BEFORE I KNEW BETTER
A fictional diary from someone who was looking for the right life in the wrong places. | CHAPTER 10
BEFORE I KNEW BETTER
Chapter 10
DRINKING TO REMEMBER
Sunday, July 29, 2001, morning
The weather is beautiful. My mood is at an absolute low. These two things have nothing to do with each other.
I’m not panicking about the future. I just can’t see it very clearly right now. The writing goes well some days, ideas coming, things connecting, a sense that what I’m making might actually mean something. And then a few days later the whole thing collapses and nothing holds. No step makes sense. No sentence leads anywhere. I get through those phases as best I can, try not to drink too much, try not to sink too far.
A lot of it comes down to being alone. I have family, I see them often, but there’s a loneliness in this life that doesn’t go away. Nobody home when I get back. Nobody coming through the door when I’m already there. Nobody to talk to, hold onto, just feel.
That’s all I mean when I imagine love. That’s the entire thing.
I know it makes no sense to keep hoping with Susie. She doesn’t want it, or I’m too young, too broke, not enough of whatever she needs. I don’t know. I can’t get it out of my head and I can’t make it make sense. Someone on television said recently that you should drink to remember, not to forget. I’ve been thinking about that. It doesn’t mean I drink more. It means I drink less, because I want to forget, and apparently that’s not how it works.
She knows how I feel. She’s always known. If she felt anything back she’d give me some sign.
I hate myself for not calling her. I’m working on it.
There’s nothing left to lose.
Sunday, July 29, 2001, evening
I called her.
It was good. Better than good. Her voice alone is enough to undo me completely. I asked if she’d be willing to read some of my writing, tell me what she thinks. Honest feedback, no favors. She said yes.
I already have a vision of how it goes. I bring her the pages. We sit in her garden with a beer. She reads. She looks up. She tells me she likes me as a friend. My depression takes it from there.
I and my imagination. I genuinely can’t tell anymore what’s real and what I’ve constructed.
Grappa is becoming my drink of choice. Make of that what you will.