Holidays are a strange time of year, if you ask me. As I walked down the San Antonio River Walk with my father and his girlfriend, fighting the urge to piss, streaming past the bars, recollecting on the notion that no longer are those places ever going to hold the same appeal to me anymore, I recognize how sad I almost feel. I don't really know why is that I feel sad? Is it because lately I fight the urge to drink? That's not it, I'm an alcoholic in early sobriety, that's what I do. I call my sponsor, work with people, and pray- I'll be okay. The problem with that for me is that I'm so young, it's hard to imagine sixty plus more years without taking a drink while my alcoholic peers that are in the elder years are getting clean it almost doesn't seem fair, but then, in reality, I've got it good- I get to nip my problem in the bud, early and save my life and give me a chance to really live. I have it lucky.
But, I'm going on a tangent.
Why do I feel sad, then, on Thanksgiving, then?- the day where I should be grateful for all that God gave me? Maybe it is because all I can think about is all the things I took away from the people that loved me. The hurt and pain and anguish that I cause. And yes, there is those moments of self pity washed with abysmal need for sympathy and a cry for a dash of humanity but in the end it's a lackluster sense of melancholy. I watch under the darkened lights of the once festive river walk, closed for the holiday, glittered with the occasional bar and restaurant serving patrons drinking monstrous margaritas and eating chips and smoking cigarettes and we, us three, we walk. I listen to my father and his girlfriend talk, and they are as content to be free and lively as the lights of the place could be, but me, and I sink in the dark bottom of the river.
Why? I have no idea. Maybe it is the medication. Maybe. And then, I get to thinking about my life recently. I just got a raise. I just got my car. My relationship with friends that I thought I would lose back home is only getting stronger, and my realtionship with my parents is better than ever. I am still sober. And besides Michigan losing to Ohio State, life can't seem to get much better for me. So as my father reminds that we forgot to make the salad for dinner tonight, I smile to myself. I realize why I was sad for Thanksgiving. I was sad for all the Thanksgivings before when I was falsely happy. I had to pay tribute the murdered holidays. And now, I sit back, and give myself the pleasure of moving on. Of looking around and being older and wiser and sober and happier. And what's greater, believing that I deserve this happiness.
There's so much time we have believing we don't deserve happiness for all the pain we created, when in reality, most of the hurt we caused those we love and that loved us was because we were hurting ourselves. I think the common element of all of the amends I have made is that everyone just wants me to stay sober and be happy. For that, I am grateful. For that, I smile. For that, I can close my eyes gently and sleep kindly and dream about a future where I live in a mid-western dream with snowy winters and colorful autumn's and the smell of the fireplace in the brisk air. I have found peace of mind in the words of Robert Frost: "My gentle house upon the hill where I stand so still but fly at will."

Yesterday, after closing in on the days work and preparing to go home, my phone rings. The dispay shows me an unfamiliar number and with the same reluctant curiousity, I answer it, curious as to whom it could be. It turns out, an old friend of mine that I have known over ten years that came into the program about over a year ago and relapsed has come up here to Kerrville, has about a week and a half sober and is thinking about moving up here.
I got to hang out with him last night for a good deal of time when I didn't think I was going to be able to because my meeting was cancelled, and arguably had the best day I have had for a very long time. We talked some in a comical manner of our combined past times to our mutual friends in Kerrville of our high school moments in College Station together, played guitar, and spoke little of the true tragedies that brought us together here in Kerrville together. While he looked jovial in outside, I saw a wrecked shit floating in his eyes, and as he drove me home later that night, we spoke of the gravity and reality of our lives.
A weird sensation swept over me at that moment. I saw a dichotomy of my past and my present. I've known my friend in his alcoholism and through that, I could see myself. I saw who I was and who I am now, and I realized through all the thick and thin the necessity to never forget that who I was and who I am are exactly the same person just looking at the world through a different shade of glasses.
I asked my friend to move up to Kerrville. I told him there was an opening in my house, and I'd help him get set up, which I really could, but I don't know if he's ready for it. Let's wait an see.

I am lazy as I rest my cheek against the cold window of this truck. Shifting uncomfortably, I try to find a spot to cause the smallest wake everytime we hit a bump, but in the end, I stick my hand in between my face and the glass. Gritty with dirt, my fingers tangle with my new beard and I feel my muscles relax as my body finally begins to become aware that my ten hour work day is over. My mind is numb to the music, my friend talking on the phone to some girl right next to me, the cars passing us by, the large rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country, and the deco-noir houses with their southern rustic panache- the only thing that intrigues me is the setting sun hiding behind the lifted trees and the azure rays mixed with echos of violent orange and purple and red. At every turn of the road and crest of a hill there is a new shade and new arrangement of clouds and lights to endure my ever so short fused fascinated mind with indiginatly small ethereal aspects of transcedental life that speaks ever so anthropomorphically to me, "Keep it simple, Sketch." So instead, I think about how beautiful it is, and smoke a cigarette and watch the wisps shatter and dance as the light refracts through the crack in the window.
And I think back to just a few months ago to a moment very similar to this but back in College Station. I think of my life just a short while ago with nostalgia. I think of the people I had a history with and the things we did and the songs we sang along to and the good times we had and promises we made that they would never end. And I look over to my friend, who stares galiantly at the road ahead of him, his task apparent and somatic. Do you ever miss it? I ask him.
Miss what? he responds casually without changing his gaze.
The past. Your friends you used to have.
Without missing a beat, he says to me: yeah- I miss the good times. And everytime I miss the good times, I have to stop and think about what put me here. And then when I think about that, I get depressed, and then I think about what keeps me here, and everything just falls into place.
And that's that?
That's that.
Okay.
What's keeping you here, Sketch? he asks me.
I look out the window. In the reflection, I see my eyes. I don't see the bad moments, I still see the good moments of my past and the beautiful sunset. Maybe, I say to him, I want to have good times again. Maybe, I'm tired of looking at sunsets and just looking at them waiting for it to become night so another day could end.
My friend doesn't say anything. He just keeps driving. We go down a few more bends, take a right, first left, five house on the left, the big blue trailer- that's my place, and I'm off, and as I'm waving him good-bye, something strikes me as to why my friend never responds- I'm still here. I already noticed that sunset.
I sat outside and watched that sun set with all of its glory. I watched it cast its shadows and silhouttes of trees and cars and rays of light and life beamed with life, careening off of mountain tops, and when it was over, when night came, I went inside, and another day ended.