Jack: Just don't give up, alright? You're gonna make it.
Miles: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I'am thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
Jack: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. 'A smudge of excrement... surging out to sea.'
Miles: Yeah.
Jack: I could never write that.
Miles: Neither could I, actually. I think it's Bukowski.
Now I loved that movie when I was drinking.
It was about how sometimes life comes and smacks you in the face even when you just want to go on drinking and feeling sorry for yourself.
One of those romantic-drunk movies where the hopeless drunk somehow struggles through and it doesn't all end as a complete and utter tragedy, but near enough.
I used to see life like that - as though we were all trapped in this spinning existential vortex where we were all victims of our desires and that there was not much we could do about it. So getting drunk was a natural and perfectly logical thing to do - hell, we could all be dead tomorrow or something like that. And anyway, it all doesn't matter, so who gives a shit? Let's drink!
Now, sober 200+ days and working on myself, I don't see life as a sad tragedy where I stumble from one disaster to the next, a victim of circumstance or birth or geography or whatever, endlessly pushing it uphill like Sisyphus. No, I can take responsibility and make positive, affirmative steps that can change my world.
From the banal basics like getting a plumber to change the cisterns so they don't leak (took five years drinking for no action, five months sober to make the call and just three hours to actually fix).
Or stopping my incessant mind chatter on negative ancient history and changing the playlist.
So half my life may be over,
But I do have something to show for it,
And I'd love to share it with you.
Miles: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I'am thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
Jack: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. 'A smudge of excrement... surging out to sea.'
Miles: Yeah.
Jack: I could never write that.
Miles: Neither could I, actually. I think it's Bukowski.
from Sideways (2004)
Now I loved that movie when I was drinking.
It was about how sometimes life comes and smacks you in the face even when you just want to go on drinking and feeling sorry for yourself.
One of those romantic-drunk movies where the hopeless drunk somehow struggles through and it doesn't all end as a complete and utter tragedy, but near enough.
I used to see life like that - as though we were all trapped in this spinning existential vortex where we were all victims of our desires and that there was not much we could do about it. So getting drunk was a natural and perfectly logical thing to do - hell, we could all be dead tomorrow or something like that. And anyway, it all doesn't matter, so who gives a shit? Let's drink!
...---==*^*==---...
Now, sober 200+ days and working on myself, I don't see life as a sad tragedy where I stumble from one disaster to the next, a victim of circumstance or birth or geography or whatever, endlessly pushing it uphill like Sisyphus. No, I can take responsibility and make positive, affirmative steps that can change my world.
From the banal basics like getting a plumber to change the cisterns so they don't leak (took five years drinking for no action, five months sober to make the call and just three hours to actually fix).
Or stopping my incessant mind chatter on negative ancient history and changing the playlist.
So half my life may be over,
But I do have something to show for it,
And I'd love to share it with you.
I caught that movie again the other week and, man, what memories it brought back. I did a whole lot of drinking in that very area that the movie was filmed. My parents lived outside of Buellton and I lived there for a bit and then moved 2 hours east for the next ten years. That region of the state was the first cousin to the Napa Valley and wine wine wine was what it was all about. Drunk drunk drunk was what it was all about, really, if I can be honest here.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing. I love reading your posts.
Wonderful! I wrote 30 days into sobriety abut my realization that "plastering the hole in the ceiling is everything". Currently trying to grasp the notion that folding my laundry contributes to my sobriety. I suspect many of us alcoholics are romantics. Glad I finally turned my romanticism to the small, but real, things. Off to pursue an opportunity for dopamine firing by folding a million piles of laundry.
ReplyDeleteI took my 39th year off alcohol, it was the best 40th present I could give myself. Now I mostly don't drink. Occasionally when I'm out I will have only 1 or 2 and choose to be the designated driver! Life is so much richer with out a blurry head!
ReplyDeleteGreeat read thankyou
ReplyDelete