Straight Edge Life

This is my favorite time of year in Eugene. The time when I’m happy. When I’m restless, preoccupied, eager to leave and forced to do something to calm my senses. I don’t self-medicate. I don’t smoke weed, drink beer or sniff coke up my nose. I don’t hide in distraction. I’m straight edge and I fucking love being forced into a corner like this. Feels good to know I have the resources to fight my way back out. Without drugs. And not just back out, but back out stronger, smarter and more fit than I was before.

It’s dark, it’s late and the city is concrete, steel and color. I’m only a few minutes from home and already soaking wet in the rain. My shoe is making that weird sucking sound again and nothing in the world could bring me down.

The question of the day? What to do. Maybe tomorrow I’ll leave this town and never look back. Maybe I’ll buy a house and start a family here. I feel chaotically bent between far too many choices. I have no idea how I’ll figure it out but I look forward to figuring it out. But there’s something suspicious going on; something I can’t figure out.

The other day I was at Allann Bros. eavesdropping on a couple of guys who just got out of their AA meeting. They were talking super loud and one guy was bumping into my chair repeatedly so I’m not going to feel bad about it, ok? Anyways… They were talking about what they would do if someone put a bottle of beer in their hands right now. Would they drink it? Would they set it down and walk away? Would it go flying across the room and hit some poor schmo on his way out the door? They both easily thought of a few things that would make them drink. But simply being handed a beer wouldn’t do it.

I don’t know about addiction. I don’t know what it’s like to have something have power like that over me. Sometimes I wish that I did have experience with addiction. To know what it’s like to be powerless to something other than myself. Something destructive. I think it would make it a bit easier to empathize with people. I feel like for all my self-righteous straight-edge babbling I really don’t know shit about the world. Not the real world anyways. I mean I’ve had difficult times in my life, but none so unique or overwhelming that I feel like I’ve had it rough. And maybe something really bad happening would push me into addiction. Or maybe not. I don’t know. And that’s the tricky bit. I’ve never been tested severely. But then I’ve never been a drinker at all. So the cycle doesn’t really have a chance to start.

I guess I feel like I have a pretty good set of tools for dealing with Life (with the big L) and yet I’m often consumed by not-so-big worries because my life is so simple. These little things, they are the only things I have in my life. So I burn energy. I apply all my knowledge and experience to deciding whether to delay a project and take a vacation or work straight through because I’m dirt broke and need the money. Fuck, it’s kinda lame. It’s odd. I mean the last few years have been sorta non-stop with death, disease, divorce, and stress. For the last few months though… I’ve been stable and pretty bored. I’m sure something is coming soon enough. I should shut up.