The Frenchman in my Head

Last night I was reading Guy de Maupassant again (19^th century French writer who went mad after contracting syphilis) for the first time since undergrad days, and I came upon the following line in “The Horla”

“Where do these mysterious influences come from that change our happiness into despondency and our confidence into distress?... I wake up full of joy with songs welling up in my throat.  I go down to the water; and suddenly, after a short walk, I come back disheartened...?

And the first thing I think is that de Maupassant must live in my head and be describing my current state of mind.  I can wake up on any given day feeling optimistic, certain that I can survive the rejection and the loss of my husband’s love, feeling that I am stronger, better, more alive now that I have crawled out from under the weight of believing I was a failure.  I will think to myself “I must call my mother later and let her hear life in my voice again.  It’s been too long since we’ve had a telephone conversation that did not include my tears at some point.”  And then I’ll grab a coat I haven’t worn for a while to take the dog for some exercise.  I walk taller, my legs feel stronger, my feet navigate with certainty, I’ll have a smile on my face... until I reach my hand into a coat pocket for a Kleenex and stumble on a movie stub from the film festival 2 years ago, or a credit card receipt from a dinner we had somewhere, or most recently: the tear-off section of a ticket to the last play we saw together (The Overwhelming at Berkeley Street Theatre) just 2 weeks before we separated. I replay the tapes in my head.  Walking from the parking lot to the theatre, did we hold hands?  Did we talk about the play on the drive home?  Was he already planning then to end it?  Was he counting the days? Biding his time?  How could I have imagined that within a week I’d be packing up my belongings, scanning the internet for apartment rentals, booking a mover, rocking back and forth on the laundry room floor in tears while he looked at me and said “I have to go to work now.” Poof! With the theatre ticket in my hand, my earlier optimism will have vaporized and I will suddenly be sucked back through the vortex into a depression.  There are no tears when this happens,  just a heavy ache- square in the middle of my chest, that feels like a cardiac arrest.  I return home from my walk with my dog, thinking how welcome death would be, how blessed would be the freedom from that terrible ache.  And then I put the dog in the crate, put on a different coat and drive to work.