I would be the first person to admit that I’ve spent a lot of my adulthood drinking, often to feel seen in some vague way.
In the process, I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
Now I’ll bring you back to December 2016.
My ex-wife and I broke up in March 2017. So this is about two-three months before that, although at this point neither of us I think had an idea. We definitely had problems, but we were kinda in this death march together for a lot of those problems. I had contemplated breaking up a few times, and I’m sure she had too. We had a big fight in Uptown Minneapolis in early April 2014 that I thought could be “the end.” Instead, we moved to Texas together about three months after that. Oddly, both of us are still here and probably live 5.1 miles apart.
Anyway.
To go back a year from this point, in December ’15 we had been in NYC for Christmas. We were staying with our friends in Astoria. On Christmas Day morning, I went to the supermarket to get something and I decided to stop and have two beers at some random bar in Queens that was open. Stupid, yes. We shared an account, and she saw that, and refused to go to my parents’ that afternoon. So I went by myself. That was a real fucking mess. About a month later, during the AFC Championship Game, her mom sent a text to about 30 people about how awful a person I was, without directly naming me. I think I punched a wall that night. Things were questionable.
Things evened out a bit in 2016. It was my first full year of being freelance. I made good money. Our relationship was iffy but OK. I drank a lot, yes. I started day drinking more during that time — finish work by 11am (doable), do P90X (ha), go to the bars along the Trinity River. Sober up by when she got home. Maybe go back out with her. We got a dog. I still have that dog. He’s sleeping in the other room as I type this.
2016 was thus OK. Late 2016 was getting messy. Around the holidays we were going to more social stuff. We were pretty good friends with a bunch of our neighbors, and had a little Woodshed (bar on the corner) crew and some other groups of friends. Things were periodically sloppy.
I went down to Miami (where she’s from) for Christmas 2016. In hindsight, there are a few main things I remember about this specific trip:
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