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11-03-05
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I was lonely and a little blue and walked over to the bridge to the sculpture garden to just sit and look at the spoon bridge in the dark and then go to the walker for a few minutes. It's a place that has a lot of pleasant memories because me and Matt made out there in a snowstorm right after I first moved to Minneapolis in late 2000. No biggee, except that it's just a nice place to sit and has pleasant associations. I've just been weird for a few days now and wanted to get over it.
So I'm sitting there at the end of the bridge in the dark and who should come walking over from Loring Park but Matt and his new beau holding hands and smiling. He didn't see me sitting there and they walked down the steps and came out underneath into the garden.
I got this panicky feeling and felt really nervous and not well at all. I headed down the ramp and into the Walker and then decided that wasn't a good idea and turned to go out and walked right into them coming into the museum. I felt awkward, I was dripping sweat though I was only wearing short sleeves and had been outside just moments earlier. It was just really weird. I said to him that I thought he was going out to eat, and I shook Dan the Army Man's hand and left, but I felt really weird and just chewed on that for a long time afterwards.
People used to say when they saw the two of us in public that he always looked like he was mad at me. I told them that he was very affectionate in private and just had a dour disposition. That was true. But it just startled me to look up from my little reverie and see him holding hands and smiling and seemingly so happy to be with someone he met just two weeks ago and to look so at ease. I just kind of fell apart.
Was I just a middle-aged guy who fell in love with a beautiful young man afraid to come out, afraid to grow up and have a life of his own and craving romance and someone to keep him company no matter what? Did I perpetuate that out of some belief that I was really that unlovable? Was I just keeping him company through all that stuff until he was ready to come out and start having real relationships?
Man, that's a lot of drama, really, but I was just in a weird mood to begin with and it sent me off on a spiral thinking about shit like that and feeling worse.
The truth is that yeah, some of that is certainly true. We also had a great relationship and I drank it to death over the final six months. If I had stayed sober, I might not have stayed anyway. What got me about tonight was not seeing Matt with someone else. It was the sudden realization of what my drinking and lack of trust has cost me and how irretrievable that sort of damage is.
I'm really tired tonight. I can chew that stuff up and swallow it and live. I'm just really blue about it, and I wish there were some way for me to redeem that situation and have my heart's desire again.
But the sad truth is that my heart's desire was partly a product of my own self-deception, and that as soon as I stopped looking to myself as the author of my happiness and placed that burden on the circumstances of my relationship with someone else, I was fucked.
I'm really feeling a lot better. I just don't like what my drinking has done to me, and I can't blame anyone but myself. I haven't had a drink in a couple of days, and I don't think I want one right now. The tough part to chew up is that no matter how long I'd stay sober or how well I did with my life, I can't get back on the other side of that wall between me and what I thought for so long would make me happy. That's perfectly natural and something that most people deal with just fine. I've stayed at that wall with my face pressed against it for months now just clawing at it.
When I was a kid, my brother had the room in our house at the end of the long hall with the wooden floor. He would go in and close the door with his friends inside shutting me out. I was seven years his junior. I would get my feelings hurt and run from the other end of the hall and slide in my sock feet until I slammed into his door. I'd do it repeatedly until he'd open the door and threaten me or I'd get tired of it and run off. I was only about three years old at the time.
I'm running headlong into this wall over and over again. I'm bloodied by it. I have a nervous tic in my right eye now that developed over recent weeks, though it's not acting up right now. I'm tired. This isn't about moving back north. I'm still certain that was the right thing to do. I couldn't go on the way I was down south. It's about letting go of my illusions.
I'll find out tomorrow if I got that job with the state or not. I don't think I did, and I almost hope I didn't. Humm's Liquor over on Lyndale has a help wanted sign in the window. Maybe I could just stock beer all day or ring a cash register and not go out and not drink and not frequent those places and just fade into the wall somewhere and still pay my bills. And just read. I'm not a normal guy.
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