Everyone I am close to or love is sad in some way.
I have a friend who was widowed several years ago when her husband died, in his early forties, from cancer. They had what seems to me to have been a rare marriage --tremendous fun and energy and excitement without the commonplace jealousy and irritability that befalls so many couples.
I have another friend who suffers from debilitating depression, despite all the people and events she sees and feels as wonderful in her life. Just when she thinks she is going to be psychologically well forever, she is surprised by a sudden downturn, a sense of impending and unalterable hopelessness, a joylessness that practically kills her.
I have another friend whose husband is abusive. He doesn't hit her (as far as I know), but he calls her names and ridicules her. He is also an addict. They are constantly jabbing at one another, and this has always been true, and they do this in front of their children. They do not know what it means to feel safe with one another -- she least of all with him -- and this will inevitably (I say inevitably because sometimes, as was once said to me, there really is too much water under the bridge) remain true.
I have a friend who is lonely, even and especially within her marriage to a man she deeply loves. She and her partner found one another in the aftermath of strenuous childhoods, and they have since clung to one another as one who is about to drown clings to flotsam and jetsam.
I have a friend who is bitter in divorce; who will not remarry; who will not find love because he feels that love has passed him by. He spends his days working long hours and tending to his dogs.
I have a friend whose children abandoned her when her husband remarried. He is manipulative -- I know this absolutely -- and he is very clever at having his way. Her daughter does not speak to her, and her son calls her only when necessary.
I have a friend who was deeply damaged in love. She is not bitter like my other friend, but she is bereft of a kind of crucial self-confidence. Her only child blames her for everything.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic. He does not understand how betrayed and cheated he feels by life, and he walks through his days in a hangover haze of loneliness and fear.
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Everyone I am close to or love is happy in some way.
I have a friend who was widowed young, and yet she loves her job and her home and her friends. She says she is seldom lonely and that life, for her, has always been an adventure. She says -- and I believe her -- that she regrets nothing except what her husband lost so young. She looks ten years younger than she is, and everybody loves her.
I have a friend who suffers from depression but can make people laugh (even herself) harder and longer than anyone I know. She is as close to her partner and parents and sister and friends as a person can be. She is rejuvenating and fun and honest and generous, and she is aware and movingly grateful for her loveliness.
I have a friend whose ex-husband was abusive, but who counts herself among the luckiest because she survived a rare form of cancer three years ago. She has found a new career as well, and is living her days with a gusto that is enviable and remarkable.
I have a friend who is lonely in her marriage, but has discovered another kind of profound love in the ways that she goes about helping people. She is unusually intelligent, and her insights keep her safe in ways I can only dream about. In her spare time, which is growing with age, she is able to travel the whole world wide, which seems to thoroughly quench and delight her.
I have a friend who is bitter in divorce, and who spends most of his life working as a legal aid lawyer -- a career he finds enriching, rewarding, enthralling and fully satisfying. I think if you asked him if he would exchange his job for a romantic partner, he would say no.
I have a friend whose adult children have abandoned her, and who spends her days writing, teaching yoga, riding her horses, and experiencing the beauty of nature. She lives in an enchanting house in the woods, and her horses have a hardwood barn with piped-in stereophonic music. Her life has been hard, but she is relaxed and fit and laughs as much as anyone I know.
I have a friend who was deeply damaged in love. She has an exquisite career, a partner who thinks she's spectacular, and an energy that is unparalleled. She owns a house, a cabin, and a motorcycle, and she is incredibly healthy.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic. He has a beautiful daughter and a wife who love him and think him the dearest father and husband on earth. He has his own home, and a job where everyone adores him. At heart, he is sunny and smart and jocular, and he knows that millions of chronic drinkers have recovered from alcoholism.
The reason I am close to or love every one of these people is because that, in some ways, they are sad. They know what it means to struggle, to be alone, to feel pain, to make mistakes, to mistrust, to be forgiven. They don't see themselves as superior, and they understand that what is valuable can have great emotional cost but no wholesale price. I am also close to these people because in some ways they are happy. They know what it means to be generous, to try, to feel joy, to hope, to trust, to have faith, to forgive.
In some ways, I am sad. Don is dead of course, and I cannot even begin to describe what the world is like without him. Mostly, too, I do not know where my son is or, more important, how he is. I am getting to a place where I don't want to know, and that is worse. I miss my brother. I struggle with other things too -- my weight, intermittent feelings of depression, my inability (or lack of desire) to finish the novel, an unhealthy and lowered sense of self-worth.
In some ways I am happy. Mary is kind, generous, joyful, hopeful, trusting of her universe, smart, funny and forgiving. When I have none, she has faith. I know that my daughter loves me. I think I am a good parent for her and perhaps an even better grandparent for her daughter. I have remarkable friends and relationships. I am able to read and write almost every day. I live in my own home. I know how to laugh at myself. I have five cats who love me. And I have a blog in which I am able to say that everyone I love or am close to is in some ways sad, in some ways happy.
