This post will contain a series of topics, all equal in
gravity in my eyes, but some more important than others in specific aspects of
my life. I haven’t written in nearly a week and I’ve truly missed it.
Topic one
About a week ago, I wrote a post about a relapse. That would
be the only time I had ever written about a relapse that wasn’t mine. In this
case, it was my roommate. It’s been a tough road for him, and it hasn’t gotten
much better. He spent four nights in detox where he shivered and shook out his
alcoholic sweat. He conquered the D.T.’s and made plans to enter an out-patient
treatment center in the near future. I took him to a meeting the night he came
home, and offered to get him to one when I went to my usual home group on
Wednesday night. He didn’t show for that one, and when I came home, he seemed a
little out-of-sorts, but I attributed that to the general calamity of
re-entering the world. I work a lot, so I probably didn’t notice a few other
patterns that were emerging but when I came home last night to an empty house,
I was semi-relieved to not have to deal with any more awkward communication
with somebody who clearly wasn’t all the way home yet. I went upstairs to wash
off the grime of eight hours in a kitchen and as I passed by his open bedroom
door, I saw an old familiar sight: two bottles of liquor sitting in the middle
of the floor. Fuck.
Topic Two
I thought maybe I was falling in love, but it was all
falling apart. There was nothing I could have done, or not done; it was doomed
from the start. Dating is a tricky thing, and although I thought I gave it a
sincere attempt, there were cards in play that I wasn’t aware of, and in the
end, there was confusion, chaos, and a need for apologies on both sides.
Even I think I’m speaking
in riddles here, because I am. I never had a chance to write specifically about
the girl I was dating because I wanted to make sure it was going to be a for-sure
thing before I did. Unlike my last attempt at dating about a year ago, we have
left things in a way that insures a future in friendship at the very least. I
really do miss having somebody to take to dinner, somebody that laughs at my amazing sense of humor (sometimes), and
somebody to cuddle with by the fire (Netflix). Who knows what the future holds,
but for now…
Topic Three
Sometimes the good
finds a way to disrupt all of the chaos that surrounds life.
-Vincent Maertz
The count was two balls and one strike. I had just thrown a
wad of cellophane under my prep station as it bounced off of the metal fuse box
cover that serves as the strike-zone on the wall in the kitchen for The Reserve,
where I was working today with no customers, when my phone made the noise I
associate with a message from Facebook Messenger. I had to dig my phone out of
my pocket because my FitBit doesn’t show me those messages, but when I finally
held the device in my hand and looked at the screen, I stood in silence. Then a
rush of fear, love, and anticipation flooded my brain all at once. I had
finally received a message from my brother.
It took a month exactly for him to reply to the message I
had sent him, but just over two weeks to reply to my letter. Here’s what the
message said, minus a very personal subject that I am not going to share on his
behalf:
Hey fuck face. I got
your letter. I’ll cash the check when you make it to five years, how about
that? I have a lot going on in life right now, so things are really busy. Your niece
just had her 8th birthday. I would love to reconnect; I just have a
lot on my plate. We’ll figure it out.
And there it was in writing; the best possible outcome.
