Becoming That Guy

Today marks my 19th anniversary of sobriety. I’m disconnected from that person, can’t really pull up enough memories, but I can’t help but be reminded pretty much every day. It was a big deal, of huge significance.

Eh. Covid now takes the top spot. Even fatherhood was a process, months of prep work and then all those months of gradual learning.

If you follow. My life changed overnight — I just had no way of recognizing that. I’m just barely seeing it now. The world now happens around me.

And I don’t know what it would have looked like without going through all that 19 years ago. I’ve tried many times to explain it to people — it’s not a mystery that I’ve managed to stay on pretty much an even keel since Covid.

But that guy didn’t show up for a long time, Even-Keel Sober Guy. I had to be Crazy Guy for a while. But I became Covid Guy immediately. Because I never got better. Also? I got worse.

I’m not a misanthrope. I still love people, and miss them. Maybe not people in general, but you know? Flaws and all, we’re all trying as hard as we can.

But I’m sensitive, and bitter now, and things can put me over the edge into a state of anger that takes a long time to go away.

Something happened yesterday that sent me spinning out into agitation. I debriefed Julie on it, hoping to avoid it lingering and festering but GUESS WHAT?

You can’t reach out to me and pretend things are as they were three years ago, when we saw each other all the time. You preface whatever you want to say, right?

I think about you I wonder about you how are you doing these days? Is there anything I can do for you

Ya know? Just be a decent fucking human being. Just be a friend. You can be perfunctory, it’s fine — most of the time, I really don’t want to talk about it. I just need friends. Who aren’t assholes.

Obviously I got my feelings hurt. Julie comes home all the time with news of people asking about me, expressing their affection and concern. This is wonderful stuff, and some days the aggregate of these messages can make my day.

I don’t need sympathy, and I suspect most chronically ill people don’t. Empathy is another thing, but that’s a tricky state for some people, I get it. Some lives are so complicated and difficult there’s no room to imagine someone else’s. I don’t lose sleep over missing empathy.

It’s just insulting to pretend I‘m not a completely different person in a completely different state of being, and you know what? It’s not going to get better. Don’t feel sorry for me, just acknowledge it for God’s sake. I just need friends.

Not you. You guys are my rock. I think I’m going to be a very selective misanthrope, and that’s probably all I can hope for. I’ve done a lot of mental downgrading of friends to acquaintances over the past three years. And I guess I just did it again.

But hey, sobriety.