Ariel Levy - The Rules Do Not Apply

Do you ever talk to yourself? I do it all the time. We do it, I should say, because thats how it sounds in my head. When Im following a map, for instance: Were going to turn right on Vicolo del Leopardo, go past the bar with the mosaic tiles, and then we know where we are. Its an old habit: Were going to look the teacher in the eye and tell her its not fair. My competent self is doing the talking; my bewildered self is being addressed. Were going to go over to the phone now and call for help with one hand and hold the baby with the other.

For the first time I can remember, I cannot locate my competent selfone more missing person. In the last few months, I have lost my son, my spouse, and my house. Every morning I wake up and for a few seconds Im disoriented, confused as to why I feel grief seeping into my body, and then I remember what has become of my life. I am thunderstruck by feeling at odd times, and then I find myself gripping the kitchen counter, a subway pole, a friends body, so I wont fall over. I dont mean that figuratively. My sorrow is so intense it often feels like it will flatten me.

Its all so over-the-top. Am I in an Italian opera? A Greek tragedy? Or is this just a weirdly grim sitcom? A few weeks ago, my neighbors came by my house on Shelter Island; they wanted to meet the baby. Hes dead, I had to tell them. I felt bad, because what are they supposed to say to that? They said, Were so sorry. They said, Soon it will be summer and you can work in your beautiful garden. Not exactly, I explained. We have to sell the house; Im here to pack up. (I know: those poor people.) They were silent as they searched for something safe to land on, and then they asked where my spouse was. I didnt have the heart to tell them.

As it happened, on that day I was even angrier than usual with the person Id lived with for a decade, whod said that the key to our Jeep would be waiting for me taped underneath the engine by the drivers-side tire. The car was in Greenport, New York, across the Peconic Bay from our house, in the parking lot where we always left it when we went away because thats where the bus drops you off. I got a ride out there from the city with some friends in the pouring rain, but none of us could find that key. I lay on my back with the rain coming down hard on my legs, the scent of wet asphalt rising around me, and I stared up at the underbelly of the Jeep, searching for something that wasnt there.

Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that is nothing at all. The future I thought I was meticulously crafting for years has disappeared, and with it have gone my ideas about the kind of life Id imagined I was due.

People have been telling me since I was a little girl that I was too fervent, too forceful, too much. I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love in a life that could contain it. But it has exploded.