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THE EPILOGUE: RIDE THE WAVE!
I was listening to Jeff Bridges talk about his near death experience with Covid and about he was in greater danger because he was just accepting his fate, and his wife, daughter, and Doctor told him he needed to fight! In life it can be quite the challenge to pick your spots. If you want to fight everyone and everything all of the time you are going to be exhausted and alone. If you are a human doormat you will be exhausted and alone. Are the forces pulling at you going to help or harm you? When I put the lid back on my whiskey bottle I do so with a tinge of regret. The future is so far away and one more pour probably isn't the line of demarcation. But now I'm also staying up later, making myself a snack, watching something lame that is sapping my IQ. Instead I can go to bed, be better rested, and that whiskey will be there for me to enjoy at a better time. When you are young, staying up and seeing what's going to happen can be a lot of fun, even though the largest percentage of time nothing does or it is something you did not want to happen.
Of course, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow is no way to live your life either. The perfect time, whatever that even is, is so rare. So rare in fact, that you probably didn't even notice when it arrived. The next day you slap your forehead and realized that you missed it! When I got in my car and drove to my friends for our training sessions with all kinds of wines, beers, and spirits I had a strong sense of the temporary nature of these meetings. This group of kindred spirits with enough free time to gather and taste delicious bottles together and break them down was a true celebration of the present. It has been a very long time since we all went our separate ways but i still remember those gatherings with great fondness. These were simple gatherings that involved each person bringing a fun bottle of something and then us cooking a simple meal. Some time during the evening with my face hurting from laughter I would announce what we all knew to be true "we know something that other people don't". We rode that wave and enjoyed it for what it was.
I arrived in Japan, both excited and nervous. I didn't know anyone, had no sense of direction, spoke zero Japanese, I just knew that I needed a change so very badly. I had decided on the long plane ride that I was going to say yes a lot more and explore everything I could. My first two roommates had no interest in leaving the apartment and I could not understand them at all. They would watch American tv shows downloaded on their computer and eat prepared food from the grocery store every night. At a certain point I stopped inviting them on my adventures and just went out on my own. After a month I made some friends with fellow teachers and started to really explore Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. The best part of the whole experience was being old enough to know what a brilliant opportunity this was and young enough to have the energy to ride the wave. There have been many forks in the road that I wonder about, but that is not one of them. If I had not thrown caution to the wind and gotten out of dodge I was going to drown. And if I had not been rewarded by that big swing, then I would not have attempted the next one and moved out here.
The alarm goes off, you open your eyes and you might already be cursing about the thing you are dreading about the day. Even though it is almost never as bad as you think it is going to be, it is like this big weight just sitting on your back and taunting you. You want to enjoy your coffee but you can feel that weight and the inveitably of whatever the thing is. Of course after you make it through you might enjoy a reprieve or you might just switch the fear to the next thing you are anxious about. Anxiety always has the exact amount of energy you give it, so you can keep that party going as long as you have the strength to battle yourself. These last few years I have taken the approach of, not only am I powerless to stop it from happening, I'm actually equipped to handle it. Whatever is going to go down, I'm pretty ready for it. The best prep I can actually do is to get some sleep and eat well. If i'm rested and have eaten well, there just isn't much that can stop me. Obstacles can be navigated, disappointments can be mitigated, hopes can find new cracks, and i can ride the wave right through.
The anger is going to flash. The sadness is going to come. People are going to be disappointing. I'm going to let myself and others down. I know this. On the way home from getting ginger ale and mucinex a car shot across the road and almost plowed right into me. My strongest feeling at that moment was, "can I just please get home in one piece? I already feel like crap." Following them home and yelling at them really isn't going to help me at all and probably not them either. A smart person said yesterday that we have to be careful not to demonize people. I think these are wise words but difficult to practice. That driver could have hit me and others and for no good reason. What was the big hurry that they had to turn left right that second without checking? However, it is very unlikely that they are the worst person on earth and spend their days ruining peoples lives. Someone is happy to see them and they do kind things for people. I don't think flat earthers are funny and I do think facts and truth matters. I just think if you are going to get enraged about people saying expresso then your life probably isn't super wonderful. When I was a kid the big fuss was about ain't. Now look at it sitting there without a redline for spellcheck under it!
I don't get mad that I can't get a sufficient supply of allocated bourbons for the store. I don't yell at my sales reps or the distilleries. What is allocated today isn't what was allocated when I started and it will change again. I'm always the most interested in what's next and what can be done now. The point of any look how good we had it story must be what magic is happening right now. I used to dream about writing something like this and now I'm doing it. It was much simpler than this, I just wanted a way to communicate about the bottles i was excited about and that were new. They would not let me even hang one page of that on the door at Bevmo. They took it down and threatened me. I put it on paper and on a rack on the tasting bar and they took that too. So yesterday's disappointment is now today's joy. I was once young and thin, but felt too skinny. Now I'm older and too heavy. I could have enjoyed who I was then, but i didn't know how to do that. Now I know how to make today as grand as I can, even though I have a lot less life to go. If I become bitter about that, then I'm ruining the time I have left. Much more appealing to enjoy this, whatever this is, and seek more of that and less of that, and some of this, that, and the other.
I didn't know what i was doing, what I was supposed to be doing, and was so angry about everything. I fought the waves. I walked the opposite way just to do it. I crowned myself truly unique and honest. A grown up Holden Caufield having temper tantrums about how phony and wrong everything was. I only got little glimpses of what it could be like when some kind soul would disarm me with their generosity of spirit. I could unclench my jaw, put my dukes down, and just enjoy the moment. The next day be bitter about how my WHOLE life should be like that and not this! How can you make change if you don't know what you are trying to do? People would ask me if anything ever made me happy ever and they meant that. I had no answer for them because all of my energy was being devoted to things that didn't actually matter to me. I was walking home from my regular bar in California fighting the wind. Throwing punches in the air and yelling out at the night. "What is wrong with me?!" I demanded. "Am I so bad? Am I so terrible? Don't I have good qualities? Must everything be so difficult for me?" It was a three mile walk and I always used it to sober up. The next day I woke up and I thought about all of the wars and battles I was waging and decided to wave the white flag at all of them. Once I realized that it was late in the game for that and people expected me to start up again at any moment I knew I had to once again shake things up. I had no idea what would happen once I got here, I just knew that I needed a new place to try to ride the wave instead of fighting it.
None of that happened over night and the process continues today. I just know that I like what I've done, who I am, and where I'm going a lot better now. All of it is a lot easier and what I probably love the most is that when a friend is excited about something they know I will match their enthusiasm. That was always the person I wanted to be and now that's the wave I'm riding.
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