Almost a Requiem for My Soul (Saved by the Bell)

If I heard music, it immediately fostered a forlorn bout of paralyzing melancholy that  I felt similar to dual ice picks that were slowly penetrating my ears and delving into my brain.

Note:  I firmly believe that the “easy listening” elevator variety type of music has the same effect on sane folks also.  Floor, please?

I prayed.  I begged for relief. Nothing and no one meant anything to me—not even me.  My search for meaning was pointless and fruitless. My life’s compass was missing its needle and the Northstar was hidden within the clouds of confusion and doubt.  I was just a ghost coasting. There goes Lucifer again with his whispers and siren call full of empty promises.

I tried to read but the words had no meaning.  I would read sentences over and over and then over again for context that eluded me of any meaningful grasp of understanding.  The New York Times puzzle looked like hieroglyphics to me.  No Rosetta stone available.

Maybe I would just run through the house and rip off the mattress tags “under penalty of prosecution”?  Live on the razor’s edge and laugh into the face of death?  Drink milk past its expiration date.  Double dare me!

My  ability of concentration was really a mystery wrapped within that puzzle inside that enigma thing that Churchill talked about. Concentration eluded me at every turn.  Puzzlement prevailed.  Find that corner in that round room Gumshoe.

I slept fitfully in hopeless dreams that my reality was just a nightmare, an allusion, and that a bright joyful morning would come. That “wished for“ joyful morning never arrived.  I still waited. Darkness enveloped the light, the reaper slowly crept forward with my personal invite.  The front door was unlocked and the welcome mat was out front.

My nightmare was all too real.  I lived it during my waking hours while I drifted aimlessly between vanishing islands named lucidity.  Never gaining a sure foothold on “terra firma” that wasn’t that firma, to begin with.

I  could taste my living nightmare.  It was the sour stomach bile that would pool up inside of my mouth. It would eventually choke my throat and then jar me awake into a violent fit of wrenching.   Make it a double “Listerine”, dry, barkeep!

I desperately needed a way out.  There was no 911 for the sorry likes of me.  I grew to hate my existence. Jean-Paul Satre’s “No Exit” was my bedside reading.

I knew from my “Baltimore Catechism” days of parochial schooling that suicide was a mortal sin and it damns you to an eternity in hell of endless pain and suffering. I wondered if even fantasizing about suicide was a sin in itself? But that endless suffering and eternal torment were happening now, right this very second in my fevered thinking mind.

Funny, I thought.  I was always “Mister Fixit”.  The “man” with the plan, the solution, the answers, and solutions for everyone else except for me!  Sorry “Officer Friendly” was MIA Gumshoe please leave a recorded message. In my four decades of police work, I counseled, consoled, comforted, advised, admonished, countless victims, witnesses, and even some helpless suspects.  Hugs were not uncommon nor shared tears either for Gumshoe.

Bill Shakespeare‘s “Merchant of Venice” gave voice to Shylock who explained to Salerio: “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Indeed we do Mister Shylock.  You deserve your pound of flesh from Antonio.

I learned to express my sincere compassion and heartfelt empathy for all the real victims, the young, the old, the infirm, the weak, and the most vulnerable.

Ultimately, the needle inside Gumshoe’s personal gauge for compassion and empathy pointed to “empty” when I needed it for me.  My tank was bone dry. Yes, we have no bananas! My emotions were securely locked up and actually “frozen” deep within my personal vault with a combination that I no longer could remember nor wanted to recall.  I became an island of one denizen. The searing pain inside of my shattered heart was beyond agony, beyond torment, beyond this existence that I now dreaded with every breath I drew.  Think of “The Man in the Iron Mask”.

My head held memories “captive” with no ransom possible.  So many memories of the not so recent past of my personal and deep happiness, of love and joy, and of thanksgiving with spontaneous laughter engulfed in contentment and bliss.  Blessings abounded unfettered.  Alleluia!  God, family, and country were my priorities. These cherished memories now mocked me and served only to increase my torture as they danced across my brainpan.

“What was, was no longer to be.”  The loss was truly unbearable and completely devastating.  Gumshoe on the rocks.  Dead men tell no tales as the morticians embalm their memories. My head throbbed.  These heart-wrenching memories became a never-ending stampede of pain that echoed and echoed across the caverns of my living cells.

It was personal.  My existence was nonessential and utterly worthless.  I could no longer function on any physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual level. My soul had been literally (in my mind’s eye) ripped from my being.   The depths of my depression drew me deeper and deeper into the abyss of complete darkness. Circling the drain of despair.

What caused this personal tragedy?  This emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual morass?  My flight of fantasy? A woman who was my wife of whom I loved beyond this life told me in a plain, unemotional voice that she wanted “more” and that I was not enough for her after twenty-four years of our marriage. She then asked me if we should stop for groceries on the way home?  Just another day I guess in her way of thinking.

Ridiculous mental note: “Other than the theater shooting Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play”?

I was blindsided and absolutely numb.  I could not initially speak.  My technicolored world faded to a river of black. I asked her what was her “more”?  She did not have an answer. I asked her if there was someone else?  She said somewhat elusively that “she didn’t have the time”.  I asked her how about our son.  She just said, “He’ll be okay”. I asked her about God?  She said that it was “none of my business”.  How about counseling? Absolutely not she smugly replied as we drove into the night.

Note:  She announced all of this while we were driving home (me the passenger) after leaving our son’s 19th birthday dinner.  Thankfully, we left him with his girlfriend as they went elsewhere for his continued celebration.

Note:  I often wonder why she chose my son’s birthday to make her pronouncement?  A date that I can never forget. Was it calculated?  I hope it was not.  I forgive her nevertheless.

She was just so matter of fact and “cold” as she told me that I never knew how to love and that I alone had to decide on just how much pain I wanted to feel.  The choice was mine. She took no responsibility for this mortal wound to my soul. “How about some more fire scarecrow?” A quote from the bad witch of Oz came to my mind.  I guess movies can really imitate real life?

My following physical response was a torrent of tears that burned my face. It started to rain outside with the inner storm erupting inside her BMW. I could not stop the cascade of tears or compose myself.  I lost my dignity.  I told her that I loved her, our son, our small family, and our life.  How can I fix this?  What can do?  My chest hurt. I blubbered on non- sequitur.  How can I make sense of something that destroyed my sense? Regain my balance in a world spinning off its axis? Confusion reigned in my lost thoughts of chaos going at warp speed Scotty.

What about our beautiful lakeside home; our financial security; me, her devoted and faithful husband; blessings of good health; a talented son with a promising future; close-knit family church friends; wonderful and beautiful travel adventures? Crickets. None of it mattered to her.  She uttered something I never heard her ever say, “I don’t give a s***”! I thought to myself, this is not my wife.  I don’t know this person. She told me to give her time and space to think.  She promised me that divorce was on the table if I did not leave our home. I left a week later with my heart broken and my life in a death spiral tailspin.  A suitcase full of “false hope” to be sure.  My inner voice told me that was being manipulated, but I did not care.  I wanted our life back on her terms.

I returned several days later to an empty home void of a note and her personal possessions and then some. Our son was also gone, spending time with his friends.  He and his friends helped her abscond several days earlier I learned from a nosey neighbor. I felt the three things that can destroy your life:  betrayal, rejection, and abandonment.  All neatly together and deposited with delight by Satan into my soul.

My estranged wife never did return nor did she ever contact me.  A year later around Christmas time, I was served divorce papers. My son eventually moved out and the family home sold quickly.  Sellers motivated indeed. Before those damn divorce papers were served, I was still trying to maintain the empty household and gain some semblance of “tranquility”. I stopped doing my Taekwondo because I was taking out my anger on my sparring partners and my assigned students. I knew that I had the potential to actually seriously injure someone unintentionally. Transference for sure!  The black belt I wore always demonstrate and demanded absolute control. I buried myself in my detective casework as a distraction and I had to force myself to fire on all eight cylinders.

I always loved police work but now it lost its charm and challenge.   Helping others was my M.O.,  but I was unable to help myself.  “Pull me out of the game coach, I can’t do it for the Gipper any longer!