Introduction - SMLB

"Hi, my name is Julian Olson and I'm - a Soul Mate Left Behind."

In saying that I feel like I'm some kind of recovering alcoholic at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting introducing myself for the first time. The truth is - I am a Soul Mate Left Behind. The truth is - I am recovering from a devastating blow to my chest. The truth is - I have lost the best thing that has ever happen to me. The truth is - I am sad to the bone. The truth is - at times I want to die and at other times I don't care if I go on living. The truth is, in just admitting those things, - it makes me want to cry. But I've been doing too much of that here lately. It's time to get a hold of myself and stop crying.

One of the self-help books written for people going through a divorce suggested keeping a journal, writing down your feelings, just to get them off your chest. Another self-help book suggested venting your anger and frustration by writing letters to your X-wife but "not" mailing them.

Instead of keeping a journal, I chose to write "venting letters of anger and frustration" not to my X-wife but to an imaginary friend - Aireos Arenot, pronounced Air-e-os Are-not.

My imaginary friend lives in a lighthouse over looking the glacier-dug Reykjavik fjord in Iceland. Such a remote estuary in Iceland can be a cold and lonely place during the dark days of winter, perhaps more lonely than cold when it's only you, the lighthouse and the fog. My letters are not meant to entertain or try to cheer up my imaginary pen pal but are more an un-injurious forum for me to express my hurt, dampen my sadness and unfetter my sorrow and grief.

I imagine Aireos hunched over an old dark wooden table he made himself, reading my letters by the flickering light of a burned down candle, smiling at times at the frailty of the human spirit but rejoicing at other times at its resilience and perseverance.