Approximately about a month after my grandmother's funeral which took place in early May 1999, I went into deep mourning privately. It was during this time that I slowly fell apart emotionally and spinning out of control. To assuage that sense of helplessness and discombobulation in any manner, I sat down and composed a letter.
Just prior to leaving for a business trip, I handed the letter to my boss in the office before taking off. [Right now, I am feeling jabs of pain as I recall this memory] The letter professes my admiration and attraction to my boss. Yep, that's right. I've crossed a line professionally and entered into forbidden territory at the workplace!! It probably was riddled with silly MLC mumbo jumbo.
That was the beginning of a fractious relationship between my boss and I. Mind you, my then boss was a lesbian and happily married to her wife. To balance out this narrative, my boss was a real life Dragon Lady who was very much into micromanagement and negative put-downs. She had already burned through 3 employees in a year before I had come on board. In retrospect, I should have run for the hills as she was a very deeply unhappy person [and is still the same unhappy person to this day].
To summarize, I write a letter to woman outside of my marriage thereby breaking the unspoken commitment to one's spouse. Emotionally I was trying to grasp at straws to prevent myself from drowning in my own grief. That was the first sign that my own coping skills was starting to break down very slowly and imperceptibly.
