Outside looking in

I don't feel well.

My old manager has been hired back by the company in an administrative position. I haven't seen her since December, when she was put on leave. Today, I texted her to welcome her back and she asked how I was. I wasn't sure if I should be honest.

In my life, certain things are owed and deserved. I owe Capital One, which does not deserve my respect. I owe my local mail carrier nothing, although he deserves an empty box, clear of bills and junk. My wife deserves all I can give her, and she collects my love and respect regularly, which balances our respective debts to each other.

My ex-boss falls somewhere in there, just like everyone else. The problem is, I'm in the dark as to her needs and I don't know what we owe each other.

Things were messy in the ranks for a long while. Everyone was up in each other's business, a side-effect to having a workforce populated by referral. Many of us started in a friend group or otherwise joined it, setting up dynamics that translated poorly to a corporate setting, no matter how casual.

Boss once asked if knowing personal things about her affected how I saw her and I said it didn't. I saw her as a person and respected her as my boss. That's the truth, but now I see the question itself as a warning sign.

I got too close to my staff lead, who was fired for inappropriate and erratic behavior, as far as I can tell. We stayed close afterwards, but the last time we had a deep conversation, he casually suggested a suicide pact. I've seen him once after, but he showed up late and invited another friend along without asking. We haven't spoken much since then.

It's 2:46, half an hour since my text to my ex-boss. It starts off:

Pretty shit, not gonna lie.

and ends with:

How about yourself?

There's been no answer, which indicates that I've been too honest. It wasn't a long text, 30 words in total, similar to the last. I tried to give it a positive tone, adding that I was hopeful, but it appears to not have worked.

In the past, she's asked me for personal information and valued my honesty in all matters. But everyone has a line, which can change and flex without warning. She herself has always been cagey, careful to not give away too much of herself, which I understand but don't particularly appreciate. She said she was a private person, which I respected but didn't understand.

In the darkness, I make my own narratives and draw my own conclusions, stitching together disparate details until they resemble a reality that I can test and interrogate.

I can't test the narrative I have about her. When I witnessed her fraternization with a direct inferior staff last Summer, I asked her what was up - more of a warning to be more discreet than an actual question. I knew what was up, I just didn't want to be burdened with the knowledge of inappropriate behavior. She assured me that it nothing, they were just good friends.

I still can't understand why she'd be so obvious about the affair, yet willing to lie so unconvincingly. Did she overestimate her ability to be slick? Was she surprised by my disapproval? Who knows what her reasons were.

The outcome was that we pulled away. I was unnerved by her baldfaced lie and, looking back, her decreasing interest in myself. She'd been texting me less often, being less open about her life. That was okay in of itself, she never owed me social connections or personal information.

No, the problem was that it got me thinking. Why was this person, my superior whom I barely knew, so interested in me? What had she been gaining from our relationship that she suddenly had more of, leading her to then loose interest?

I'm used to exploitation. It's something we all deal with - an economic and cultural approach to people that has its uses and failings. Personally, I'm happy to be exploited as long as I know how and why it's happening.

I put in extra hours. I counseled, advocated, schemed, and picked up slack. I understood that my relationship with my boss was mutually beneficial - I worked hard and in return, she trusted and supported me.

When I didn't get a promotion last August, I wasn't surprised. I hadn't done well in the interview and I knew it wasn't a sure thing, despite her frequent promises. I wasn't doing all this to get a promotion, I did it because I loved to work. What surprised me was her silence afterwards.

She'd been blowing me off for a while at that point. It seemed impossible to get a meeting with her, something that I chalked up to her being busy. I also thought that maybe she was nervous about me challenging her on the affair, which was understandable.

What I couldn't understand was her silence afterwards. I told her I hadn't gotten the promotion on a Friday, 4:58pm. She acknowledged this on Monday, when I asked for her signature on some paperwork.

She didn't owe me a response, of course. She was well within her rights to use her time and sympathy elsewhere. If I'm being honest though, I thought I deserved it. A simple "that sucks dude" within those 24 hours would have made everything bearable.

I wasn't angry. I'm still not, even though this all stings, even 10 months later. It's not her fault that, when left to my own devices, I obsess and theorize. And I do have theories about that weekend, stories that I've created to understand her silence. I don't know how she spends her time and she was probably dealing with a lot, maybe the situation triggered her and reminded her of past would-be leads. Maybe she thought I'd retaliate somehow.

This would be easier if I knew, but I never asked. I hope she simply had bigger things to deal with, situations that didn't involve myself. I hope I never made her feel unstable or vulnerable, given everything else we've both had to deal with.

I've never told anyone about the suicide pact thing. It took me by surprise and made me uncomfortable. I didn't know how to deal with it then, or after. I'm still not sure what to do and, by refusing to address it, I've let that friendship fade away.

How could someone suggest that, knowing everything I've been through? Maybe he thought it was a romantic sort of thing, two friends standing on the abyss and jumping together. I'd be lying if I hadn't thought about that, decades ago when I just needed someone by my side.

It's become one more thing I can't untangle or fully understand. My life is made up of loose ends, scraps of information I've cobbled together into something that looks real enough to work with. It feels like a golem, a form given false life. There's danger in giving power to such constructions, on placing trust and faith in something built without a real foundation. I'm keenly aware of this, but what choice do I have?

When I was a kid, maybe 12 or so, I was sitting on the porch with my grandfather. We watched the fruit bats zip around the sweet summer twilight, listened to the wind in the tall oaks that sheltered us from the surrounding mountain land, which seemed to stretch on forever. Inside the honey-yellow light of the house, our family laughed and yelled at each other.

My grandfather pulled his eyes away from them, looked at me while he re-packed his pipe. He was somber.

"Why are you here?" I remember him asking. He nodded at the house, at the life and joy inside. "Instead of inside with all them? Why do you hang out with me? Why do you like me?"

The question stunned me and I'm not sure I ever gave him a good answer. Because I love you, because you're my favorite, because you make me laugh and you teach me things.

Now, I think I know the answer: Because you know what it's like, to be on the outside looking in.

I miss him, more than I miss my own father. Not because he's a good man, or particularly kind to me. In fact, he's been exceedingly disrespectful, in a way that's made me realize that he's not actually interested in understanding who I am. Still, I miss him because he was lonely, the same way I've been lonely.

There's so many of us out here, picking through the scraps. Social scavengers who take and cling and rend and discard until there's nothing left. It's an ecosystem for which I have few tools that don't double as weakness.

It's 4:20 and my boss has just responded. She had a child, which is news to me. She says she loves being a mother and I'm happy for her.