The Lost World of The Vikings

It’s a tempting title, I know, but this column has nothing to do with Vikings or lost worlds. Well, maybe it has a little to do with my entry into a lost world of my own making.

I’ve been officially divorced for a month. It’s a relief in the sense that I’m no longer at the legal mercy of my now-ex-wife so she is free to destroy herself financially without drowning me, too. I am also free to simply ignore her, which I’ve done and, for the last week at least, she’s done as well. Usually, though, that would mean she’s plotting something. On another level, it’s sad because there should have been some way to keep the marriage, the partnership, from careening into the Abyss. Maybe I don’t know how to love and am horribly selfish. I know that I very defensive, but that’s a part of my pathology (see many previous mentions here) and if my “significant other” knows about it and then exploits it – what would you call that? The finger-pointing will likely go on forever but, like most gossip, it’s busywork.

Here’s the thing – I realize that I am very, very alone. At least, it seems so. Starting with family: my mother is dead, my father’s insane, my brother never liked me (so what my father had been saying for my whole life was rock-solid true: sorry, Dad, for doubting you, but it just seemed, well, insane) and now that my mother is so much ash, he no longer has any reason to pretend, my ex-wife (number two) is committed to her paranoid fantasy of my horrid existence, which is too bad because the promise of staying mad forever is more proof of insanity and my daughter isn’t all that interested (at times, like I didn’t text or talk to her today,) My friend, J, seems to have lost my number and my gay friend Bob, er, Tim, who was starting to ramp up with me recently after a long quiet period has kinda evaporated, limiting himself to a one-line e-mail every three days. Okay, he has a good excuse as he’s been out of work for six months and that is not so good. I cut my girlfriend off at the knees, sort of, because of all that’s going on with me in terms of staging my deadlines and she is understandably extremely upset that I haven’t made any time to see her to the point of, for all practical purposes, dumping me. (Unless she’s already dating someone else, I figure I have a week or two before it’s totally blown and that works with my schedule. C’mon: I know you’re reading this.)

But what really drove it home was something my “boss” said to me, in a rather offhand way, the other day. He asked me if I could work late. I thought, what, working until 1 AM everyday isn’t working late? He said, “Well, it’s not as if someone is missing you.” He’s not a native speaker of English, so I understood what he meant, meaning that I have no schedule to keep where I would be worrying someone by being late without contact due to the late hour at which he was asking. But what he said was acutely affecting. My heart sank. I visually imagined myself sitting in front of my 42″ LCD TV, sucking down a 38 cent cup of Maruchan Instant Lunch, shrimp flavoured (all the flavours taste like they’re Salt Flavoured) and simply dropping dead of a heart attack, not to be discovered for three days, already bloated and rotting. He is absolutely right. And my the size of things, right now, at this moment in time, at this major dip in my PSI, or Personal Stock Index, I am specifically and completely, totally and exactly alone.

I’m not a really social person. Kindly note the title of this column. I can busy myself ad infinitum. But, really, this is not such a good situation. I like interaction with other humans. I like to share my pedantic opinions and I like to make people laugh. I really like to listen to people, too and I take great pride in helping them say what they mean to say by offering good questions that lead them in the direction they may not yer know they are going until they get there.

If my disposal from aforementioned girlfriend relationship is permanent, then I’m a ghost. “He was a quiet, older man. No one ever came over to his apartment. We though he might have gone away for a few days until we realized his car was still parked behind the house.”

It’s depressing entered a Lost World, or the World of the Lost. But even that phrase suggests that there are other lost souls lurking about. Heck, maybe we can get together for some wine and cheese and form our own society of Misanthropes. In the local paper’s social announcements, “Meets Wednesdays and Fridays at the Old Andover School House. Dress is casual. BYOB.” I’m comin’ up so you better get this party started . . .