Age Like Whiskey
A peer of mine once compared me to a bottle of whiskey, something that needs time to marinate and percolate to reach their true potential.
They were not the first to say something similar to this, including myself.
To be something entirely new takes many steps, many struggles,
many trips, accidents, and course correcting.
I am fascinated by the passage of time in this regard, seeing what stays remembered and what continues forward after so much is gone.
I’m fascinated by the change in popularity, observing the zeitgeist that flows like a force through us all.
Seeing how bad days often make good bricks to build beautiful art, how suffering may never be enough, needed in life like air.
Caught between other people and what is left for me, spending so much time trying to control my future that I neglect to really look at where I am in the present.
So much telling me that my future starts in the present, but my understanding of an unknown future sends fear through the ether.
Missing the point where I end up losing myself in the enjoyment of now, not bothering to try when I already know that the future is inevitable.
It’s not my place to see my positives or to compliment myself because that leads to false ego. I could easily lie to myself. It’s dangerous to lie to oneself. Though not all compliments are lies, I don’t trust myself to give them.
My father lied, his father lied, I have lied. Not seeing much hope for course correction, but why do I believe that?
It’s always been important to stay out of the spotlight, I can be the star of a high school show, but that’s as high as I’ll go.
I grew up believing I only had three options of who I could be:
My father, an Adonis.
My uncle, a nerd.
Or my other uncle, a mental handicap with no worth as that option.
However I see the cracks in my golden skin and the holes in my brain and the scars on my heart.
I see myself stuck under a pile of narcissism clawing my way out, caring about getting dirt in others eyes. How can’t I? We are social creatures.
After all, no one likes a squeaky wheel because no one likes attention hogs.
Believing lies while trying to grab the truths like water. Climbing a mountain that sometimes turns upside down.
Wishing childhood dreams of being able to make a living on art, never wanting to wake up and accept the truth that only the truly passionate and dedicated will achieve that dream, which I am neither.
Although, it is probably the only thing that makes me happy. I exist in a kind of permanent purgatory with a mind that can’t quit and a body that can’t act.
I often don’t know how to live correctly in the moment so I can stop worrying about the future, like bull in a China shop, or a cancer in the kitchen.
Feeling empathetic towards dogs, a good display of love and a good test to see if you can love. Observing with large ears seeing other men wade through the swamps of masculinity.
“I am never going to be a great writer,” I tell myself, but my dude, many great writers were tortured souls who had no other outlet and no available resources to know what to do with what they were feeling. Those writers paved the way so we could just write for fun, write what comes naturally. I know the wheel is really cool to reinvent and all, but the best thing about accomplishment is seeing your accomplishments disappearing behind you.
And when I do talk, I’ll talk as if I’d experienced a lot of trauma in my twenties, which is why I got divorced. With questions as to why I still talk about them and answering with the counter question:
“Why do you think I got married in the first place?”
Even when people hurt, I’ve always known that it wasn’t hate, just fear. Overwhelming amounts of fear.
People couldn’t understand exacly what we had, how could they? What we went through, only we know the truth.
But they said it themselves and I’ll write it down so I’ll remember, that there was always something between us, we shared a similar space and time. We just wanted to do art together, but we had our pasts pulling us in two different directions.
My father and hers. Her mother and mine. Perfection clouding what mattered, confined to a small enclosure because of our capitalism birth.
Leading to yelling. Hating the yelling, because a yell doesn’t go away. It scars your throat, it rings in ears, it echoes in the minds of it’s victims. A yell doesn’t make you better, it only grants you the center of attention, and you better be ready to handle it, if you want it that bad.
Maybe I’m not over it yet. Maybe I’m still sad that my spouse is no longer mine. Maybe it’s okay to be sad, but maybe I’m also scared. Maybe I also have an overwhelming amount of fear. Fear of settling for only being barely understood by another human being in this life.
But maybe one day, I’ll come across a whiskey connoisseur, looking for just the right year, using just the right ice, waiting for just the right time to drink it.
