I have an urge to write something prolific but I just consumed a fairly large amount of alcohol so this will probably turn into a garbled mess of rants. Or maybe it will lead to the next great American novel. Did Kerouac start drinking before he wrote? Or did he start writing before he drank? These are the stupid, quasi-serious topics I debate with myself when I drink. That’s why I rarely drink. Tomorrow morning I will wake around nine and check the social networks I belong to. This post will have probably been fed into my Facebook notes by then. I will cringe at my idiotic questions. I will cringe at the stupidity of the night’s events and why I even headed to the newest local watering hole. I will probably not delete this post, instead remaining optimistic that no one wastes their time on my thoughts anyways.

At the same time I will remain optimistic that someone is in fact wasting their time on my thoughts. I occasionally have a good one from time to time. And I will continue writing unabashedly.

After failing out of high school my senior year, my life fell apart. It was a stupid, selfish period of my life and I tried to believe I didn’t care who I hurt. It took a lot of lying to myself to convince myself that I didn’t care. More than most could possibly imagine. And I drank. For some reason the three people I remained closest to felt like making up lost time and drank heavily, and I joined right in. There was bonfire after bonfire, apartment after apartment, and country house after country house of drunken shenanigans. I was buying handles of Jack Daniels every time we went out and consuming way more than I needed to. I was a mess and I wasn’t even the worst off.

This lasted the entirety of my summer after graduation. I realized, rather quickly, that this was not for me. I was luckier than some of my friends in that I had developed no dependence on alcohol. I’m not sure it had anything to do with willpower; rather just a lack of interest in the life style. Since that summer I typically drink four or five times a year at most. The birthdays of close friends and the occasional wedding or bachelor party. I don’t get the appeal.

That fall I pulled out of a summer of bad decisions but maintained a depression for probably a year or two afterwards. I was in a shitty place. In the fall of 2007 I decided to move forward with my life. I had to get back into school. I had to try to do something to get out of my rut. And I really wanted to be a writer. That November I registered at the Hawkeye Metro Center in Waterloo to get my G.E.D. I tested out of everything and got top scores. I was extremely motivated and rocketed through as much testing as I could as quick as I could. In hindsight, it was kind of a joke.

I took the entrance test for the local community college and rebooted my education. It rebooted my life at the same time. I tried very hard to forget certain aspects of my life, even probably going a little overboard in my efforts. I was still in a bad place mentally, regardless of my small triumphs to grasp control of my life. I wouldn’t even realize how down I was until the summer of 2009. Those years are all kind of foggy. That’s not how my final teenage years should be remembered. Or perhaps, more appropriately, not remembered. I have blacked out parts of my past, and not with a drink.

It’s an odd feeling to look back on your life and not recognize it as personally identifiable to yourself. Prior to losing control of my life I had strongly believed that I had it all together. Losing control was a very slow process. That gradual transition to the low point in my life, in addition to fooling myself that I was telling small white lies that wouldn’t hurt anyone, cloaked the eventual progression into a very scary state of mind. I’ve written here about it before. I’ve apologized about it before, hoping the apologies would find those that needed to hear them. I was horrific inside. It was a very different me.

I hope I have it all together again but I maintain that hope while knowing how thin the line between having it all together and having my world fall apart is. I no longer dispense “advice” to anyone seeking it as I did prior. I’m not entirely sure my advice is all that great. I will talk to anyone that wants someone to talk to, but my words will always carry a disclaimer. In some ways I’m not as strong as I used to be. In others, I’m far stronger. I’m as optimistic as ever, but more cautious. And I’m filled with tenfold the passion. My aspirations are greater than ever. They seem so much closer or easier to obtain than before. You could say I will always dream a fool’s dreams.

But I’d prefer you say it with the understanding that I will never give in.