.the calmness of being is exquisite and proud
The humidity pools on your lips and the outside of your cup as the methylphenidate pushes into your bloodstream… you breathe deeply, the aroma of semi-sea air wafting around you. Your aveoli fill with the necessities of aerobic life; reveling in the beauty of damp cool nitrogen is such bliss. It’s not just that when you got off of the plane yesterday that there was a 40 degree differential; it was that you stepped off the plan realizing what you had become. What you are. What you will be.
For five years, there has been a handle bottle of Jack Daniel’s that has followed you. It is the last part of your old life - the last drink taken the night you stared into Pennsylvania’s eyes and told her it was over. Its contents are about two shots worth of what once, before you learned to taste, was your favorite booze…
A girl rises near you, lavender blouse, hazel eyes. Her non-lunch belies her internalization of plastique - though she really has little to lose.
…Now you have moved on to better flavors, forgoing the caustic rotgut for subtle tones of oaken spice. Your life, too, has found a similar settling, ebbing from the harsh blaze of nights of booze, music, and calumny for… Now. As you struggle to find the right counterpoints to the immediately prior description of your late teens/early twenties, you realize that the Now could not be possible without the Then. The Next and the Ever After notwithstanding, Now must be understood as a function of Then. Then had the Worst Day Ever ™. Now has the Best Day Ever™. Then, you were barely more than a hick with a load of potential and no inkling of how to channel the fortunate confluence of your life. Now, you have that inkling. You could overwork the metaphor more, but you think the point is made sufficiently. Back to the bottle.
This bottle of whiskey has remained tightly lidded, always held in a place of esteem in the six domiciles (Palo Verde, Hermosa, Mariana, Broadway, The Girl’s, and your current home) you have held since leaving the old life behind. You have unscrewed it once in that time - when you graduated college. The aroma was stiff but mellow, a hazy flood of memories, people, places, and doubt. Oh gods, the doubt. That’s why you’re writing this now. That bastard doubt is slain. This is his epitaph. This is the last drink to your own dark reflection, the drink you’ve been waiting five years to take. You imagine what the ceremony should be, what it will be - it’s been too long to not make some sort of personal spectacle out of it all. You start to write the eulogy.
“To the last draught of my old life: we need to enjoy this moment. It will be the last of its kind. I have been with you for so long, and it is harder to say goodbye than I thought it would be - especially considering there were times I never thought I would be able to. But here we are. I stood at the crossroads of pain and health long ago, and I chose to forsake the former for a chance at the latter. This is not to say I will not continue to change for the better, because I will. But, now, I feel that I have sufficiently shaken the chains that bound our flesh and our souls. The world I know is so much better than I ever thought it could be. I have you to thank for this, and so I now pay you your due.”
Tears well for a moment; you pause to blink them away. You find a YouTube of World I Know. It’s the best version you’ve seen in a long time.
“I do not hate you. I do not loathe you. In fact, I love you. If it were not for you, I would not be as strong as I am. I would not have made it this far without you testing me. Pushing me. In a deep, dark way, you honed me. I may not have ever felt I could best you, but I learned to stave you off. As you got stronger, so did I. You became a cold, still ocean, and I swam through you, grabbing for more light, more warmth, for the next spot of land on which to rest. The magnitude of our struggle propelled us forward, into things that we could never have achieved separately. We have become the exception to the rule. We made good where there was no good to be made. We have fought and beaten back fate. I fully admit this. But now, we must lay down arms, at least in the way they have been raised before. I would be remiss if I did not accept the fact that there have been casualties, too. Severe casualties. More often than not, they have been other people. Relationships. I will not sacrifice anything more for you, nor anyone.
The depths of our battle overwhelmed everything we were; everything I was. Everything I wanted to be. I fought you, and it drove me forward. In this fact lies the most wicked victory you ever can lay claim to: the achievements were secondary to the fight, as was everything else. Not anymore. I hereby relieve you of your duties as trainer and antagonist. You will forever be a part of me, undeniable as the scars across my body. But you will heal. Your grip has already weakened, and now it is I who carry you to the end. You are not my equal, anymore. My life is mine, not ours. I have learned to accept the things that I am, and not to fear them. Not to fear love, passion, power, or the things that I want. I don’t have to best you - the mere fact that I am where I am stands testament to that fact.
Tonight, I uncork the last earthly remnant of your being. Tonight, you fade to memory. Tonight, I will breathe a sigh of relief. With your passing, I am free. I will never forget your lessons. Good bye, old life.”
You realize you really could have written this a few weeks ago, at the point when you felt like everything had come together. Before the trip you took to your old home, just to make sure that you had gotten to the point you imagined yourself at. Gladly, you are in the place you imagined, perhaps even better off. You know your priorities, and are sure they are yours. You feel things you haven’t allowed yourself to feel in a long time, and your passion burns, albeit in different, less destructive ways. Your life rests firmly in your grasp, and responds to all you wish.
The only question that remains is to see if the Final Casualty is really a casualty, at all. That story, however, is best told by your journal that you’ve kept the last few days. Time to start transcribing. You begin…
“Day 1 - tomorrow is yesterday’s never…”
For five years, there has been a handle bottle of Jack Daniel’s that has followed you. It is the last part of your old life - the last drink taken the night you stared into Pennsylvania’s eyes and told her it was over. Its contents are about two shots worth of what once, before you learned to taste, was your favorite booze…
A girl rises near you, lavender blouse, hazel eyes. Her non-lunch belies her internalization of plastique - though she really has little to lose.
…Now you have moved on to better flavors, forgoing the caustic rotgut for subtle tones of oaken spice. Your life, too, has found a similar settling, ebbing from the harsh blaze of nights of booze, music, and calumny for… Now. As you struggle to find the right counterpoints to the immediately prior description of your late teens/early twenties, you realize that the Now could not be possible without the Then. The Next and the Ever After notwithstanding, Now must be understood as a function of Then. Then had the Worst Day Ever ™. Now has the Best Day Ever™. Then, you were barely more than a hick with a load of potential and no inkling of how to channel the fortunate confluence of your life. Now, you have that inkling. You could overwork the metaphor more, but you think the point is made sufficiently. Back to the bottle.
This bottle of whiskey has remained tightly lidded, always held in a place of esteem in the six domiciles (Palo Verde, Hermosa, Mariana, Broadway, The Girl’s, and your current home) you have held since leaving the old life behind. You have unscrewed it once in that time - when you graduated college. The aroma was stiff but mellow, a hazy flood of memories, people, places, and doubt. Oh gods, the doubt. That’s why you’re writing this now. That bastard doubt is slain. This is his epitaph. This is the last drink to your own dark reflection, the drink you’ve been waiting five years to take. You imagine what the ceremony should be, what it will be - it’s been too long to not make some sort of personal spectacle out of it all. You start to write the eulogy.
“To the last draught of my old life: we need to enjoy this moment. It will be the last of its kind. I have been with you for so long, and it is harder to say goodbye than I thought it would be - especially considering there were times I never thought I would be able to. But here we are. I stood at the crossroads of pain and health long ago, and I chose to forsake the former for a chance at the latter. This is not to say I will not continue to change for the better, because I will. But, now, I feel that I have sufficiently shaken the chains that bound our flesh and our souls. The world I know is so much better than I ever thought it could be. I have you to thank for this, and so I now pay you your due.”
Tears well for a moment; you pause to blink them away. You find a YouTube of World I Know. It’s the best version you’ve seen in a long time.
“I do not hate you. I do not loathe you. In fact, I love you. If it were not for you, I would not be as strong as I am. I would not have made it this far without you testing me. Pushing me. In a deep, dark way, you honed me. I may not have ever felt I could best you, but I learned to stave you off. As you got stronger, so did I. You became a cold, still ocean, and I swam through you, grabbing for more light, more warmth, for the next spot of land on which to rest. The magnitude of our struggle propelled us forward, into things that we could never have achieved separately. We have become the exception to the rule. We made good where there was no good to be made. We have fought and beaten back fate. I fully admit this. But now, we must lay down arms, at least in the way they have been raised before. I would be remiss if I did not accept the fact that there have been casualties, too. Severe casualties. More often than not, they have been other people. Relationships. I will not sacrifice anything more for you, nor anyone.
The depths of our battle overwhelmed everything we were; everything I was. Everything I wanted to be. I fought you, and it drove me forward. In this fact lies the most wicked victory you ever can lay claim to: the achievements were secondary to the fight, as was everything else. Not anymore. I hereby relieve you of your duties as trainer and antagonist. You will forever be a part of me, undeniable as the scars across my body. But you will heal. Your grip has already weakened, and now it is I who carry you to the end. You are not my equal, anymore. My life is mine, not ours. I have learned to accept the things that I am, and not to fear them. Not to fear love, passion, power, or the things that I want. I don’t have to best you - the mere fact that I am where I am stands testament to that fact.
Tonight, I uncork the last earthly remnant of your being. Tonight, you fade to memory. Tonight, I will breathe a sigh of relief. With your passing, I am free. I will never forget your lessons. Good bye, old life.”
You realize you really could have written this a few weeks ago, at the point when you felt like everything had come together. Before the trip you took to your old home, just to make sure that you had gotten to the point you imagined yourself at. Gladly, you are in the place you imagined, perhaps even better off. You know your priorities, and are sure they are yours. You feel things you haven’t allowed yourself to feel in a long time, and your passion burns, albeit in different, less destructive ways. Your life rests firmly in your grasp, and responds to all you wish.
The only question that remains is to see if the Final Casualty is really a casualty, at all. That story, however, is best told by your journal that you’ve kept the last few days. Time to start transcribing. You begin…
“Day 1 - tomorrow is yesterday’s never…”