Part One: His story…How it all began.

I came to Greece for the first time in the summer of 1993. The son of a serviceman in the diplomatic force, it was an opportunity to leave small-town life in Colorado and see the world. In the painfully brief two-and-a-half years I spent in Greece, my life was altered forever. I first set eyes on Karolina, my future wife, as a freshman at the American Community School of Athens. She steamrolled me—and still is one of the most stunning creatures I have ever seen. I was smitten and terrified of her. Despite my inherent teenage awkwardness and debilitating shyness, we made an instant, undeniable connection, becoming fast friends: spiritually inseparable but unprepared to release the floodgates. We could have been more. We should have been more, but it did not unfold that way. Then, in a flash, my time in Greece was over.

Military brats will understand just how traumatic an instantaneous uprooting from one life into another can be. As a kid, the emotional and mental maturity to deal with chaos is not there. The result was that I was cleaved in two. Years passed before that gaping wound began to heal; in some ways, the process is ongoing. I returned to Colorado, finished high school and promptly adopted the ski bum mountain lifestyle for the next two decades. Karolina and I remained in contact, but our lives carried us in two different directions. At a point near the end of those years, our rhetoric increased. Potent feelings long-stored but never left unnurtured were unpacked and revisited. There was nothing for it; we had to reunite. If I did not, I knew the regret would eventually kill me. I dropped everything and made a massive leap of faith. (To be continued…)