Headline Headaches

Life can, at times, seems like one of those 24-hour news channels. It might seem that a lot is happening in the world, enough to fill any day. But, how much of what’s on is really newsworthy? “No news is good news,” we repeat to family and friends. This week, I’m a believer.

What happens, then, when there’s a newsflash? All of a sudden, all the other news loses its airtime, and nothing else matters but the matter at hand. Okay, it’s exciting, but who honestly wants her regularly scheduled programmed interrupted? This week, breaking news is every bit as breaking as the name suggests.

My relationship with Daniel has reached that point. In the literal middle of what was supposed to be an early evening of service to the god of mental health, the foundation of our union gave way to a crack of enormous devastation and revelation. In his clandestine quest for the perfect relationship, he decided to make an illicit purchase. The catch: his credit card was declined. Whom to do; whom to do? But, he came back to me, to the one completely unaware of the spree.

I feel violated. In all of the speculation about my dedication to “us,” he is the one on that impossible mission to replace me with the help of his yenta fair-weather friends. Needless to say, these are the mammals who haven’t liked me from the beginning, despite never having carried on a real conversation with anyone except the zookeepers who feed them daily. If I spoke Klingon, things might have been different between us; who knows?

The unforeseeable twist in fate came when the guy with whom Daniel was set up ended up having no interest in him at their first meeting. (Who would believe it? Turn down my boyfriend?) With regard to the other activities in which they engaged, I will remain silent. Alas, I have suggested enough.

If I hadn’t discovered this (and all the ugly e-mails and chats), I wouldn’t be in this foggy place where I am slowly reconstructing my world, realities, relationships and all. He wants to continue life with me in spite of everything. In a way, I want life back, as well. I want our past returned. I want him before he did this to us. How is it possible to have that all again?

The way we were is no more. All I have is who he is now. I have become the person into whom he has made me. I have been underestimated even as I overestimated Daniel. I keep envisioning the baptism scene in the first Godfather film where Michael, upon ascending to the head of the family, has all of the family’s enemies annihilated.

It’s actually more like the end of the 1998 masterpiece Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett as the orphaned daughter of HenryVIII, the young queen against whom the Catholics plot to overthrow. At the last minute, she discovers their treason, but permits them to sign allegiance to the foreign pope who has welcomed the plan with the Roman blessing. As they sign, they are all finished off in that wonderful Renaissance way.

While I am too much a pacifist to harm even those damned gnats (who only seem to have increased in number since you last read of them), I feel that he and they have robbed me of the most important person I had in New York. We are one fewer. We are now “I,” and the loss is palpable in spite of the joy toward which I aspired during Sukkot. Getting up and lying down are rarely this difficult. I still can’t believe the news. If I had the power, I would change the channel. Sadly, I have lost the control.