A Certain Recipe for Bringing Sadness Onto Yourself

Our story has gotten so convoluted and melodramatic, I hesitate to write about it for fear of looking like a complete fool or boring the hell out of you.

Last night was the one of the loneliest nights of my entire life. I can't remember a time I have ever felt so utterly and entirely desolate, helpless, resourceless, and uncertain. I went to the gym after work, returned to my empty room in this empty house, where I live with three strangers, and played poker till I got tired. I won 71 cents. I called Marie around ten and she didn't answer, and she didn't call me back, and we hadn't spoken since I called her after work. I wondered if she had gone out tonight. My god, I am living a country song. How utterly pathetic.

This week our ever-changing fortunes took a turn for the worse. We were completely unsuccessful finding a new place, and Marie decided she would stay with her daughter for the time being. Monday night she picked me up after work and we spent the evening together, watched the debate together and had dinner, made love. I was on top of the world, and I was on top of the world again Wednesday when she spent the night.

But on Thursday something awful happened. Someone at work made a false report that Marie had been peering into the break room windows Monday afternoon, and that after my shift she and I had had an altercation in the parking lot. Because of our previous trouble she's banned from the property. But nothing in the report was true. Marie sat quietly in the car waiting for me, on the street outside our building off the property, and when she arrived I tapped on the window of the Vista Cruiser and she let me in and we kissed sweetly and drove to Winco.

But lies have almost as much power as the truth, and doubt has almost as much power as faith. The false report did its damage. I got called into the conference room for a talk. Pulled off the floor. Utterly embarrassing. The rumor mill is no doubt churning. I'm a deeply private person (which makes this blog an extraordinary contradiction in terms, but I write it from the perspective I am writing to one person, my closest and most trusted friend, and that's the way I ask you to read it). Being singled out, being asked personal questions and made to explain is very painful to me. They asked me if Marie had been there on Monday. They asked me if she was driving my car. They asked me if I was meeting her for lunch. They told me she'd been peering in the breakroom, and someone had seen us fighting outside. Neither charge was true, but the truth didn't matter. The lie would win. The lie would isolate us and divide us. They told me the company security officer would contact Marie and instruct her a restraining order was in place.

The officer did more than that. He shared the false report with Marie. And he told Marie who had made it. It was one of my coworkers. A woman. He gave her her name. And now Marie is convinced that there was something going on between me and that woman, even though we have no relationship at all, never have, have not done so much as share a cup of coffee or eat lunch. We are cordial in the normal way coworkers are but in no way the least bit intimate.

Doubt and suffering ensued. Cold silence. Tense phone calls. Back and forth, and old suspicions and old pain, and last night, no response. No call, no answer, just four walls and 489th place, a profit of 71 cents, busting out with a pair of jacks, a big stack with ace-king turns an ace with all my chips in the center. The same old story.

I'm in a completely vulnerable and ridiculous position right now. I couldn't feel more foolish or alone. I woke up this morning at seven, even though it's a Saturday, empty and forlorn. I gave Marie my car. The agreement was she could drive it for a few months, until she got on her feet. I did it because I loved her, wanted to show her I would do anything to help her. I gave notice here, because we'd talked about moving in together, being a family again. I wanted to show her I was completely committed to her, giving her all my trust and devotion. I thought I was making that as clear and complete and unwavering as it can possibly be.

I left a sad self-pitying message for her this morning, and an hour has passed and she hasn't answered. I don't want to feel this bad anymore. But how many times have I said that? No car, no wife and no home. That's a pretty ridiculous set of circumstances. How can a grown man make such a mess of things? All I wanted was to love one person and be loved by them. She and I have had some wonderful times together, but our demons always win.

When I finish this entry I'll get on Craigslist and look for a new living space. It will have to be something within 15 blocks of 47th or the light rail line, something with an internet connection, with a reasonable level of privacy, safety and cleanliness. There was so much I liked about this place. The rent was reasonable and the location was good. I liked the neighborhood. The roommates were pleasant and kept to themselves, and my landlord, Richard, was becoming a friend. I genuinely liked him. He was soulful and introspective, and the conversations we had always went to the core of things, more than the obscuring dishonest chitchat with which men usually clutter up their interpersonal lives. We talk so often about sports and food, because we're afraid to look unmanly, afraid to show the doubts, fears or questions we hold inside. We sell each other short.

I love Marie and I always will. But I don't want to feel this bad anymore. I don't want to hurt like this, and wonder where she was last night, or who was buying her drinks. That's a foolish way to live, a certain recipe for bringing sadness onto yourself.