The stranger things become

[Visited Mom and Dad today. Drove out to Irmo to watch the Gamecock football game with them. I don't really like watching the Gamecocks. They are a sorry-ass team but my parents root for them and it gave us an activity to do while visiting rather than just sitting there looking at each other. My Dad's face has broken out into a rash due to some medication he's taking. It looks like really bad acne. It should clear up soon though. He's getting a chest x-ray on Tuesday to check the status of the lung cancer, i.e. whether it's continuing to decrease in size, increase or stayed the same. Sitting there on the couch I told them about my job interview last week. Then I told them about my really wanting to live at the Farm. I've been dreading telling them but it's been weighing on my mind for months and months and months. They reacted exactly how I predicted. My Dad was quiet and reserved and my Mom cried. Immediately I felt badly for bringing it up. I know I've been a bright spot in their lives this past year especially and they want me to stay close. We talked about all the reasons for me not to go, how difficult it will be to find work, the fact that the cabin isn't really made for year-round living, all the same stuff. In the past I would have gotten pissed off at their nay-saying but not anymore. They make valid points and I have come to expect the resistance. It's not that they don't want me to be happy. It's just that they have always been more realistic about things than me, more conservative, more cautious. After a while of talking about it and suffering through watching my Mom cry I finally said, "Let's just think about the fact that I had a promising job interview last week and let the rest alone for a while." After I got home I got a phone call from my Dad. He told me that he and my Mom want me to be happy and that they will support me no matter what. He said he's really proud of me and all kinds of other nice things. I apologized again for bringing it up but he said it was okay and that he was glad we had talked about it.

Right now it's just another night alone here in the apartment in Columbia. I probably spend about 95% of my time alone. I eat alone. I work alone. I sleep alone. I go grocery shopping alone. I drive alone. I watch tv alone. I've never really minded being alone and often preferred it. I know it's not the best thing for me but for some reason it has become my default setting over these past few years. I lay in my bed with three comforters on top of me covering my entire body including my head and I think. I do some of my best thinking in this manner. I have insomnia. I've had it for years. It used to be much worse than it is now. Most nights I lay awake until 5am or so just laying in my bed thinking. I used to be a thrill-seeker. I used to be a do'er. Now I've become a thinker. I think think think. It's probably why all my hair has turned silvery gray!

The longer I get into this new sober life the stranger things become. Most of what I once accepted as gospel I now call hogwash. I'm not as certain as I used to be. I'm a lot more calm. I don't know if I've gotten softer or harder. A little bit of both I think if that makes any sense. I've assumed a world-weariness that suits my personality but at the same time I am more compassionate and thoughtful than I've ever been in the past. It's odd. I remember looking into the mirror all the time when I was 18 years old (often when I was stoned or tripping on acid.) I used to wonder what my life would turn out like. I never thought I'd grow old. Or if I did I just had no idea how I'd feel about things. I was so young, naive, so untouched. I thought I knew so much! I thought I had it all figured out! What a laugh! I looked into the mirror a short while ago and the face I saw looking back at me was that of a man. I'm no longer a boy even though my drinking and drug use stunted my emotional growth substantially. The past five years have been a crash course in being an adult. The last six months (since my father's cancer diagnosis) have been like graduate school in getting old.

I long for adventure. Today I have other people to consider, namely my parents. And the fear of becoming my mother's keeper when my father passes away is real and terrifying. I'm sure that is one of the reasons I feel a renewed sense of urgency about moving to the farm and starting a new life there. I love my mother dearly but she is a handful and I can easily see a co-dependent relationship brewing in the future. Like I said earlier life just gets more and more strange. When I first started staying sober I feared I would become "normal" or something. Maybe that has happened. I honestly don't know. Living sober is so upside down for me that maybe this is "normal" and I just think it's strange because I'm not used to it.

Thankfully the pain of the past year's breakup is beginning to wane. I still think about her every single day but the emotional grip that once held me hostage is beginning to loosen. For the life of me I still don't know what that was all about. I probably won't know either, not for a long time. I've basically resigned myself to the fact that I will most likely be single for a good long time to come. It doesn't make the lonely nights any easier, nor does it weaken the flame of desire for true love that burns inside me. I mean, what am I to do? Go on Match.com? Hahaha! Hit up the singles bars in town and be the creepy middle-aged guy? No thanks. It will happen when it's supposed to happen and not a moment sooner. But again, those thoughts don't fill the empty space in my bed at night, nor the empty space in my heart.]