Another Night

I wouldn’t have called the shift in my gait climbing the stairs ‘staggering’ at this point. Not yet. It was still more like a saunter; the fluid movement only daring to slip from my control ever so slightly and still stemming primarily from my hips.

I wasn’t so far gone I couldn’t consider another beverage, so I didn’t consider as much as I poured one. A roommate had offered some whiskey earlier and told me to ‘help myself’ upon her arrival home.

But it wasn’t my mind’s incessant demand for a reprieve from awareness that drew me up stairs. It was my stomach, begging to be filled with something other than 2 shots of gin and the beans and rice it had received sometime around 6pm. The reasonable gap between then and the current hour of midnight left much to be desired by my grumbling hunger.

I opened the cupboard door and somehow this was the queue to remind me to relieve myself so I detoured to the bathroom.

Once back to the kitchen I stopped short, eyes wide, adjusting to focus on unexpected movement. Just outside the back door someone was using a phone light to guide their way along the porch. I froze. Panic crept cold along my sides until I recognized the tennis shoes they were wearing. My roommate. I took a breath.

My panic subsided, I resumed my food prep. I didn’t want something complex, that would take too much time and frankly I was uninterested in clueing my housemate in on the number of my libations this evening. The faster I could leave the kitchen, the better things would be. Unfortunately all I had were types of pasta or rice, either one would take a while longer than I’d prefer. But what choice did I have? I could cook or go back to bed hungry.

I ultimately chose to satiate my hunger and set a pot to boil.

They thankfully remained outside, chatting with a guest, they’re friend, and enjoying the newly safe evening air. I debated momentarily about a package of chicken ramen but….if we are being entirely truthful I rather enjoy the noodles as breakfast and settled on utilizing the other pasta in my cabinet.

Soon enough, it was time to drain and dress the cooked pasta. I had made too much to consume now. If I did, I would surely have a stomach ache and pasta wasn’t my indulgence of choice tonight. Best practice would be splitting the pasta between fresh ceramic bowl and tupperware; so I followed best practice. Gold star.

As I went to fill my eating bowl it hit me that the flat wooden implement I held was simply not cut out for scooping and delivering macaroni noodles. I noticed my mind immediately calculated a more efficient way to fill the bowl but was stopped by a suddenly loud question: Can’t you put in the work toward ANYTHING? Must you always find the easy way?

I decided the loud voice had a point so I kept on, spooning meager amounts of pasta into the bowl one by one, slowing my movements to best balance the noodles on the wooden spatula dumping carefully into the bowl until it was sufficiently full. Taking time I didn’t want to take. I felt my panic begin another crawl toward my chest and reconsidered.

To fill the tupperware, I gave up spooning and simply lifted and dumped the remainder of the pot inside and sealed it shut for the fridge. Yes, I gave up the hard work to take the easy way out. I needed to leave the kitchen before my true intentions were realized.

The easy way certainly didn’t feel easy. I felt shook to the core of my very being, just from recognizing a path of thought that has served me relatively well thus far in life.

But is that what I want life to be? Relatively fine? Do I want to do relatively well?

No.

No, I want to be great.

So when will you go to bed sober? The same loud voice asked.

My awareness came to in my room. Somehow, I’d cleaned up the kitchen and gone back downstairs without really noticing. Now, I’m sitting on my bed, bowl of pasta heating my thighs through the comforter, fork in one hand, whiskey glass cooling the other, I take a sip.

Another night.