In 2023, I was on a flight home from Paris, France.

The back restroom on the plane was occupied, so I walked to the front restroom instead. A flight attendant came by and told me that the front restroom was for first class only.

My mind immediately went to Rosa Parks.

Now, let me be clear: I am not saying this was the same thing. Not even close. A class divide on an airplane is not the same as the racial segregation Rosa Parks stood against. But the feeling it stirred in me was real. The classism on planes had always annoyed me. The curtain. The special treatment. The invisible rule that some people are more entitled to comfort, space, and dignity than others.

Something in me snapped into protest mode.

A few hours later, still feeling inspired, I decided to relieve myself at the front of the plane again.

This time, the flight attendant asked for my passport. She told me the pilot would speak to me after the flight.

When we landed, I stayed in my seat as the plane emptied. Eventually, it was just me. I walked to the front of the plane, where the flight attendant and pilot were standing near the exit.

As I approached them, she handed my passport back to me and said:

“Have a nice day.”

That was it.

I found out a year or so later that my wife had apparently talked them out of putting me on a No Fly List, which, for the record, I would have accepted with honor at the time.

Regardless, I decided I was protesting airplane travel until class divides were gone.

My wife, understandably, began to panic.

We were in Atlanta, Georgia, trying to get back to Austin, Texas. She decided to board the plane without me.

Unfortunately, she boarded with the stuff I needed to get a rental car.

So I started to panic too.

Without much thinking, I found a taxi driver who was very eager to help. I told him I needed to get to Austin or New York, whichever was easier. He said it would be $1,000.

I asked if he would take my phone, my watch, and $200 instead.

He accepted everything I gave him.

Then he insisted I take money out of an ATM.

I kept telling him nothing was going to come out of the ATM, which was true, but he insisted anyway.

As we approached the ATM, I saw a car parked nearby with a few men sitting inside. In my mind, I became certain those guys were waiting to jump me as soon as I tried to pull money out.

So when the taxi driver started to stop, I hopped out of the backseat and ran.

Now I was lost in Atlanta with nothing but a carry-on bag of clothes.

I walked for miles until I finally found someone who would let me use their phone. It was at a Comfort Suites, where I met a kind front desk agent.

I called my wife, who by then had landed in Austin. She sent the front desk agent money, and he gave me cash for a bus ticket.

I thanked him probably a hundred times.

Then I went on my way with paper directions like it was 1995, trying to find the bus pickup location.

Somewhere along the way, because I am from the Google Maps generation and apparently helpless without a blue dot, I got lost. I eventually found myself “trespassing” in a business area, where a very eager security guard dialed 911.

That is how I found myself explaining an unbelievable story to the Atlanta Police Department.

I told the officers I had a childhood friend who lived in Atlanta. Her name was Ali. One of the officers typed some things into his laptop, and a few minutes later, I was standing outside her workplace.

Ali was an old childhood friend. I had not seen her since I was maybe six or seven years old, possibly younger. She made a living selling antiques at a consignment shop.

I thought to myself, finally, this nightmare is over.

Ali seemed worried. She told me we were going to Grady.

At the time, I thought Grady was a pizzeria.

I was so relieved after nearly 48 hours of trying to find my way home that I went with her without asking a single question. I barely paid attention to what was happening.

Before I knew it, I was being cuffed to a stretcher.

I had been involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric ward of Grady Hospital.

I had been admitted before, so this was not my first rodeo.

Usually, the playbook is simple: take the pills, say no to all the questions, act calm, and eventually they discharge you.

But this time, I had nothing to lose.

As far as I knew, I had lost my job, lost my wife, and been stripped of the last valuable things I had with me.

So I declined medication every single day.

And every day, it felt like I would never be let out.

I had to insist to a doctor who did not seem to be on my side that I was not insane.

I was in Grady for my sister’s birthday.

I was in Grady over Christmas.

I was almost in Grady for New Year’s.

Finally, I got my father to drive to Atlanta. Once he was there, they approved my discharge. Hospitals usually need a fairly robust discharge plan. They do not simply open the door and wish you luck.

Later, this became a wild story to tell.

But to me, it was more than a fascinating campfire tale.

That was the first time I “went insane,” and came out the other side without anti-psychotics.

Fear had struck me.

But I was experienced enough to find Love at the other end of the tunnel.

That experience marked the beginning of the end for medications, doctors, and most of what a psychiatrist would call “bipolar disorder symptoms.”

It was not all sunshine and rainbows afterward. It was not even my last hospitalization. (I will save that story for a future blog post)

But it proved something to me.

It proved that this unshakable idea, the one that would not leave my head, was true.

Love. Fear. Love. Fear. Love. Fear.

For years, my entire world became black and white.

Then, slowly, I began to formalize the idea that I could not shake, despite years trying to ignore it.

Love and Fear were not just emotions.

They were directions.

They were forces.

They were the two poles of my reality.

And somehow, after Paris, Atlanta, Grady, and the long way home, I knew which one I was supposed to follow.

The Theory of Love — I Open at the Close (Preface)