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It doesn't get better

There were times you would find me curled up on the ground late at night on some doorstep of a business or somewhere in a dark spot in San Francisco.  

There are nights drinking that I call "a good time" and some that I'm not quite sure what happened and others that I have no other word for it except "Legendary."  

It was on the some of all of those nights you would sometimes find me curled up on the cold concrete in a quiet place on the streets of more than a few towns.  I even look forward to some of the spots.

I would get to the point that I was done with drinking, done with the people I was hanging out with (at least momentarily), and done with the overstimulation of the lights and sounds of the bar.

I'd wander out into the darkness (or brightness, depending on which part of town the evening had taken me to) and start roaming the streets.   An alcove behind a theater, a recessed doorway in The Mission. Places where the cops went past if you kept quiet.

When I'm that drunk I'm hot and rubbery and the cold ground just feels so good.  Maybe it's a bathroom floor at my house or maybe it's anywhere.   If I can get away with it, I close my eyes. If that makes things spin, open them.  Feel that cool on my hot skin and the firm ground stretching my bones.  

This is the part of the night that I say to myself, "It doesn't get any better."  

I don't stay there.  I have to get home or I have to get back to my friends or maybe I feel better and I just want to go and re-engage with the world.  Or, I'm just cold.

There's a part in my head that is always responsible no matter how messy the night is and I pull out my best Trinity in Matrix and tell myself to get up.  Just get up.  

I want to stay there for too long.  Lock that feeling in until it becomes a burden.  I know once I peel myself off the ground I'll have to go somewhere, find my people, or call a car.  That's so much work and no, thank you.  

This is a 30 minute truce I've made with the world to shut it out and just exist in a formless and unapologetically flawed way.  

I realize that it doesn't get better.  I find more and more of these little truces that satisfy me and fill me.  Tiny miracles that aren't that miraculous and the only miracle is that I finally see it.  Does this make me better at seeing them next time?  Probably not but it makes for good copy.  

It doesn't get better.  In all likelihood it will get worse.

That drunken moment on the floor or when I hear the bridge of song or I'm standing on the beach is the quiet, deadly calm that helps you hone the edge to find the truce that seems to keep getting harder and harder to reel in.

But this is a catch-and-release lake anyway.  

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