For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ladies, please grab your most somber black dress. And the hat with the little black veil. Men, your black tuxedoes, please.

I turned forty one yesterday. I’ll be climbing into the grave today. My birthday passed with nary a ripple on the surface of the pond. Like it didn’t happen. Like I didn’t even exist.

I got a happy birthday, honey from the Sigo because we went to bed after midnight on Saturday night. Along about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday, I finally had to say something to the Sigo so she could have my two kids (5yrs, 3yrs) say happy birthday to Poppa. My mom called. My in laws? – They have a custom, whenever anyone in the clan has a birthday, that it’s a race to wish the person a happy birthday. They’ll wake you up at 5 am. They’ll cheat and call back after midnight. Its fun. It makes birthdays a big deal. This is my adopted family. The people that I’d choose to hang out with over my own family. I got a text message and a phone call. The Sigo got defensive. So be it. I had to shut myself in the bedroom twice yesterday so I didn’t blow up in anger and frustration. We went to bed last night. The Sigo said sorry that she’d done so lousy for my birthday this year. I chose to keep my mouth shut. Lousy doesn’t approach the extent of the situation. I got an “apology” BJ before I went to sleep. Yeah, that’ll cover it, too. Sure. Right. It isn’t important enough to dress sexy or something and pretend we still have some fire there once a year. No, not her.

So I’m dressing in my formals. I’m checking the obituaries this morning just in case I’m dead and no one had the common courtesy to notify me. In that I’m usually the last one to know, this would not be too much of a surprise.

As we grow up, we rarely imagine ourselves as moving through life without making a difference to anyone or anything. Slipping in to death, our miserable excuse for life over, sliding beneath the water without a single ripple. Everyone wants to believe that their lives are, if not important, then at the very least meaningful to some extent. But what do you do when it’s happening, and you don’t know a way to change it?

It’s going to be a bad one when you tell your Sigo out loud “I’m an emotional train wreck today” and she acts like you didn’t say a thing. And yet, I tell that to a couple of my closer “friends” online here in the old blogosphere, and they’re immediately concerned, what’s causing it, you okay, what can I do. I’m thinking that maybe I should have emailed here. That way she could have a response without any major effort.

The last time she got this apathetic, so flaming disregarding of us as a couple, and me, I ended up finding the companionship, caring, passion, and flame of life somewhere else. But she’s winning. Slowly but surely, she’s dragging me into the vortex of apathy. It’s happening already. I’m losing my hopes, my dreams, and the spark of life I used to have. I’ll be a fucking zombie soon. We’ll have a perfect marriage then. Because neither of us will give enough of a shit about anything to actually fight over something. Don’t bother listening for the sound of my passing. When the bell tolls, it will be ringing for someone else. I’ll already be gone.

Michael