This Thing

It’s a damnable thing, that’s what it is, this compulsion that’s consumed my life in one way or another, consumed people I love.

I’ve lived it, watched it, studied it… I’m about to change my career in order to go toe-to-toe with it. I’m going to spend a few years putting my family through hardship so I can take possibly the hardest classes of my life so I can prepare myself for the fight.

I’ve watched it make perfectly good folks stumble, puke, slur, fight and act in innumerable ways that either prompted them to apologize the next day or just… keep going. Maybe the memory embarrassed them too much, or maybe they didn’t have the memory to trouble them.

And I walk past people having beers on the patio outside Double Dave’s and think, Man it’d be nice to have a couple cold beers right now.

***

I’ve got more questions than answers, and I have a lot more answers than I once did.

***

I do wish I could fight it, physically. Strangle it, slap it around. I’d curse and spit in its face. “I swear to GOD if you don’t leave us alone…”

It’s doing its best to leave me alone all right. It’s doing its best to take people away from me quite systematically. I guess it will leave me quite alone just as soon as it can.

***

I’m pissed off, tired of it. I’m just tired of it lurking out there all the time, still a factor in my own life almost 10 years after the last time we hooked up.

***

At lunch with a friend not long ago, our waiter reeked. Yeah, it was coming out of his pores. My friend didn't notice. It just about screamed at me.

***

Hit the gas station at 11:55 Sunday morning and see who's in line at the counter. Invariably there'll be an old-timer with a 12-pack, shaking, hoping the clerk's not gonna give him crap because he's trying to buy beer five minutes before the law allows...

***

There's so much I don't know, but I know one thing:

IT

WON'T

BE

ME