February 25, 1994
"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Since my college days I have kept a notebook of interesting quotes - flipping through it last night I came across the above quote from Nietzsche. My guess is that I wrote it down about twenty years ago.
The quote is also the silver lining to my perilous predicament. Since I am engulfed in hopelessness, I know that the tortures of the torments I suffer will bot be prolonged. For on the third Sunday in May I rendezvous with relief and redemption - my reward, release from relentless reality.
I have noticed lately that my physical condition is deteriorating - it's as if my emotional condition has somehow overpowered, suppressed, any concern for my physical well being. Physically, I am weakening.
I have difficulty sleeping, I wake up at least a half dozen times a night. A night's sleep has become a series of naps. I have pills that will remedy this situation, but they are needed for a far more important task. Am losing weight and have not been eating well for the past three months - have gradually loss the desire to eat.
Slowly, through emotional pain my body has been sleeping away a day at a time. It really doesn't concern me that much, but I must admit that I don't want to die before my time.
When I look at myself objectively, I can understand why Maggie wants a divorce. I have grown into a wretched and woebegone man. Time has aged me beyond my years and has molded me into a person even I no longer recognize - a metamorphosis of spirit and intellect, of body and soul.
Depending on wind or whim, my feelings and opinions of Maggie are either complex or clear, consistent or contradictory, complementary or condescending, callous or consolatory. One minute she's a charlatan, the next a cherub. So be it!
Today, at this moment, I find myself on her side, as foolish and as far fetched as that may sound. The divorce is best for her, for she will no longer be burdened with an irresponsible and irredeemable husband.
My doomsday reckoning with death by suicide has never been a question of if, but always a statement of when. And with the divorce, there will be no role for Maggie to play as the gratuitous grieving black dressed widow. My funeral will not be an event she'll attend, nor will her presence be missed - then again, neither will mine.
We are different people today than we were when we met, when we married. Our life together that began so full of promise and joy, now ends in emptiness and sadness. Our love is in seclusion - having sought from the storm that now surrounds us.
We have become unrecognizable to one another, superfluous strangers. I will die knowing tjat Maggie hates me and I do not blame her - for it is far easier and wiser to hate a stranger than someone you love. What my feelings will be toward her at the hour of my death, I do not know - I do not know.
2:00pm - Harborview _ Chatham, MA
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