I’d never have thought that viewing all the photos of the happy couples out in California over the past couple of days would have had this effect on me.  I’m happy for them.  Delighted actually.  It’s good to see love succeeding somewhere in this poor angry world.  And particularly in California, the land of my birth.  I should be happy.  And I am.  For them.

But…  A wave of utter fatigue has washed over me, simultaneously with the arrival of those images on my computer screen.  I’m happy for them…but it’s all passing me by.  Don’t be fooled by career and money and status.  Don’t be lulled into thinking they mean anything.  They don’t.  Nothing else matters if you don’t have that intimate other in your life.  Nothing.

I’ve failed.  I am a senior systems engineer for the Space Telescope Science Institute…I own a nice house within walking distance of work and shopping, own a Mercedes, and can look back on a life that never once cheated anyone for profit nor broke anyone’s heart.  I never lied my way into anyone’s pants, or their company, or their trust.  I never met a bill I couldn’t pay.  My word and my money and my credit are good.  And…I failed.  None of it really matters.  For the past several days I’ve seen what matters in so many happy couple’s faces.  I’m 54 years old and…I failed.

I have, ironically enough, a wedding to go to this weekend.  A relative on mom’s side of the family in southern Virgina invited me to her wedding, and as she and her brother helped give mom some of the best years of her life in retirement, I feel obliged to go.  This is the Southern Baptist side of my family tree.  They would all probably cheerfully vote my right to marry away without a second thought, and tell me they did it with love in their hearts.  But I’m genuinely happy for her, and I hope she and her husband to be have a long and happy life together.  There needs to be more of what they have for each other in this world, not less.

I think, at long last, I’m finally giving up on this.  I just don’t have the energy anymore to keep holding on to it.  I have no idea what that change holds in store for me.  None.  All I know is, I failed.