July 14, 2026
As more people have read this project, I have continued to receive feedback and perspectives regarding privacy and identification concerns. Throughout the life of this project, I have made a conscious effort to keep the focus on my own experience while limiting the involvement of third parties as much as possible.
I have taken all feedback seriously, regardless of where it came from, and have treated each new concern as an opportunity to revisit the work with fresh eyes. Since my last review, I have made several additional edits where further protection was possible without changing the substance of what is being described.
These revisions should not be understood as a correction, retraction, or change in the underlying account. They reflect an abundance of caution and an ongoing commitment to the same principles that have guided this project from the outset: telling the truth and limiting unnecessary exposure for people who are not the focus of the story.
I am well aware that others have had experiences very different from my own. This project was never intended to challenge those experiences, nor was it created to seek validation, approval, sympathy, or revenge.
For a long time, I tried to address what had happened within the relationship itself. I hoped it could be resolved privately because I believe people are capable of both causing harm and growing beyond it. I believe in accountability, but I also believe in forgiveness and redemption. It is never too late to make things right.
Much of this project began as private writing—an attempt to understand my own experience and make sense of what had happened. There is a very fine line between respecting someone’s privacy and protecting the secrecy that allows harm to continue. Over time, that distinction became impossible for me to ignore. If sharing this story helps someone better understand their own experience, recognize patterns they may be struggling to name, or avoid harm, then I believe telling it is worthwhile.
Readers are free to reach their own conclusions. Another person’s experience, relationship, or opinion does not invalidate my own.
I know my heart, and so does Jerry. Jerry wanted to me to read my credo to him while he held me in his arms. My credo is more than a belief statement, it is how I try, over and over, however imperfectly, to move in the world. It is that to which I give my heart. For many years the word god held little meaning for me and carried a lot of other people’s baggage. Life is full of simple things made complicated. Simple rarely means easy.
We are all capable of doing horrible things to each other. We are also all capable of performing miracles. Honestly and carefully holding both realities is where salvation becomes possible.
Below is an excerpt from the credo I read to Jerry. It is far from my best writing but it is as authentic as it gets.
RVG
I give my heart to love.
God is love.
All people have a deep need and capacity to give and receive love. To love is to recognize, respect, and cherish the humanity and divinity of others and all life forms. We love ourselves, we love one another as individuals, and we also love in communities. We love by practicing inclusive compassion and working to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive and live an authentic life.
Love is extending ourselves for the purpose of nurturing the life and spiritual path of others. Love requires recognizing and cherishing the inherent worth and dignity of all. Love requires commitment and accountability. Loving is an active choice. Love sometimes requires boundaries. Love requires us to embrace our human emotions and the ability to laugh, to cry, to sing, to praise, to rage and to sometimes feel incredible pain and hurt. Love requires joy. To love is to take risks in order to grow, even if means letting go of things that we might hold dear.
We never stop seeking a better version of ourselves. Love requires each of us to seek and know our own truth, recognizing that we each know but a piece of the truth. Love requires that we continue to learn and be open to new ways of understanding. Love requires that we live our truth with certainty and at the same time live with the uncomfortable knowledge that there is little that can be known for sure. Love requires respect for the limits of human understanding. Love requires that we love through fear. Love requires gratitude for the gift of life. Gratitude includes finding joy whenever possible, never failing to acknowledge the infinite beauty of this world.
Love is liberation from all that keeps us from realizing our potential. Loving requires acceptance of one another. Love calls for high expectations, and an endless capacity for forgiveness when we fall short. Nothing is more powerful than exponential love. Loving is often extremely difficult and is nothing less than holy. It is love to which
I give my heart.
God is love.
May it be so.