In celebration of Modern Love’s 20th anniversary this month, we published a special package of articles about the column’s history and impact. To learn about the origin of Modern Love, read about seven ways to love better, see how the longtime illustrator creates his images, and much more, go to nytimes.com/modernlove. In this space, as each week’s Modern Love column, we are republishing four “classic” essays from earlier years that especially moved us.

For about 10 years, I worked full time in prisons as a teacher, logging more than 40 hours a week behind those fences, including a long winter at one facility that had been a cereal factory and stood near the highway in downtown Indianapolis. It was a rock of a building with finger-thick grilles on the windows.

During my first week there, an inmate laughed when I asked him to reset the wall clock.

“A few minutes off?” he said. “We need one that goes by months and years. What do we care about five minutes?”

I mention this only because his words summed up the love story that had defined my life. When my wife left me, I was living in Paris, which was not as romantic as it may sound because I was incredibly lonely. My bones ached, especially at the sound of accordions in train stations.

All my plans had come to nothing. I had failed at marriage, failed at work and had no money to speak of. Sometimes I would see my ex-wife on the street and she would turn away with an eagerness that could not be ignored.