Part 14 - Sadness

Part 14 – Sadness

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”

– Shakespeare, King Lear

Dimanche came to visit from another School, one where they took French names instead of Chinese and Japanese.

She found Qindao and Tashiki sitting on what they had adopted as “their log” in the Water Garden. She bowed and offered her greetings and respect. The men rose and did likewise.

Together they watched the ducks glide across the pond, and the koi-carp schools weave the yin-yang of nature under the surface. It was a time of deep contemplation.

The sensei at her school taught Dimanche to be as observant and curious as the Master did for the men. She found a point in Tashiki about which she wanted to know more.

“Tashiki,” she started, “why are you sad all the time?”

He looked at her, and she held his gaze without doubt, and without judgment. He felt from her a desire to understand. Qindao, on the other hand, looked at his friend with his own sad irony on his face.

Tashiki dropped his eyes to his sandals.

“There is much to tell.”

“So it is for all of us.” Dimanche was persistent, like the young Bento, but with more tact. “But why for you is the sadness so heavy?”

Qindao nudged his friend. “Tell her. Start with Byoujixyaku. Oishii got you to talk about her, a little bit. You need to tell this tale.”

Behind his steady gaze, the hot sensation of welling tears came to Tahiki's eyes.

“Dimanche, first let me thank you for asking. The honor is in the telling and I ask that you accept my gift with the grace and wisdom you have already shown. Second, sadness is built in to me. I have lived with depression since adolescence. As naturally as I breathe and walk, I feel less joyful than most other people. It is part of the reason I am here. This is my refuge and my school. I find peace here most days, and I find paths, or hints of paths, to happiness here.

“But there is a particular event that defines the weight of my sadness more than anything else.

“I was married before, if you believe that. Twice even. And a girlfriend with whom I lived for nearly ten years. I had purposefully and strongly resisted the custom of marrying straight out of college. My relationships there were tumultuous and fraught with too-heightened emotions.

“Some time after I'd been on my own, I reconnected with one of the girlfriends from college. It was supposed to be a normal, friendly, non-threatening, kind of gathering of friends. Instead, I fell in love with her all over again. There is wisdom in not going back, but I did. I thought it would work. I had what I thought was a moment of clarity where I could extract myself from the relationship I was in and make a better life for myself with her.

“Before you start with the armchair analysis, know that I have addressed in myself all the problems of going back to someone old, starting something new before ending the something old, rushing forward without any time to grieve and reset. I was young, headstrong, and foolish. All these things add to the weight of sadness that you ask about.

“She and I made a good run of it. We were together three years while I was in graduate school and after, then another four years married while we worked on our careers. The devolution of that relationship is for another story. Except to say that it set the stage for Byoujixyaku.

“I knew Byoujixyaku for many years professionally. We spoke frequently and bonded with a good friendship. I learned of her family and her situation. She had a young daughter and was divorcing from her father. She had a medical condition that was causing her intense pain and fainting. No one could explain it. But, she was always all smiles, fun, engaging, interested in the same things I was interested in. She taught me about things that were new to me and important to her. She learned from me the things I felt important.

“Until one summer something clicked. I was visiting her home town for a corporate event by her company. We became inseparable. All week long we were together, and all week long I resisted every urge to take her into my arms and kiss her. For all the times we were alone, we barely touched each other.

“But I could not get her out of my head.

“The summer continued into the fall. Byoujixyaku and I continued to speak frequently for work issues, but then started finding excuses to talk to each other outside of work. Keep in mind this was in the era before text messages, and the only reason I had a cell phone was for my consulting business and I never used it.

“We would cheat phone calls in the middle of the night. We would turn professional calls into phone sex during the day. It was an emotional mess.

“All the while, my marriage was falling apart. My wife and I drifted apart. We didn't agree on much of anything any longer. It's not like we didn't care about each other. I was, as noted before, young and foolish. So was she.

“The company started to recruit me and Byoujixyaku made a strong case to hire me away from my consulting business. Take me into their city, into their work, take me into her arms.

“I took the chance. My wife and I moved there. I knew that I was unhappy where I was, and I knew that the marriage was in trouble. I took the chance that even though I was running into the arms of this other woman, that I could somehow find the space to determine what to do about my marriage.

“That was the first and second bargain that I made with myself in this misadventure.

“I convinced myself that I could go there, right there near to, working with Byoujixyaku and not be affected by what I felt for her. I convinced myself that I could work out the dissolution or continuation of my marriage there. It was exceptionally unfair of me to do that, and there starts the weight of the sadness. I started to hurt, deeply and irrevocably, the woman I love.

“Eventually, the unavoidable happened. My wife found an e-mail. It's not even like she was snooping. We shared a computer. She went to send an e-mail on her account, but had to use the shared software to do it. While sending hers, a racy one came in to me from Byoujixyaku. Yup. She read it.

“I was on the road on a customer site. When I spoke to her that evening, she laid it out for me. I had better finish up my work and come home.

“This was the next bargain I made with myself. I said that I could continue a friendship with Byoujixyaku without interfering with the repair of the marriage. She would have none of that, of course. She asked for a divorce. I agreed. Less than four months after we moved there together, she moved out.

“My bargain had failed. My sadness gained weight.

“I could not afford to live in the apartment any more. Byoujixyaku had rented a house for her and her daughter. I moved in with them. My next bargain was that I could be a good room mate even if it came with benefits, and that I could clear my head of the divorce before continuing on with Byoujixyaku.

“Looking back, it's clear to me that she wanted me to move much more quickly than that. And she got me to. A year after the divorce, I asked her to marry me, and a year after that we did.

“The next set of bargains were that I could get a second chance at being a husband. I could be more attentive, more caring, more in tune with her needs. I could be a decent step-father and maybe, just maybe, even a decent father to our own child when it happened. I had never wanted children. She convinced me that I did. More bargaining. More weight.

“We purchased a beautiful house together. A design flaw was that the computer room was well separated from the rest of the living area. As much time as I spent on the computer made her feel that I was ignoring her. As much time as I spent with her made me feel that I couldn't play on the computer and pursue my profession and hobby.

“More bargaining. More weight.

“Still, we were having fun. Our lives developed, and we took care of each other. Her pain and fainting finally came to a critical point, and I took her to the emergency room. Finally a diagnosis was possible because her kidney had separated itself into two noticeable sections.

“I took care of her during her operation and recovery. Maybe I could have spent more time with her in the hospital. I felt like I had been there enough. Maybe with a different woman I would have never wanted to leave. Young. Foolish. Bargaining. Weight.

“What I did do for her, though, was buy her lavish gifts. I was making good money and had no expenses. I bought her the antique ring she wanted. I paid for a great Winter Ball themed party for the wedding. I brought her jewelry and gifts from the places I went for work.

“The company in one of its moments of insanity fired her and kept me. She did not take that well at all. It put me in a difficult position of standing up for her at work and standing up for work at home. More bargaining.

“She wanted another child. She convinced me that I was ready to be a father. I believed her. More bargaining.

“The end started this way.

“The company, the same one which had just fired her, won an important contract in the city where I had lived. My boss offered me the position of being the on-site manager for the transition. It all made sense, I knew the place and the people. I could work as a solo performer. It would be only a year, and I would be home every other weekend.

“That was three months after the wedding. Byoujixyaku wanted to be pregnant. Byoujixyaku wanted me at home. With her. Not back in the city that she admittedly loved too, but did not want me back there.

“More bargaining. She was inconsolable.

“Starting a month later, I moved and started with the client. Again, that requires a story of its own. The summary is that work daily was an endless assault on me personally and professionally with a refrain of Your Software Sucks, Your Company Sucks, and You Suck. It was not healthy. I persevered. More bargaining. More weight.

“Home life also turned sour. Phone calls to Byoujixyaku also became the refrain of Your Company Sucks, Your Software Sucks, and You Suck.

“I had no escape. The weight builds, and the bargains start to fail.

“Scant two months later, a friend tells me she is auditioning my replacement. In our bed.

“I came home for one of the weekends I was to come home, she didn't come home until the day after, not wearing her wedding ring. The weight builds.

“I had maintained my composure somewhat. I even washed the sheets from the bed. How's that for a misplaced bargain?

“We went to a marriage counselor. Her only position was divorce. I had not bother coming home any more. I was unwelcome in my own house.

“My bargains began to fall. The weight builds.

“Other pieces of the episode fall into place. She had her new boyfriend take one of my cats to the vet to be put down. The other one she let live. More weight.

“Nine months after that, we were divorced. Married for 15 months total. All failure. I bought her two different houses. I bought her a new car (that I still drive, thank you). I forgave her her infidelity. None of it was enough. She brought the child of her new boyfriend to the divorce proceedings. I was thrown out and all my bargains for a better life evaporated and left behind only an impossible weight of terrible sadness that I still cannot completely leave behind me.

“She left me with that emotional wound, and thousands of dollars of debt, no home to return to, and no job to come back to.”

Dimanche wiped away a tear.

Tashiki continued. “My city was attacked while I watched the smoke rise out my window. My brother died. And I finally quit my job for what I thought was going to be a better adventure. That, too, deserves its own story.”

Tashiki breathed heavily. Qindao gave him a big hug.

Dimanche appeared devastated.

“How have you survived?”

“I nearly did not. Nikki-chan saved me. I was ready to end it. Reboot. Reset. She took me in at her place for a weekend and made sure I was never alone. She has my gratitude forever for that above all the other reasons she is a remarkable person whom I continue to love deeply.

Dimanche stood and bowed. “May I hug you?”

Tashiki smiled and held out his arms.

“No matter my own struggles,” he told her while accepting her embrace, “I do have care and love for my friends. That seems to be my one last and only bargain. It seems to work.”

Dimanche held him and would not let go. Qindao wrapped his arms around them both.

Thus endeth the lesson, let us meditate upon it.

Sounds of Silence, by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls"

And whispered in the sounds of silence