This is a story about anniversaries and the strangeness of August 4th.

It was four years ago today that I moved back home to the New York/New Jersey area.

It’s been an interesting four years. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but at the same time I can’t tell whether it’s gone by slowly or quickly.

On August 4, 1999, after one final summer of hanging around the University of Virginia and studying for the New York Bar Exam — and one week after a short trip up to Albany to take the exam — I packed up my car, accidentally dropped and splattered a bottle of shoe polish in the street, hit Interstate 64, came back up north, and ended an eight-year chapter of my life.

The next few months would be rough. Living at my parents’ house in northern New Jersey while looking for a job. Being confronted by my mom about my sexuality, and dealing with my parents’ anger and sadness while still having to live with them. Eventually getting a totally random non-law-related job near Princeton, 90 minutes south, and then inexplicably moving down to that utterly lifeless town, where I lived with an asshole roommate for four months. Subsequently moving into a good friend’s guest bedroom in a town near New Brunswick for six months. Finally, in May 2000, I was offered a law clerkship up in Newark, and several months later I moved up to Jersey City, right across the river from Manhattan. It had been a weird detour of a year.

But back to August 4, 1999. That evening, I came back home. That night, I went online, and I wound up meeting Biosphere Boy — perhaps the first gay man I ever really and truly fell for, head over heels. I eventually realized it wasn’t mutual.

Exactly two years later, on the night of August 4, 2001, I met Wes. Ahh, Wes. That didn’t work out, either. That was okay, though; since coming out, there are only three guys for whom I’ve really and truly fallen, and Wes wasn’t one of them.

I wonder if I’ll meet anyone exciting tonight. I guess it’s possible, but things like that don’t usually happen on Mondays.