gloom

A friend of mine from my days in New England died in a car wreck early Friday morning. He was a few years younger than me, perhaps not even 25. I can’t say I was surprised, per se; Tim lived a life that was neither safe nor responsible. But I cared for him, and I’m very sorry that he’s gone.

This cast something of a pall over my weekend. I couldn’t stop thinking, at odd moments, “Tim’s dead.” I still laughed and ate and taught and cooked and did what I was supposed to do, without dissolving into grief (that’s not really my style, anyway, not so far), but it was a sorrowful thing to bubble up in my mind every so often.

I came in this morning to immediate email messages from my boss that made me feel angry and inadequate. I worked for two hours on Saturday to catch up from last week’s mess, and still these emails told me that I wasn’t doing enough. Even despite the change in my job, that they fired our secretary and gave me her responsibilities – a move that should have made me feel more secure in the idea that they think I’m doing well here – and the accompanying knowledge of the files and close work with the attorneys, I am still very unhappy here. I feel stuck here, and I don’t feel like I’m working particularly well per my standards, and I am getting more depressed and inert and loath to get out of bed and drive to work as each day passes.

I’m reading a book called Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal. It’s about a woman whose husband dies suddenly in his early forties, and she discovers after his death that he’s had a series of affairs, none of which she’d had any conscious knowledge of. It’s an extremely emotional book, and the author does not come off well, by and large. It’s written well, but the blurbs are a little over-effusive compared to the actual book I’m reading.

The book is putting into my mind the terror of what my life would be like if BF left me suddenly, and that is a sincerely unpleasant experience. I am trying to continue on the thought path to purge the terror, but that’s not really happening, I’m just more fearful and sad about the idea of it as I go on.

The interesting thing about me and this book is that I have no idea how it got into my hands. I put it on my Amazon wish list and MM got it for me for Christmas, but I haven’t the foggiest idea why I wanted to read this book. It’s not my usual thing at all. The only thing I can think of is that it may have been referred to in The Meaning of Wife (at which I’m still plugging away), in some way that made me think it would be a good read. But I have no memory of that. It’s a mystery.

There’s work to be done this morning. And apparently I’m hopeless at the work done in the past. So wish me luck.