relationship (like best buddies who share secrets). Plus that once the heat has come down - when we really TALK - none of us is trying to "collect points" over the other. Nor do we blame the other; We can criticize, but we do not blame. With that deeper understanding, you also realize that your partner isn't attacking you. He is helping you. to SEE. And understand that by heart. And vice versa. So, it is like a cooperation, like teamwork. With love attached. Notice then how close you come to one another after such inner contact of talks.

It's amazing.

In all that comes an understanding, which doesn't exclude our own faults, triggers, dispositions and errors. We rather look at them with an open mind. That's when things really start to get interesting.

Dare to be naked without feeling naked

Learning from that process is incredible. And that way, Sal and I have been together for 10 years. With many more to come. While all other relationships / marriages earlier in my past went rather short; with often just 2 years at the most, and once 3.5 years.

Those in the past, always chose not to communicate, and not to include themselves; their part of the whole. They simply put their head into the sand. And I know already, that it didn't stay there. They did the same later on with other partners as well.

What comes around, goes around.