A Little Like Giving Up

"As an ironic spectator of myself, I've never lost interest in seeing what life brings. And since I now know beforehand that every vague hope will end in disillusion, I have the special delight of already enjoying the disillusion with the hope, like the bitter with the sweet that makes the sweet sweeter by contrast. I'm a sullen strategist who, having never won a battle, has learned to derive pleasure from mapping out the details of his inevitable retreat on the eve of each new engagement."*

Drinking leads into itself. Once you drink a beer, at the bar or on a porch, alone or with friends, the next beer waits for you like mail waiting to be delivered. Then, the next thing you do seems so easy. Of course you want to go to the next bar, the other club, just for a dance, just for another drink, just to see who might be there, who or what else might be waiting. A good idea, on a Friday night maybe, when you're with your friends who will follow you anywhere and into anything. Then sometimes you're just left waiting. On the curb, in front of the bar. Sitting on the steps in front of your house, not willing to admit the night has ended, and there's nothing else waiting for you. No more possibilities. Just your empty bed and a cloud hanging around you, filled with what might have been and all the something else's that wait for you on another night.

Sometimes I know better. Sometimes there's something to wake up for in the morning, and going to bed sounds great, like the easiest part of my day. Other times I just know the night's a lost cause. It doesn't matter how many beers I drink, or how many different people I try to find, it's time to go home. I ride through the streets, avoiding distraction, and remind myself that these are the constants- my companions for the past five years- a bicycle and an empty night, weaving toward somewhere I don't even need to be.

*Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet