I Drink Alone

   Is that a weird way to open a blog post? 

  Admitting that I drink alone?

  Well, it is the truth and I wanted to write about my life more this year, even if it seems a little uncomfortable or difficult. My greatest success and growth has come from laying it all out for the world to see and releasing whatever is inside me that tries to bring me down into the darkness again, silence is my own worst enemy.

  I think what I mean to say, without trying to downplay my lack of a social life outside my going to work or online, is that I enjoy my own company when I want to relax. After almost 4 decades in working retail, food service and general public facing jobs, I do feel worn down just a tad, the last 4 years have proven even more difficult with the rise of the selfish class, a special breed of hell mongers all their own. It has bled into almost every part of my day, the inward facing, sole spotlight seekers, to whom everyone must revolve for their existence to mean anything to them. It is exhausting sometimes and while there are some bright spots, I have not really engaged with anyone (with a few rare diamonds shining brightly) who I wanted to carry out friendships beyond the superficial stage in quite some time. Now that isn't to say I haven't met some wonderful people, but none with whom I could consider a daily friend, someone I could hang out with on a whim, without planning everything in advance and hoping something doesn't come up in between. All my best relationships seem to be online, quietly waiting for engagement when I have the mental capacity to do so...not so intrusive, yet lacking in spontaneity and time to forge close bonds that last longer than a text. 

  I did at one time, have a large circle of close pals, hangers on and assorted characters who would flit in and out, depending on the time of year, party theme or drinking indulgence. We hosted get togethers almost weekly, sometimes a raucous house full of poker players, karaoke singers and drunkards, other times just a couple close friends for dinner and games, maybe heading out on the town for a night out of nonsense and liquid fun. It was a glorious time, we were all relatively young, with little in the way of outside responsibilities and life seemed a grand stage for us to strut about, happily glowing in drunken revelry. Time marches on though, and as I tumbled down the rabbit whole of career interuptus, losing what I thought was my life, I began separating from everyone I knew, pushing them away because I could not understand how anyone would want to hang out with such a loser. Self pity turned into dark and deep depression, it took years to climb out of that particular hole, clawing my way up through thoughts of not wanting to be alive anymore to falling into a morass of self medicating to keep the demons at bay. When I finally came up from the depths, life had moved on and I was exactly where I thought I deserved to be.

  The last few years have been decent, I've grown a little better as a person, albeit one who still isn't certain of himself from time to time. I do not know if I can ever recapture who I was or at least, the part that I think I was, the happy go lucky kind of person I hope to project to the world when I leave the house. I turned down opportunities to go to beer fests, judge a beer competition, hang out with the few people who still reach out every once in awhile. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I don't know I know how to anymore. My ability to spend time alone has become a shield in defense of nothing, a tilting at windmills that only exist in my mind. But what used to be a heavy indulgence in clouded thinking and over indulgence has changed into a more quiet pursuit of peace and opportunity to try to understand who I really am underneath the layers I've painted on this life I tried to walk away from so many times. I am trying to appreciate my own time so that I can give it to others with the joy I used to. I cannot recreate the past, nor should I want to, that guy doesn't exist anymore...but I do.

  Finding myself hanging out with the Boys, I was happy, I do miss the camaraderie of The Lodge, the not so subtle jabs we would toss at each other when we discussed sports and played poker. It could get deep too, some nights we would delve below the surface, not too far, but enough that we felt loved and bonded, maybe not family, but something deeper. I salute those folks, true gems they were.

  Good times, hazy memories and an entirely different person...

  I drink alone. But I do not wallow in solitude, I have found myself slowly rising again, perhaps the road ahead is long and will not be easy, but it does not seem so insurmountable as it once did. I raise my glass to the days gone by, to the ones ahead and to the simple life I seek. Perhaps I shall find it, and you, one day.

Polk

February 26th, 2024