Tuesday July 28, 2009 at 9:39 am
The better life, part one
A couple weeks ago, I started drinking coffee for the first time. Strangely enough, it was right around the time I finished college, which is a good indication of why I slept through the majority of the last five years. It’s really no wonder I was so bitter that the town around me was in a constant state of drunkenness and was still able to make it to 8AM Lit Theory.
My grandfather drank it black, and nearly every Sunday, as I walked across the church basement with the little styrofoam cup, I would try a sip and regret it immediately. The other 12-year-olds were throwing it back like chocolate milk, like they did with the concoction of grape juice and Christ’s blood we were given an hour before, and I never understood how they could stomach either.
The reason I’m talking about coffee is because the day I had my first real cup of it was the morning after I had stayed at a birthday party until 3AM and needed to drive to Maryland an hour later. I had told a friend that if I ever needed a caffeine kick, I would chug Mountain Dew, as coffee had never really “worked for me.” That was my excuse. And he said, in some words, “Look idiot, the crap in the Mountain Dew that’s keeping you awake is the same crap in coffee,” and suddenly, it was like an abundance of knowledge was raining down on the world!
And that is my roundabout way of saying that I’m now more motivated to write than I’ve ever been, since I’m not anticipating having to pause between sentences to take a nap. I just need to become accustomed to washing away morning breath with a bottle of scotch and I’ll really be able to call myself a writer.
The subject of this post is one I’m breaking up into two or three parts, and the one thing I’ve always had to tread lightly with despite its huge impact on my life. I’ve vaguely referred to the situation before, glossing over my more gloomy posts and attributing them to “the ex-boyfriend who took his own life,” and then leaving it at that.
It’s a tricky thing to talk about. On one hand, I can attempt to be tongue-in-cheek about the situation (”the situation” being a more cautious way of saying, “my life”), but I’m not sure I have that license. If the depression were something I was going through, and not watching from the outside, I could see how it would be acceptable for me to harness those emotions and express them in any way I felt appropriate. However, there are aspects and perceptions that I had no part in, and therefore, it’s important that I keep the story limited to how I was affected, no matter how deeply, and not my speculations.
And there I go being vague again. Suffice it to say that this isn’t something I’ve brought up before with many friends, and the ones I have entrusted with it have reacted in such a way that was so insensitive I was driven to further hide any scraps of grief or helplessness that were constantly eating away at me.
So even though I’ve occasionally posted small pieces of this story, I’m finding that it’s necessary to start from the beginning. Because there is a story to be told.
A couple weeks ago, I started drinking coffee for the first time. Strangely enough, it was right around the time I finished college, which is a good indication of why I slept through the majority of the last five years. It’s really no wonder I was so bitter that the town around me was in a constant state of drunkenness and was still able to make it to 8AM Lit Theory.
My grandfather drank it black, and nearly every Sunday, as I walked across the church basement with the little styrofoam cup, I would try a sip and regret it immediately. The other 12-year-olds were throwing it back like chocolate milk, like they did with the concoction of grape juice and Christ’s blood we were given an hour before, and I never understood how they could stomach either.
The reason I’m talking about coffee is because the day I had my first real cup of it was the morning after I had stayed at a birthday party until 3AM and needed to drive to Maryland an hour later. I had told a friend that if I ever needed a caffeine kick, I would chug Mountain Dew, as coffee had never really “worked for me.” That was my excuse. And he said, in some words, “Look idiot, the crap in the Mountain Dew that’s keeping you awake is the same crap in coffee,” and suddenly, it was like an abundance of knowledge was raining down on the world!
And that is my roundabout way of saying that I’m now more motivated to write than I’ve ever been, since I’m not anticipating having to pause between sentences to take a nap. I just need to become accustomed to washing away morning breath with a bottle of scotch and I’ll really be able to call myself a writer.
The subject of this post is one I’m breaking up into two or three parts, and the one thing I’ve always had to tread lightly with despite its huge impact on my life. I’ve vaguely referred to the situation before, glossing over my more gloomy posts and attributing them to “the ex-boyfriend who took his own life,” and then leaving it at that.
It’s a tricky thing to talk about. On one hand, I can attempt to be tongue-in-cheek about the situation (”the situation” being a more cautious way of saying, “my life”), but I’m not sure I have that license. If the depression were something I was going through, and not watching from the outside, I could see how it would be acceptable for me to harness those emotions and express them in any way I felt appropriate. However, there are aspects and perceptions that I had no part in, and therefore, it’s important that I keep the story limited to how I was affected, no matter how deeply, and not my speculations.
And there I go being vague again. Suffice it to say that this isn’t something I’ve brought up before with many friends, and the ones I have entrusted with it have reacted in such a way that was so insensitive I was driven to further hide any scraps of grief or helplessness that were constantly eating away at me.
So even though I’ve occasionally posted small pieces of this story, I’m finding that it’s necessary to start from the beginning. Because there is a story to be told.
