Dear Reader

I am a very silly person.

I have this tendency to be in the midst of beauty, put onion peels over my eyes, and scream “What a terrible place I’ve found myself in!”

Other things like that, too.

So I go about awhile scheming of this way and that to get to a land where the are no onion peels to be found. “Aha!” I say, “what a wonderful place this must be,” and I stroll about the place all chum for a good few weeks or so before I exclaim “Ugh! How dreadfully boring” and go about in search of some salt to put in my wounds.

Other things, too.

I put myself through the ringer, you see, when it’s a perfectly lovely summer day with a gentle breeze.

So what I have for you here is a collection of poems and letters, declaring my love to all those marvelous folks who I’ve met along the way. Many of whom lent me some their precious time alive to listen to me whimper and wail. Others have joined right in. There are some who have taken the onion peels from my eyes and pleaded “Here! Here! Here!”

Yes, that’s right these are love letters through and through, in all the funky misfit ways a silly person like me loves.

I have titled this collection of letters I Like to Think That I’ll Meet You All Again Someday because I really do. The collection of poems is under the name Alternatives to Therapy, but I think they go together so inseparably that it all belongs under the latter title.

I’d like to make explicit that I am in no way telling anyone NOT to go to therapy. This project is simply a consequence of my own personal decision to do something quintessentially Roman when the narrative I had been writing about my life suddenly didn’t make sense anymore. I’m not saying that I’ll never go to therapy or that I know better than trained professionals. I think I’ve made that abundantly clear to the multitude of patient, kind people who continually support me while I consistently put myself in situations that make me truly terrified and question my own sanity.

I decided to to do the thing that I am the most afraid of, which is this:

I left my support networks and ditched the momentum of the identity that I had been forming in Minnesota over 23 years. I wanted to show up and see how I’d do.

What I found was this:

Support and guidance are always all around you and even if you enter a place where no one knows who you are, the people there still meet you. Whoever that is. So you better show them someone you’re proud to be.

I also learned that none of that means anything if you can’t show up for yourself in that same way.

I’m eternally grateful to the people who have been patient enough to deal with me and support me throughout this time. I hope that through this project and our time together that is/was made abundantly clear.

I’d like to particularly thank my eldest sister Cat for being my continual motivator and coach.

With love,

Roman

P.S. My secret hope is that readers respond. I invite everyone and anyone to respond to these poems and letters with artwork, their own letters, or just about anything and submit them using my contact information on this website.