I am sitting here on the couch, drinking a fine single malt Scotch, trying to catch up on reading all my favorite weblogs that for some reason chose to update this evening after several days of relative inactivity. These new entries were all posted in the brief period between when I left work this afternoon and when I arrived home from the bar this evening, a period of less than four hours.
As I sit here on the couch, listening to Elvis Costello sing “Alison”, an agreeable melancholy steals its way over me in the same way that the warmth from the single malt washes over me after the first few sips. Melancholy can be pleasant in an odd way, when listening to songs that make you think of opportunities lost, avenues not taken, choices not made, fears heeded rather than ignored. Pleasant melancholy can arise when the chimera of “what could have been” overcomes the reality of “what would have been”. Choices are a part of life, and rejection and loss are an inherent part of choosing.
Melancholy can be pleasant, in the same way that the relaxation from alcohol can be pleasant, and it can be just as seductively addictive as well. It is easier than one might imagine to become enamored of melancholy, become lost in it and wallow in the sadness as a pig wallows in the mud until eventually the soul becomes lost in the black pit of despair.
I have taken that road to the black pit of despair, and I have scrabbled and crawled my way back out again. The road to the black pit of despair was surprisingly easy to take, and surprisingly difficult to turn away from, at least it was for me. One of my earliest memories is of me looking out my bedroom window, feeling a sadness that was far too immense for a 4 year old to comprehend.
My mother was diagnosed as depressive bipolar shortly after I got married and moved away from home to go to graduate school in Physics. She had been bipolar during my entire childhood, but during the 1960s and '70s mental illness was not quickly recognized, and when it was such a stigma was associated with the illness that it was discussed rarely if at all, and never with children.
As an adult, I can now recognize some of my earliest memories of my mother as her having episodes of extreme depression. I didn't understand at the time, and I'm not sure I am happy that I understand now.
I got married two days before I moved from Memphis to Phoenix to attend graduate school at Arizona State University. I married the woman I had dated for five years; we met when we were both entering undergraduate school at Christan Brothers College. Since both our last names started with “G”, we were in the same peer-counseling group that the college had set up to aid freshmen in adjusting from high school to college.
She was engaged to someone at the time we met, so I would not ask her to the various functions that were set up for the freshmen. Eventually, she broke off her engagement so that she could be with me. The man she was engaged to eventually got married to a woman who went to his church, and they had a child together. That child was killed when the man in a fit of his characteristic rage struck the child in the crib when it was crying. All the members of the man's church formed a united front supporting the man when the death was investigated.
I took five years to complete undergraduate school because I had to take a year off to work and earn enough money to pay for the rest of my education. I switched from the private school Christan Brothers College to the public school Memphis State University. In the process, I had to change majors from Engineering Physics to Physics, because the Engineering Physics degree was not offered at my new school, and switching to Electrical Engineering would have cost me an additional year of college.
I discovered much to my chagrin after changing majors that a BS in Physics rarely gained one a good job, unlike Electrical Engineering. A graduate degree was required. I stayed in Physics with a new plan to go to graduate school. I looked forward to going to graduate school in a new city. I had gone to college in Memphis because I had let my fears counsel me, and I chose not to take any of the many opportunities I had to attend college elsewhere.
I still remember when she said, “So when is the wedding date?” She assumed we would marry before I left for graduate school; she didn't want to take the chance that I would find someone else when I left on my own, or even worse, discover my independence. She defined herself by whomever she was in a relationship with, and I was the best candidate she had ever dated. She was not and is not evil, but she had the disadvantage of being raised in a family with a Turkish father and a repressed Southern mother. She was (and still is) the classic passive-aggressive.
Why did I marry her? At the time I thought I would never find someone else who wanted to marry me. It was a mistake. I didn't understand that she had her own agenda, and that agenda had more to do with her self image than with our happiness.
After earning my MS in Physics (and being told that I had written a thesis worthy of a Ph.D. by my committee, but that is another story), and my wife saying she was “tired of being poor,” I managed to find a job in the semiconductor industry that was in the Pacific Nothwest, an area that I wanted to move to after the oppressive heat and dryness of Phoenix.
I was sad the entire time I was in graduate school, I just didn't realize it.
When I started my new job, I met Lynn. She was very intelligent, very passionate, very opinionated, and very independent. I fell in love with her, despite the fact that I was married. I never did anything about it; I never even kissed her, despite many opportunities. She did show me that I deserved to be treated better than I was being treated by my wife, the woman who supposedly loved me. That was when the trouble started, because I had discovered my independence.
To be continued...
Posted by Jack at 23:35 on Tuesday 27 January 2004 | Trackbacks (3)..thanks, Jack...very well said...
Posted by: Eric at January 28, 2004 06:03 AM