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I am finally watching the final commemorative episodes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown nearly two years after his suicide ~ a suicide which did not surprise me at the time.

Parts Unknown was one of my favorite programs as it allowed me to get a less filtered view of the World via the perspective of this one time chef and heroin addict. I like the world. I have a degree in Political Science with a History minor and spend most of my casual reading on historical topics. I am also a person in recovery whose old solutions brought me to a place of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

As such, I envied Anthony Bourdain who was able to make a living traveling across the globe, dining on the best prepared foods, while engaging the social, political, and human natures of culture. I wish that I could be him. And he could drink copious amounts of liquor. I once wanted to write him and ask him how as an ex-heroin addict he was able to main such a lifestyle.

What I also perceived from time to time was emptiness in his eyes. I never knew Anthony Bourdain in person, only the persona exhibited in the final edit of each program. I have no idea on what he thought and felt internally. I am also well aware of my ability to project my own experiences, thoughts and feelings onto the personality that is presented to me. So when I speak of the emptiness in Bourdain’s eyes and I well aware that I am projecting my own potential empty soul upon him.

So I delayed watching the final season until recently. I delayed because though there is sorrow in his death there is also anger related to another person’s suicide. And this anger is selfish. Selfish in how could he deny me the opportunity to experience the world through him? How could he end an outward status of envy and success without any explanations? Why are humans so complex and imperfect?

So I put time between his death and his final season of episodes to temper the anger and resurrect the admiration of this imperfect man’s ability to touch my soul at numerous levels. I do not know the essences of his soul that led him to his decisive moment. But my experience in recovery allows me to transform my confusion and anger into a sense of compassion and gratitude for the impact he made whilst he was alive.