I’m standing on the bridge
I’m waiting in the dark
I thought that you’d be here by now
There’s nothing but the rain
No footsteps on the ground
I’m listening but there’s no sound

Isn’t anyone tryin’ to find me?
Won’t somebody come take me home?
It’s a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won’t you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don’t know who you are
But I… I’m with you
I’m with you…mmm

I’m looking for a place
I’m searching for a face
Is anybody here I know?
‘Cause nothing’s going right
And everything’s a mess
And no one likes to be alone

Isn’t anyone tryin’ to find me?
Won’t somebody come take me home?
It’s a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won’t you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don’t know who you are
But I… I’m with you
I’m with you…yeah yeah oh

Why is everything so confusing
Maybe I’m just out of my mind

Thus goes the first half of Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You,” pouring out of my work computer speakers as I try to get rid of another month’s worth of divorce files. But the song takes me back to another time so vividly that I had to stop and let it drown me.

2 or 3am. Weeknight. I’m driving south on Beach Blvd toward the ocean, tears blinding my vision, sobs drowning out portions of this song. The empty front passenger seat is littered with wadded up Kleenex tissues. It’s amazing how one can be in what feels like a constant state of lowness and anguish, and then there’d still be a jolt that drops you even lower. I am lost in my emotions and my hurt. Nothing makes sense, all I know is that I am swirling in emptiness and disappointment, that after I gave all of myself over and over, I am still met with cruel disregard and abandonment. I don’t even want answers anymore. I have no hopes for resolution or recovery. I just want it to be over. I just want the numbness to come and take me over. If the coldness of the ocean doesn’t end it, it may never end. This is hell.

Poor little girl. As much as I can cry for her now, want to take her in my arms and warm her cold, wet, sandy body, she feels so distant from me. Like a sad made-up story, something I can’t relate to. But that was me, in the beginning of the end, March 2004.

The mess of that night would never have believed me if I told her that in 17 months, her biggest concern would be to get the month’s worth of family law cases reviewed so that she can leave to go home, eat her diet dinner, then run off to spend some time with a great guy whom she won’t get to see all next week because she’ll be in sunny Cancun with her college roommate.