We shook hands, and my boss and I boarded the ferry. The water was blue and beautiful. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new year. So stay tuned. See you at sunrise, y’all. #OnwardAndUpward
Chuck, if you’re out there…thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you
…both should remind me that it’s my privilege to seize every today and tomorrow I have, for as long as I have them. For some reason I am lucky enough still to be here sharing them, making the best of myself in them, and refusing to waste them. Mark my words.
Life’s too short for questions like those; but keeping both of them in mind has taught me that for whatever reason, be it fate, the universe, or our boundless energies reaching out for one another…
As everyone became consumed with elation at the chance to gas up and leave, l was there, stunned and settling into Chuck’s kind and comforting moment in time that fate let him share with me.
“Congratulations! You’re lucky you’re so young. I don’t know how I’m still alive, but I’m here today, so imagine how many more todays and tomorrows you’ve got in store for you.” Then the electricity came on.
Within minutes the conversation went from silly back-and-forth to my new pal Chuck telling me that he was just over 3.5 years without any booze. Outta the blue! My heart skipped a beat.
…and I piped up with my suspicion that whatever powers that be must have wanted to make certain that I couldn’t leave the beautiful beachside sanctuary I desperately needed.
His name I came to learn was Chuck, and he was teaching his nephew how to pump gas for the first time. We both laughed about how the universe had other plans…
I’m a natural conversationalist (read: annoying dialogue starter) so when I was met with someone going along with my gab I was grateful! I was then being glib and was not alone in trying to make jest of our current misfortune.
To my pleasant surprise an older gentleman on the opposite side of our pump piped in that he had years worth of experience should push come to shove and being a team player would gladly join the fight for fuel.
Trying to be optimistic and offhanded I suggested to a few fellow fuelers the idea of syphoning from an unsuspecting extended cab truck parked in our vicinity.
When we arrived our sun-soaked-selves were unnerved to hear from the other gas station hopefuls that the electricity was down for a lengthy stretch of road…
I spent the days helping others celebrate in the sun, and wanted to never leave the comfort of the beach, for fear that my mind would somehow take me back to that country road.
This weekend was jam packed full of work with events and weddings to keep my mind distracted from retreating into the revisitations I’ve become accustomed to as this marker approaches every year.
…(because it doesn’t build me up like the sunrise on October 8th did) the glutton for punishment in me can’t help but harp on the harrowing journey that night had in store for me.
Unable to restrain myself, I spend a lot of time thinking about October 7th. Even though I have invested so much energy into telling myself that obsessing over the frightening reality of that Thursday night’s version of me is a futile exercise…
…but I say it all the time so I don’t forget how fortunate I was on that occasion, and hundreds, upon hundreds of others to have not killed myself or someone else. That was October 8th, 2015.
I always say the same thing to describe it: my car was dead, my phone was dead, and I should have been dead. After three years that summation still seriously fucks me up, believe me…
…which seems impossible to believe given the distance and drunkenness that combined to get me there. I was alone in my car, on a unmarked county road, and trying to piece together what the fuck was happening in my quiet, weakened, and fragile panic.
