Ok in my last installment I had gotten an apartment with my buddy Hugh John Malanaphy, my best friend who cuddled with me in bed at night but we never had sex. That was fine with me, I still loved him and loved living with him.

But then one day, without saying a word, he got out of my bed and went to stay with a girlfriend he had become recently attracted to. That was not easy for me, but I got over it. He eventually married her and had a child. We’re still good friends, though we don’t visit often because he lives 3000 miles away in Santa Monica, California.

But, back to my story, for the next twenty years or so I went around the country in a circuit that included 19 cities around the USA mostly teaching Translation, sometimes some other courses.

At the same time, I set up a home base, first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then in Denver Colorado. I had some wonderful friends in Colorado who really liked me staying with them when I wasn’t out teaching. Cincinnati, on the other hand, was a disaster. I’ve never hated a place more than Cincinnati.

But here’s where it gets messy. While in Denver I got involved with a group who loved A Course In Miracles, and I thought that book was great and started teaching it instead of Translation. So I was breaking my connection to The Prosperos. I moved in with a couple who used drugs and I started taking drugs again too, mostly weed and LSD.

This was not good. I drifted away from the pure consciousness that one achieves when they stick to Translation, and I went downhill, both as a teacher and as a human being.

At one point I got into a furious argument with Thane and formally left the school. After that, I drifted around to this and that, other methods of consciousness expansion like Avatar and The Sedona Method. But it all was just further distraction, and nothing compensated for the raw fact that at least for a period of about 15 years my life was in shambles.

And over the next 5-10 years, it also took a toll on my health. I developed Congestive Heart Failure which slowed me down terribly, and then mental illness: Schizoaffective Disorder – Bipolar Type. I ended up in a Mental Hospital in West Hartford, Connecticut 7 times.

But the mental hospital was one of the best in the country: The Institute of Living. And there I started to put myself back together and regain the wholeness, creativity, and happiness that had been destroyed over the previous 20 years. Each visit to the hospital resulted in considerable improvement.

Calling it a hospital gives the wrong impression. It looked like a resort hotel, beautiful bedrooms, beautiful common room, and staffed with excellent mental health workers — Social Workers, Psychologists, and Psychiatrists.

And that has led me now to where I am today, a very happy person living in a quaint and lovely cottage in West Hartford. My brother Joe living nearby and visiting me often.

And here is where I met Joona, my current boyfriend who lives in Finland. We Skype every day, and it’s nothing less than ecstasy to be in touch with him. Again, no sex, but that’s definitely not missed.

Also, Joona is a prodigy, extremely intelligent and an overall beautiful human being. And he’s very creative, a musician who writes his own songs and sings them with his guitar, keyboard and computerized drums.

He’s only 24 and has a bright future ahead of him. I’m 43 years older than him and am making sure he makes new friends, good friends, that will make my departure from this planet easy on him.

~ Ben Gilberti