I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

Day 65


Where oh where has my pretty pink cloud drifted off to? I swear 15 minutes ago I was sitting here thinking, “I could have a glass of wine and nobody would ever know.” I didn’t and I won’t. You can’t know that for sure, but I do. There’s no glaring matter that is making me want a drink, just an all-over malaise, a low grade discontent. The kind I used to be able to drink away with just a couple of glasses of wine or shots of bourbon. I think I’m grieving today because for the first time in a little while, those things seem tempting and they make me want to cry.

The cap’n comes home from work every evening in shitty stressed out mood, then he has a couple of drinks and he starts smiling and becomes chatty. He doesn’t get drunk really, he just gets a buzz on and he gets on my nerves big time. I know it’s not him, I know it’s the drinks and the fact that he gets to have them that I resent. I know I’m not being fair, he’s working his ass off so we can live in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed while I spend my days plucking at these keys on this keyboard. He’ll be stuck in some shitty hotel room for almost the whole month of December including Christmas Day while I’m making the rounds of parties down in Mexico. I’m suffering a huge guilt complex. And still, I had the nerve to get on his ass about his tipsiness last night and told him it wasn’t any fun for me when he was like that.

“When do you have fun anymore, Kary?” he asked.

I thought to myself, I have fun when I’m walking along the river, or when I’m cooking a great meal, or baking cookies for the neighborhood kids. I’m having a lot more fun than I was having at the end of my drinking career. But I know what he’s talking about. He’s grieving, too. He’s grieving the old Kary that used to have a couple of drinks with him at the end of the day and get chatty herself, so much so he never got a word in. He’s grieving the old Kary that would put in Christmas music any time of the year and croon to Dean Martin, “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.” He’s grieving the old Kary that used to make him do the stroll down the hall to Elton John’s, “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.” Elton, sweetie, I know what you’re talking about. That could be my song to booze today.

“Time on my hands could be time spent with you, Laughing like children, Living like lovers…

So today I’m just out there doing my best to find a new object of affection to dedicate that song to and practicing doing the stroll without the benefit of alcohol.