Of those mornings, when I can’t seem to reciprocate the ‘good morning,’ I’m shown the worst of myself. After almost thirty years of self-work, I have no better outlook of “other” than when I began.

The door behind us shut violently. To make up for the noise, we descended the stairs quietly in her apartment building. The streets of Astoria were dimly lit and fairly quiet with occasional sirens and cyclists playing music through bluetooth speakers…