This past Halloween night marked my 27th birthday. The ghouls and ghosts, awkward goofy pumpkins, skeletons and comically large spiders that share the annual celebration of my birth feel like familiar old friends, and I always enjoy taking the time out to sit with them at some point in the night, usually after a period of happy inebriation of some sort, and reflect with them on my life up until that point. The ungrudging, soulless sockets of carved vegetables and plastic decorations make fitting mirrors for me to drunkenly bounce back thoughts I have about the direction of my life. I think for the first time this birthday was a real testament to my adulthood, and real kick in the pants to wake the fuck up and realize, know and understand all the way down to my core that childhood is over. ‘It is over man!’ I wailed to myself late into the night, desperate for the words to sink in to some fitting place in my soul where they could make a difference. ‘Let it go. It’s time to grow up, and start acting like a man. Like an adult!’
My thirties are fast approaching and not for the first time I reflect with humiliation upon my accomplishments up to this point. The short end of the stick states, quite simply, that there are none. I haven’t done a single thing worth noting, and it is a fact that weighs heavily now upon me, already so late into my life. ‘It’s okay’, I’ve been deceiving myself, ‘I’ll get around to it. Now how about another beer!’
As far as I can remember the years since I did anything worthwhile (a short stint in College after High School) have been a grand ol’ time. Partying and feeling good and absorbing the world with wide-eyed wonder. Experiencing the highest highs and the lowest lows and loving and winning and losing and constantly, constantly on adventures of ultimate importance. We felt like we were doing something, and that was all any of us ever needed, the feeling of elation knowing we were the centre of our universe and all that would ever matter was the here and now. We were living it out to the fullest and riding the wave of intoxicated selfish gratification all the way through life, never to slow down, never to surrender. Perhaps my 27th birthday was when that wave finally broke for me, and started rolling back. Because now, upon reflection of all the years gone by, I recall a haze of mix-matched memories, foggy moments I can’t find dates for, lost assorted emotions and conversations that once seemed so incredibly necessary to the grand scheme of things. All of it already becoming lost to the murky depths of time.
27 felt like 21 again. 22 again. 23 again. Nothing has been changing for so long now and if I don’t, right now, make the effort to change my world, to grow up and take on the real responsibilities of adulthood, it might be too late. But thanks to my blatant disregard for anything in life that has not instantly gratified me, I find myself desperately ill-equipped to face my uncertain future. And that is why last night I was to be found once again deep in the 10th pint of domestic, desperately drowning my despair and contempt in the dregs of yet another impressive and frightening bender. It doesn’t even matter what it is in those moments that intoxicate me. Anything to fuck me up enough to escape the darkness careening around my skull leaving a trail of tormented carnage in its wake. Of course the ironic part is only ever-present the next morning, when some semblance of good judgement returns. Upon waking up encrusted with last nights grime on some couch, the sun threatening to make my head explode, the realizations appear that you can’t escape any of it, just blur it enough to hide it deep enough to be able to procrastinate a proper fix for another day. The reality of it all is you can never escape from the despair you’ve caused yourself, so hiding from it ass deep in a bottle is about as effective as running as fast as you can in one direction tethered to your starting point by a bungee cord. Eventually, you’re going to come hurtling back to where you started. And you’ll probably throw up on the speedy return journey.
The rest of the day was spent coming to terms with the fact that I must no longer do this. That also means I must distance myself slightly from the people who have made my life so profoundly significant for so long. My wonderful friends, they are stronger than me. They know what they want in their lives, and they’re out there getting it. It’s time I did the same, and that means a breakaway from their paths. Off into the dense thick underbrush I go, machete in hand, hacking my own route into the heart of this life.
The benders are over. The drinking, well, I’ll cut back. Real life is about to start and I need to have a fresh head on my shoulders
As my wonderfully understanding Mother wrote in my birthday card: “Let’s hope 27 is ‘THE ONE’.”
