Sober, even

 Jesus, the Dave Matthews Band! Is all I can think. I’m sitting in my kid’s dentist office when I notice that I’ve listened to an entire DMB song.

I can’t say it’s the first time, as I think it happened by accident somewhere in my past, but it sure as hell ain’t the third time. It was always somewhat of a badge of honor, being a graduate of the University of Virginia (read as nasally as possible) during the years of 1989 to 1993, and an extra year of being in C’ville while one girl broke my heart and I started another down a path that ended with me breaking hers…

“Does it always go back to a woman, Randy?”

Apparently.

There is ice on the ground and it’s cold as shit outside. I don’t know how I ended up this far north.

“North Carolina is north, Randy?”

Apparently to me it is.

I left Virginia in 1994 to go to Arizona. I remember being in shorts all year long, even on those rare below freezing nights at the bar, that would almost always lead to at least 50, but most likely 70-degree days.

After that, New Orleans. For not long enough. I still dream of that place. Just how magical it was. And just how much I seemed to fuck up the possibility of living there permanently.

“If you’re honest with yourself Randy, you’d probably be dead if you’d stayed.”

Yeah, probably. But damn never really knowing.

I know things wouldn’t have worked out, in my mind it was beyond repair. The redhead wasn’t the cause, she was just there at just the right time.

“Right time?”

Hell, I don’t know how to articulate anything. I’ve never been any good at talking about it, mostly because there was never anyone to listen to me. Not having “die for me” friends, is you don’t get to have those conversations. Internally, yes. But that really doesn’t help.

Eight sessions with a therapist. That’s it.

“I think we should have talked about her,” was her last words to me. That kind of scared me away from therapy. Shouldn’t have. But it did. That and using all my EAP on those sessions and getting laid off for the first time just weeks later.

Two years later, I had shittier insurance. But, I didn’t take advantage of 8 more EAP sessions.

Today, I’m working on myself again. I have too much baggage. I want to do the John Cusack thing, but I think most of the people I want to talk to would be like “who the fuck are you?” except one, who would be “get the fuck away from me.”

Funny. Not funny.

I downloaded any app. Those Instagram ads really work, I tell ya.

A few sessions in, lots of close to tears writing and AI responses and it dawned on me that yep, I need a therapist. Seriously don’t want all of my baggage being absorbed by AI and spit out back at me. I’d guess one day, my AI buddy would suggest a beer, a bullet and a bye-bye. So, doing a quick Google search brought me a bunch of options. But how do you pick a therapist nowadays. Too many options. Too many fake reviews. And who wants to lay it all out, then find out you picked a shithead. Then have to do it all again?

Eh. You are a coward.

“This beating myself up, isn’t helping.”

Thank you mind for pointing out the obvious as I sit here listening to Lucero, not drinking and trying to justify gaining 13 pounds in the last three weeks.

It’s cold.

Been working at home.

New job.

Terror. (GWB voice, please)

I want to get in my car and drive. South. West. Not North. Can’t go much more East.

I had tickets to the Glossary reunion show in Nashville. No one wanted to go with. Then, snow back-to-back weekends and the chance of going solo died in icy roads.

My mom has been gone almost 3 years now. That’s a skull splitter for me. It seems like yesterday. Nothing else seems like yesterday anymore.

Not the breakups. Not the miscarriages. Not the lies. Not the truths. Not even the good times. They’re faded. I think my early stage dementia is real. I have really hard times with words – but only when speaking. I really loathe speaking. Unless I’m drunk. And I don’t get drunk anymore.

I am also promising myself to get off the phone. I’m deleting apps as soon as I reach the end of this typing road. I wonder if I’ll stay committed to finally doing this again?

Sober, even.

By the way, copilot things I should write that “I am considering whether I will remain dedicated to undertaking this task once more.”

How the hell do you follow that with “Sober, even.”???

Drinking hurts now. Maybe that’s fitting. The hurt now lives elsewhere. It’s pretty to think so. Ha!