I Probably Will

"Think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will." - Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days

"It's going to be like Plato's Symposium, just with more red wine and less gay sex." - T.O. Hob

It's been one year. One year now since I started this blog. I don't think there has ever been another time in my life where twelve months has taken me so far away from where I started.

But I spent so much time thinking of how I wanted to tell this story that I talked myself right out of telling it. So instead I'll play it safe, but for a second, and come back another time with the whole story.

So here we go...

"You will curse the day you did not do what that the Phantom asked of you." - The Phantom of the Opera

Every really important night in my life has happened in the past year. The best night of my life. The worst night of my life. The night I got really drunk. The night we had a lot of fun.

The night I almost died.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about that one lately. A lot of serious thinking. And I think I've finally figured it out. I was at my worst that night, The Darkness had closed in and I couldn't see past the next few hours. I knew then it was over. I didn't know why, or how, or even exactly when, but I knew there wasn't long left. I don't think I've ever been more frightened then I was right then.

And then something funny happened. She showed up.

Now I know I've told this part before, and it was always more fun to speculate about who and what and when and where, but here's the simple truth of it. Anyone could have walked through that door right then and I think it would have helped immensely, it had just been that kind of night. I was glad it was her though, glad that it was someone I liked.

I'm big on love and respect, but when I think back on that night there's another feeling that I didn't always understand, I didn't always like.

For a long time I was afraid it was a wicked feeling, but now I know it wasn't. It was love. It was respect. But it was more...it was gratitude. A crushing, overwhelming sense of debt that to this day still leaves me reeling. I know I would have died that night, not sure how or why, but I know. And I didn't. Solely because someone showed up.

Pick apart my insecurities, smother me with talk of abandonment issues, bury me under a pile of psychological mumbo jumbo but all I know is that I was dead...and now I'm not. And I owe at least a small part of that to her.

Say what you will, but everything that has happened from that moment until now, and everything that will happen from now on in my life can be, in some small way, traced back to the moment that she walked in that door. Can you even imagine how strange that must feel?

But now...well now I have to start looking. I have to continue to make great friends, have to continue to find out who I am, have to start looking for love in all sorts of places. I have to keep going.

The stories have to be told.

If I'm ever lucky enough to grow old and have grandkids every story I will ever tell them has already taken place. It's a safe bet that if a story starts "there was a night when", then that night probably happened in the past year. It's feels so odd to know that you've come so far, and still have so far left to go.

There are so many great things, so many great people, so many great nights to remember in the past year. There was the first night, there was that night, and now there will be tonight. I'll always remember this as the year that almost was, but thankfully wasn't. One year ago tonight I was, and now I am.

And...

I hope when I grow old I don't sit around thinking about it but...