Two martinis + a crisis of epic proportions

Or: dead eyes and other frivolities

We sit at the bar and I order a cappuccino (fucking decaf no less) and a slice of pumpkin cheesecake. The strangers across from me order Belvedere vodka martinis and as I sip my coffee, I watch their eyes fade slowly from alive to limp to dead. Glassy. Wet sad listless. It is surreal and hilarious to sip cappuccino at this bar. My wine colored lipstick stains the white china cup. What even is this life I’m living? Clean, sober, and sparkly as a star-studded midnight sky in the broad daylight of 3pm on a Monday afternoon.

The strangers look at me (I think) and then at my cheesecake (it’s fucking fantastic) and order themselves a second round. This time: a dark beer for him and a white wine for her. My insides feel sour. I add up the cost of the drinks in my mind and feel some kind of way I probably shouldn’t but can’t help it.

I used to live there, too.

There are fake lemons packed into real ice and… clams? mussels? some kind of seafood jammed in too, along the side of the giant steel kitchen counter. I can’t tell if this place is trying to be rustic modern or seaside resort but neither works because of the other. It’s expensive, though. We are made very aware of that much.

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There is a particular time of morning when an almost imperceptible swath of soft pink light spreads out across the sky. It’s barely visible and only lasts a few minutes, but it’s there in autumn. I’m always alone with my journal and my coffee when I see it, and I always want to tell someone and tell no one at the same time. I’m sure I’ve written about it hundreds of times which probably counts as both.

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I’ve got a fiction project going, a collection of short fantasies. Not sexual, I mean just a few captures (629 pages) of a life I used to lead that was partially real and partially invented to get me through the tedious days until I could drink my way completely out at night. I once took a few stabs at writing erotica but, like I said, that was another life. Another time. Another obsession. I used to fucking love obsessions, man. Decadent, indulgent, ill-advised. Sick. Now there’s no room for sick. Now we are in recovery and everything is sanitized.

Now I can’t be bothered.

What a waste of time when I could be having a full-blown, eyes-wide-open existential crisis instead.

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Always assume there’s a bigger picture that even your biggest picture cannot fathom. Mind who you let tell you what to focus on. I think it was David Foster Wallace who reminded us: You get to decide what to worship. I read that like a million years ago, or maybe I heard him say it in an interview, but I still remember it. Every time I catch people pretending they know something they can’t possibly have a handle on. Every time I write sensational confessions in my journal. Every time I see that pink-washed watery sky. Every time I remember to breathe and walk away instead of metaphorically slam somebody in the mouth.

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What a way to live—hoping we fall ass backwards into not offing ourselves. The sky was pink this morning for three minutes and I was all alone to see it. A tree falls in a forest and cracks silence right down the middle. A man across town takes the drink he knows could ruin everything else. What if I am here to bring forth that which is within me but it’s not what sells? We want the money but not the attention. We want the attention for all the wrong reasons. People are desperate to gain more followers. More scares the living shit out of me.

My husband can eat one cookie in a sitting. I can do it but not without gears grinding in the pit of my stomach, a spike of sadness and bile. I put on more coffee and wonder if any of the ways in which I deny myself will matter in the end—or (more importantly) now. What if all this martyrdom is the real addiction. Clinging to a false sense of worthiness just for a taste of my bitten-down tongue.

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Am I still writing about recovery? You tell me. Am I (is it) brand-able yet? Can I continue to reveal the correct parts of myself, hold back the rest, and still make something of myself worth paying attention to? I think the smartest brand, the one that probably would sell the MOST if we weren’t so afraid to wear it is: I’m really tired of trying. I’m exhausted of the experiment that this body, this country, this mental state is.

Is this what writing about recovery is supposed to be? As far as I can tell, newly sober writers get a few years at best to rehash the whole saga, and then you fall off the map. We love to start a thing. Disruption and beginnings; swift endings and low-grade tragedy. But the day-in and day-out lives? Live in small rooms. The funny thing is: I’d rather plaster recovery over everything else I could be writing about. The world is on fire and I’m not drinking.

That’s the only story I’ve got.

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash