It's like a series of repeated races - say 800 meter races (my favorite) - where there's a burst of adrenaline and fear that crest with the shot - a staggered start where you stay in your own lane until the break-in point, and you're surrounded by flailing arms and torsos and track spikes that can cut - two minutes of insane drive and burning breath until you can't be sure whether the gasping that seems to brush against your eardrums belongs to you or to tailing runners. And then it's over; you fall across the finish line with hopefully a sense of accomplishment, and while you may remember the race, you can never recreate it until it begins again.
So what am I to do in between now and the next stage of crisis? Usually the answer would involve drinking to reward myself for coming through relatively unscathed. Now that I can't do that, I'm reminded of the preparation that takes place between each race - the stretching, the hydration, the plotting of next steps.
I was talking about not drinking and someone mentioned how they used to vomit blood nearly every morning before they quit and that we weren't in the same boat. I've met people, sometimes young like myself, who have had more debilitating, life-threatening types of cancer. It's a good reminder that it's not all about me and that it could be much worse, but it also makes me feel like a fraud at times. I didn't have real cancer (the type that has a high chance of killing you), and I don't have a real drinking problem (the type that makes you vomit blood or go into detox seizures or whatever)... so what was the big deal again?
That thought leads to contemplating a nice night(morning?)cap, maybe some Woodford's Reserve on ice, so I can shake my head at how easily I was overwhelmed and overreacted... until the shot sounds for the next panic-ridden race. What was the big deal again?
The big Goddamn deal was how my drinking was getting in the way of relationships, work, and writing - how it started replacing substantial interactions. Losing my right nut to cancer didn't ultimately change this for Christ's sake. Yeah, it propelled me to travel and drink at bars with people instead of alone in my apartment, but it eventually became the same substitute for killing time before the next big race, the next motivational disaster.
And today I'm thinking about what it means to be a man. It could be how you deal with that quiet time, that in-between state when no person and no event is pushing you. A man generates his own drive. With that I'm off to get some school work, web writing, and travel planning done to the best of my abilities. It's not a big deal, and I don't need it to be.
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