Jan. 10: "Unexpected Happiness''

Today was a snow day. The snow started falling about 1:45 p.m. on Sunday and about 15 minutes later I got a “Maroon Alert’’ via text message informing me that Monday classes had been cancelled.

When I went to bed Sunday night a couple of inches had fallen and more was predicted, although it didn’t materialize.

All day Sunday I had made a big production of how much fun I was going to have playing in the snow on Monday. I guess maybe I’m all talk.

It’s been a tough day, a day of doubt and regret and deep sadness, the cause of which I cannot reveal since, like the bread crumbs dropped by Hansel and Gretel, it would lead to someone else and, thus, betray a confidence.

Today was the day I really faced the truth I have been trying to avoid: I am alone.

Like the snowstorm that gathered west of here and slowly pushed my direction, the clouds of loneliness had been building through the weekend and the storm arrived today.

I am thinking it was a mistake to come here and try to start over. In Arizona, I had a few friends I could run to, if things got too bad.

I came here, at least in part, to be closer to her. Now she is a million miles beyond the moon.

One of my Face Book friends put me in touch with a cousin of hers who works at MSU and we’ve made plans to have lunch on Wednesday. I intend to follow through, although the thought of mustering enough strength to put on a happy face and be “pleasant company’’ makes me all the more tired.

Today reminds me of those days after I was released from prison: All I wanted to do then was to find a place to hide away. I hadn’t felt like that in a great while.

Until today, that is.

There is still a little flicker in me, though, enough to push me out the door and, into my truck for the short drive to campus for lunch. Although classes were cancelled, the cafeteria was open. Since I bought a meal plan, I aim to use it.

I had Chinese for lunch and my fortune cookie read, “Traveling to the south will bring you unexpected happiness.’’

I may have opened the world’s first sarcastic fortune cookie, I’m thinking.

After lunch, I walked around campus a bit. I watched a group of students slide down the hill on cafeteria trays and observed a small snowball “fight’’ that broke out near the Student Union. Nobody asked me if I wanted to play, so I just watched a while.

Walking past the post office, I happened to look down and saw a $10 bill lying on the snow. I picked it up and stuffed it in my coat.

It was unexpected, but I wouldn’t call it happiness.

Another Face Book friend posted a comment that said contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the appreciation of what you have. I have been thinking about that saying all weekend. I’m convinced it may the most unintentionally insensitive comment I have seen in a long while.

It is only 4 o’clock and it’s already beginning to get dark outside. Melting snow is drip, drip, dripping off the balcony roof as I look out my window and that white layer of snow, like a bum’s blanket, is beginning to show some holes. No more snow, they say. It will be too cold for that - lows of 14, 17 and 17 the next three days.

I would very much like to stay inside where I can be as miserable as I want to be and no one would be the wiser. But I know that something will push me out of bed in the morning.

I’ll get up, take a shower, dress and head off for class, mainly because something deep inside me, something immune to reason, stubbornly clings to the distant hope of “unexpected happiness.’’

I wish I could see that far.