There is something agonizing and painful and lovely and encouraging about struggling through the perils of an average life without the escape that was once provided by a magical elixir. That is not to say that liquor actually solved any of my troubles, but it did provide an outlet that allowed me, if only for a moment, to forget about all that bothered me. To live without it, now for nearly twenty years, is to live alongside my demons as the manifest themselves in my every day being. At times they are silent and still. At others they are raucous and rambunctious. They are always there. Especially on Sundays during that long drive between there and here. They sit in the back seat. They whisper. They loom. They sit back there and they taunt me and they force me to live with them until the mundane existence of work reveals its patterned self on Monday. This is every week. Ninety minutes of memories and a soundtrack that would push most to pull into the nearest bar. Onward. Forward. Acknowledge the alcoholism for what it is and move on. Drinking isn’t going to solve anything and this has been made clear time and time again. Face the mirror and appreciate the reflection. Face the mirror and love the one who looks back. This tiny brain and all of its ability is wound to go back and forth between joy and misery and it’s just like every other tiny brain out there. Feel it. Turn the light down and feel and write and breathe and be. You are not unique. You are not special. The suffering you conceive it’s not unlike the suffering of others and your circumstance is not alone. Go until the end and whenever that day come make certain you’ve laid out your plans. Share them and be clear. Find those that fill your circle and make everything evident.
For example:
When I die you can drag my body into the hills just west of Borrego Springs. Drag me out there and leave under a pile of rocks because that is the first place I realized how amazing this life can really be. I’ve chased it ever since and when my time comes it seems only appropriate to return me to the place I found life. I don’t know when the day will come, but you can consider this my final wish. In writing.