I didn’t know if I was brave or reckless.

Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably — this name that I’d been given at birth that defined me before I’d had the chance to define myself.

He was sprightly and uncommonly good looking, with a quiet, magnanimous confidence that attracted people. He was my hero, too, and I listened to him. He gave me lots of wise advice. He told me to put myself in win-win situations, and that, “You have to know what you want, and you have to get it,

The PCT would lead me to an otherworld, through the sadness I felt here, out of it.

We aren’t afraid of what we can explain.

I was beginning to feel compassion for myself.