Wednesday, 8.29.18
10:49pm
36 years old
187 pounds
Top 5 Outkast Songs: SpottieOttieDopalicious, B.O.B., Humble Mumble, Southernplayalistic, Roses
Denver, CO
2018 has been an astonishingly strange year thus far. The author is feeling reflective as we tick down to September and begin the final quarter turn.
How do we still have four months left to go?
How do we only have four months left to go?
On a cold, clear night in January, I left/was fired from the one job I'd known since arriving in Denver. It was devastating to me at the time, and then liberating, and then frightening. I fought through some very lean months with the gracious help of friends and my new adopted family here in this strange city next to the mountains. There solidified within me this feeling that I was doing all the right things and had made all the right choices and though it was difficult to see at the time, it would all work out to be okay. It was more difficult to know this truth on some days.
On a very bright, unseasonably warm day in February, my best friend moved away. Jen had been having thoughts of leaving Denver for a little while, and finally departed for Seattle. The author was sad to see her go. Jen and I have known each other for twenty-four years. We are simpatico in our views on the world, and on relationships, or about mental health. We have been one another's confidants. We have helped each other move. We have cried together. And then, poof. She was in another city. I miss her still.
And so through the coldest months, I bounced around from various bars and restaurants as I tried to scrape together a living. I sat outside, next to several dumpsters, in freezing temperatures and stinging rain and snow as a doorman for a nightclub. I served Coors Light by the bucket to Kansas Jayhawk fans during the March Madness tournament. I worked the city's busiest sports bar, and then worked the city's busiest live music bar on St. Patrick's Day. I worked the snow-stained hellscape that was Rockies Opening Day this year, which made me violently sick unlike anything I'd experienced before....
And then Tyler pulled me up out of the trash.
They dusted me off.
They polished me up.
And they breathed new life into me.
They took a chance on me. They deemed me worthy of saving. They gave me a financial stability I hadn't known in a couple years. I got medical and dental and retirement benefits again! I got relief from having to stress constantly about money.
Through the end of April and into May and June, I was a corporate worker bee again, and thrilled to be back in the hive. It was nice to have familiar muscles to flex. The routine of it. The companyspeak. The Outlook notifications and the online meeting invites. It all came rushing back.
Except I kept worrying about how this new skin would fit me.
I hadn't been a sober citizen on normal business hours in two full years.
There was definitely a period of adjustment. It was not as easy as I had anticipated.
Here I was, set with all the things that had been missing from my life since arriving in Denver, but I didn't know how to have a social life. I had to relearn all that.
Of course I did, and of course things worked out well.
I started kicking ass at my new job.
I got a side hustle doing social media work again, which brings me joy.
I got another side hustle filling in at a couple spots around town, so I can get paid to be social and it doesn't feel so weird to be the sober guy at the bar.
Things started to fall together through the summer in a way they hadn't in a long time for me. Truly, I started to feel like this year was beginning to turn around.
Until a sunny Friday afternoon in July when I found out my grandmother was dying of kidney failure. If she sees Christmas, we'll all count it as a blessing.
And then on the same day in August, I found out that I got the apartment of my dreams on the day my grandfather was admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure.
And so this is how 2018 seems to be going - wild swings from one extreme to the next, and all the attendant emotions in between. And there are still four months left on the calendar.
How do we still have four months left to go?
How do we only have four months left to go?
I'll be ending 2018 in a new place, and that's true in several ways. I'm sure that however the remainder of the year shakes out, it will not disappoint.
10:49pm
36 years old
187 pounds
Top 5 Outkast Songs: SpottieOttieDopalicious, B.O.B., Humble Mumble, Southernplayalistic, Roses
Denver, CO
2018 has been an astonishingly strange year thus far. The author is feeling reflective as we tick down to September and begin the final quarter turn.
How do we still have four months left to go?
How do we only have four months left to go?
On a cold, clear night in January, I left/was fired from the one job I'd known since arriving in Denver. It was devastating to me at the time, and then liberating, and then frightening. I fought through some very lean months with the gracious help of friends and my new adopted family here in this strange city next to the mountains. There solidified within me this feeling that I was doing all the right things and had made all the right choices and though it was difficult to see at the time, it would all work out to be okay. It was more difficult to know this truth on some days.
On a very bright, unseasonably warm day in February, my best friend moved away. Jen had been having thoughts of leaving Denver for a little while, and finally departed for Seattle. The author was sad to see her go. Jen and I have known each other for twenty-four years. We are simpatico in our views on the world, and on relationships, or about mental health. We have been one another's confidants. We have helped each other move. We have cried together. And then, poof. She was in another city. I miss her still.
And so through the coldest months, I bounced around from various bars and restaurants as I tried to scrape together a living. I sat outside, next to several dumpsters, in freezing temperatures and stinging rain and snow as a doorman for a nightclub. I served Coors Light by the bucket to Kansas Jayhawk fans during the March Madness tournament. I worked the city's busiest sports bar, and then worked the city's busiest live music bar on St. Patrick's Day. I worked the snow-stained hellscape that was Rockies Opening Day this year, which made me violently sick unlike anything I'd experienced before....
And then Tyler pulled me up out of the trash.
They dusted me off.
They polished me up.
And they breathed new life into me.
They took a chance on me. They deemed me worthy of saving. They gave me a financial stability I hadn't known in a couple years. I got medical and dental and retirement benefits again! I got relief from having to stress constantly about money.
Through the end of April and into May and June, I was a corporate worker bee again, and thrilled to be back in the hive. It was nice to have familiar muscles to flex. The routine of it. The companyspeak. The Outlook notifications and the online meeting invites. It all came rushing back.
Except I kept worrying about how this new skin would fit me.
I hadn't been a sober citizen on normal business hours in two full years.
There was definitely a period of adjustment. It was not as easy as I had anticipated.
Here I was, set with all the things that had been missing from my life since arriving in Denver, but I didn't know how to have a social life. I had to relearn all that.
Of course I did, and of course things worked out well.
I started kicking ass at my new job.
I got a side hustle doing social media work again, which brings me joy.
I got another side hustle filling in at a couple spots around town, so I can get paid to be social and it doesn't feel so weird to be the sober guy at the bar.
Things started to fall together through the summer in a way they hadn't in a long time for me. Truly, I started to feel like this year was beginning to turn around.
Until a sunny Friday afternoon in July when I found out my grandmother was dying of kidney failure. If she sees Christmas, we'll all count it as a blessing.
And then on the same day in August, I found out that I got the apartment of my dreams on the day my grandfather was admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure.
And so this is how 2018 seems to be going - wild swings from one extreme to the next, and all the attendant emotions in between. And there are still four months left on the calendar.
How do we still have four months left to go?
How do we only have four months left to go?
I'll be ending 2018 in a new place, and that's true in several ways. I'm sure that however the remainder of the year shakes out, it will not disappoint.
Comments
Post a Comment