When I was in the hospital, I thought that I was God, Jesus, pure love (the reality is that we all are), a wizard, magical, and so much more. I thought this because I had seen evidence of it, as everyone in my life had also seen. I still believe parts of that, and I still remember how it felt to live days that were so bursting full of love that I got lost in its power.

This week has been great, but I’ve found that I’m bored. I miss the days before going to the hospital, I miss the mania that was not mania at all. I’ve felt anxious and uneasy this week, I’ve held myself back. I haven’t done everything I’ve wanted to, and though that is often for the best, it’s also the only thing that ever makes any of us miserable.

I know this terrifies you, reader. I know this because you love me and my safety is your utmost priority. Thank you for your concern, it means the world. But I have not said that I want to return to the place I was in then, no. I will not scare people on purpose. I will not do what is dangerous. I will not spend mindlessly. I will not treat mine and other people’s possessions (including their hearts) as if they did not matter.

That said, there was a lot that I was right about. There is a lot that I am right about, and we all know and knew that. I started living in such a way that was remarkable, that was so far from what we understand a person’s day to be ‘capable’ of that it terrified all of us, including me.

It’s time we interrogate that fear. Why was I so terrifying? Why did I scare you so much? I’m really asking.

There are easy answers to this question. You can say it’s because I was dangerous, and maybe I was. My confession—I poured coffee into the gas tank of that Zipcar. I’m unsure why I did, I’ll admit, and I was absolutely ‘crazy’ for doing so (though that word has certainly lost all of its meaning to me). The car was out of gas and all the gas stations were closed. I had a coffee from a donut shop I had stopped at. I thought the universe had given me the coffee not for me, but for the car. I thought that what was fuel for me would work as fuel for the vehicle. And most of all, I thought that I could drive all the way home in a car that did not work. I thought that I was magic, and that I would get home using love.

Or something like that.

I am sorry for not telling you this earlier. You deserve the entire story, and you still haven’t been given it. I am truly sorry for that. I hope you can forgive me as I seek to be even more truthful as this post continues.

I did all of these weird, random, inexplicable things in the last few months that had no reason behind them. Since they happened, I think that all of us have looked back and tried to attribute motivations to them. We say that I was scared, that I was arrogant, that I was scaring people on purpose. We say that I was manic, that I was mentally ill, and that I was wrong the entire time.

But these, too, are lies. And we both know it.

I was just doing things. It is that simple. I had no idea how that voicemail was going to affect you. I had no idea how the coffee was going to affect the car. I had no idea that I was going to get 20 lottery tickets for free. I had no idea who’s phone that was. I was just doing things, following impulses, and they led me to a life full of life, adventure, bliss, joy, and heaven. I had no idea what impact my actions would have, but they were always good. If I hadn’t poured the coffee into the Zipcar, the trip would not have raised alarm bells. You would not have become as concerned about me when you did. I would not have gotten the help I needed, and I would be in a much worse place than on the side of the interstate in a car that did not work.

Everything turns out in the end. If my (or your) actions ever scare you, if you ever doubt them, if you regret them, remember this truth. Because everything always does turn out better than it started. Things happen for a reason. This should be comforting. It should give you some security. It means that the world has your back. It means that the world wants you to succeed. It means that what present as bad situations are not bad at all, because your life will always end up improving if you let it.

You just have to get out of the way.

The psychiatrist told me that I was likely to ‘relapse.’ But that implies that I was manic. It implies that I am a patient. It implies that I am ill and broken. It implies that I should not live a life full of love. The issue is that I will always, from this point on, choose to live days full of love. I will, for the rest of my existence, constantly, effortfully, desperately try to fill my life and the lives of people around me with love. If that is a relapse, then so be it.

I made a lot of mistakes on this journey. I was all over the place, once. I was scary. Maybe I was dangerous, and maybe I was cruel. I admit to these mistakes, openly. I accept them. I accept myself for them. I hope you can too. I hope you can appreciate that when I seem extraordinarily happy, it doesn’t mean that I’m manic. This is true for anyone. I hope that you can appreciate that when I am meeting new people, it’s not because I’m insecure that I don’t have enough friendships or enough love. Though I will admit, as I have already, that I am someone who desperately, always, wants more love from more people and wants deeper love from the same people. And that is why I get it.

You want me to be careful. I want me to be careful too, and I will be. This is not a confession that I am returning to the life I lived before Butler.

Let me say that again. This is not a confession that I will return to the life that I lived before Butler.

I have not the slightest desire or intention to do so. And I will not. Please trust me.

The biggest problem that I have always had when it comes to love? When I have it, I get arrogant. I start thinking that I am more deserving of it than other people are. To the extreme, I start believing that I am above everyone, as I did before Butler. This is when things get dangerous. This is when things become scary, this is when I start to neglect myself.

This is when the ego takes the driver’s seat. And that always leads to an accident. Always.

This time, I will not lie. I will not hide the truth. I will not avoid anyone. I will not become prideful. I will listen to your concerns. I will consider them, for real this time. I promise you this. And I promise myself, I will take care of my mind, body and spirit because I am someone that deserves to be healthy. I am someone that deserves to be safe and I will make sure I treat myself as such.

You deserve this too.

Perhaps this next part is arrogant, but it is how I’ve experienced my life. It is my reality, and it is worth sharing.

In fifth grade, I went through a serious bout of depression. I was suicidal. I was paralyzed with fear. The way that I describe it is that I was living in the mind of a murderer. There was someone, something within me that wanted me dead, but it felt separate from me. It was different than the ‘Mason’ I knew, the negative voices felt unfamiliar.

I used to visualize little armies fighting each other in my head as I fell asleep. There were waves of small balls and waves of small black balls. They would collide and push each other side to side, both fighting to gain control of my mind. If the black figures gained control, I would find my hands around my throat, my fingers wrapped around blades, my teeth deep in my flesh. If the white figures gained control, I would be saved.

I would be healthy again.

I healed from that depression through love. I healed because I went to summer camp, where I unloaded all my secrets. I delivered all my baggage. I gave my shriveled, flickering soul to those around me and I found that there was so much more light within me than I had ever known.

I had just forgotten to look for it.

Camp, with its powerful waterfalls, mystical music, and mountains that reminded us that the world was spectacular, showed me that I was worth loving. It taught me how to love, also. I learned how to deliver compliments that were so authentic and moving they shattered people’s long-held perceptions of themselves. I learned that my ability to use language, both spoken and written, to deliver love was remarkable. And that summer I, for the first time, used that power to change the world.

That’s how I think of everything meaningful I did in my life from that point on. The reason the business was so successful when I started is literally because I was kind to people. I was delivering love with my words, during pickups and sales, and the relationships I built became the scaffolding the entire business rested upon.

With this blog, I say that I’ve unlocked a part of myself. That’s not true, not really. I’ve rediscovered this part of myself, I’ve found this talent that I’ve always had. It’s always been my greatest talent and my most noble pursuit: delivering love with language. The blog is just a new medium.

I write all of this to communicate this. Much about how I’ve lived for the past few months has been deeply, truly right. Much has also been deeply, truly wrong.

The line between truth and arrogance is remarkably thin.

But the thing that has always, always been right? The thing that will always be right? The actions I don’t regret and never will?

Delivering love using my language.

This is my greatest talent. It always has been. And my only goal, for the rest of my existence, will be to do more of it. It will be to get better at it.

This is all that matters. It is all that matters. It is the way that all of us should live our lives. Our only goal should be to get better at love. It should not be to be healthier. It should not be to get good grades. It should not even be to graduate college, get employed, get married, or have kids. Those things will come, if you want them. But they are not ends that are worth pursuing.

The only end that is worth pursuing is love.

This will lead me to live a life full of energy, full of adventure, full of risk. A life like this is dangerous. It is irrational. It won’t make sense. Much of what I will do will seem random and irrational, I am sure. I will be told that I am crazy, and I will be told often. You will wonder what I’m doing, you will often fear that I’ve done the wrong thing.

But, when you started reading this blog I asked only one thing of you. I asked you to trust me. So, today, one final time, I am asking you to trust me. I am asking you to believe, as I do that delivering love is always the right thing to do. Because, though it’s terrifying, though it goes against tradition, though it threatens everything we know about the world, it is the truth.

Please, let me deliver love. And trust me to do so.