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For One Minute, I Remembered Why I Used to Drink
And a minute later, I was very glad I don’t anymore
I’m not sure what triggered the memory.
Maybe it was looking out into the backyard of my current house.
Maybe it was the college football playoffs.
But in the middle of a workday, I was suddenly about 10 years old.
In the backyard of my childhood home. With a football.
Alone.
And happy.
Throwing the ball, catching my own passes.
Running.
A game in my head — one in which I’m the star — making the key play.
Or, sometimes, one in which I just missed — and have to live to fight another day.
I can see the kitchen window — the one over the sink. Can see the double window that showed me the kitchen table.
And, in that moment of memory. In that space of time where a man who is almost 50 is 10 again, I felt it.
That feeling.
The feeling of dread I’d have as a 10-year-old boy looking into my house during a game of football in the backyard.