with the super humid summer weather setting in, i'm finding it difficult to do my usual outdoor activities. mornings come with all its little difficulties, and by the time my mom's theraphy sessions end i'm frazzled. all i wanna do is stay home and stick my head under the covers of my bed and bore myself to death. that was what i intended to do or was doing last night when a couple of new acquaintances asked me to go out for a drink, i didn't hesitate and immediately said yes. i needed a little fun, a little adult time with no pre-scripted dialogue.
surprisingly, it was so easy to slip into camaraderie at a table of cold drinks and good company. i started to feel the giddiness one feels when one realizes that they can still do simple things like drink, play a bad game of pool and make flirty conversation. when my phone rang, i let my happiness spill over.
where was i? at the bar, of course! where else to be at 11 p.m. on a friday night?
it didn't occur to me to wonder why my brother, who never calls me, was calling to check my whereabouts on a night when he already knew where i planned to be.
he and sister-in-law were on the way to somewhere blah blah, he said.
why, on such wee hour would they decide to take a two hour drive, i wondered.
sister in law's brother had a seizure. he didn't make it.
didn't make it where? did they have plans that had somehow slipped my mind?
then, in the flurry of words about parents and hospitals and child care arrangements that followed, i understood.
he didn't make it.
this was my sister-in-law's know-it-all brother. the brother of my good high school friend. the favored uncle of my little nieces and nephews, young husband, father of a one-year-old who was the light of his life. him whom i had a long and joking conversation just weeks ago when i was feeling depressed about dying to and not being able to fly to singapore. i had gotten off the phone and felt so warm, so full of friendly chatter.
he was gone, and i was crying in a bar amid a group of people i was just getting to know over glasses of alcohol.
i didn't know who to be. i wanted to have both of these moments, selfishly, as different people. i wanted to lock myself in the bathroom stall and cry for the anguish of a broken family. i wanted to forget the rest of the night, rush home, and hug my little nieces and nephews tight, to close ranks on the gap their uncle's death would leave in their circle of love.
in the same moment i also wanted that happy, bar night back. i wanted to drink until i was sloppy and silly, joke, flirt, and shake off some of the sadness that had been threatening the corners of every day i'd lived the last few years. how could one of my few happy days be taken away? i wanted to be present in that moment, for all those moments i'd given up to depression, to sweep it aside for just a night and live somebody else's day-to-day.
i knew i couldn't have both, and that choosing incorrectly would cut me irreparably. i knew, and yet i couldn't choose. i laughed a little, cried a little, and now back to the solitude of my computer to write a little.
i think i have betrayed a good person. in doing so, i think i may have betrayed myself.
surprisingly, it was so easy to slip into camaraderie at a table of cold drinks and good company. i started to feel the giddiness one feels when one realizes that they can still do simple things like drink, play a bad game of pool and make flirty conversation. when my phone rang, i let my happiness spill over.
where was i? at the bar, of course! where else to be at 11 p.m. on a friday night?
it didn't occur to me to wonder why my brother, who never calls me, was calling to check my whereabouts on a night when he already knew where i planned to be.
he and sister-in-law were on the way to somewhere blah blah, he said.
why, on such wee hour would they decide to take a two hour drive, i wondered.
sister in law's brother had a seizure. he didn't make it.
didn't make it where? did they have plans that had somehow slipped my mind?
then, in the flurry of words about parents and hospitals and child care arrangements that followed, i understood.
he didn't make it.
this was my sister-in-law's know-it-all brother. the brother of my good high school friend. the favored uncle of my little nieces and nephews, young husband, father of a one-year-old who was the light of his life. him whom i had a long and joking conversation just weeks ago when i was feeling depressed about dying to and not being able to fly to singapore. i had gotten off the phone and felt so warm, so full of friendly chatter.
he was gone, and i was crying in a bar amid a group of people i was just getting to know over glasses of alcohol.
i didn't know who to be. i wanted to have both of these moments, selfishly, as different people. i wanted to lock myself in the bathroom stall and cry for the anguish of a broken family. i wanted to forget the rest of the night, rush home, and hug my little nieces and nephews tight, to close ranks on the gap their uncle's death would leave in their circle of love.
in the same moment i also wanted that happy, bar night back. i wanted to drink until i was sloppy and silly, joke, flirt, and shake off some of the sadness that had been threatening the corners of every day i'd lived the last few years. how could one of my few happy days be taken away? i wanted to be present in that moment, for all those moments i'd given up to depression, to sweep it aside for just a night and live somebody else's day-to-day.
i knew i couldn't have both, and that choosing incorrectly would cut me irreparably. i knew, and yet i couldn't choose. i laughed a little, cried a little, and now back to the solitude of my computer to write a little.
i think i have betrayed a good person. in doing so, i think i may have betrayed myself.
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