February 24, 2012
February 24, 2012What I wouldn't give to be
The good ol' girl I used to be...
Not quite sure how 'good' I was but I wasn't altogether too entirely bad...
Mostly.
The girl who could deposit herself at the bar on a week day about noon for a liquid lunch (Liquid Lunch-a-Saurus). And since the motion wasn't often exercised, I could easily hold my head up high as my gaze wandered down the way toward the gentleman in the corner whose drunken eyes could not betray his taste for a few too many of an afternoon whiskey.
Or of a more lengthy visit I might repose, on his same chair, minus the whiskey, with friends in a more jovial time of day.
We were nothing special, those of us who frequented that same spot as regularly as we sought out our mailboxes, but weren't we grand when we were together? The same convivial faces converging on the same stomping ground for a beer, a bar to hold our elbows, a bit of soothing nicotine and a few good laughs. Never the best of friends outside the joint but once you entered after a week's absence, you knew just how you were missed; how you completed the little circle of friendly, familiar faces.
The shot you shouldn't have had on a Tuesday night, the extra game of bar dice you didn't need to shake on Friday, the same ridiculous song you always played on the juke box during half time when you knew you needed to rile things up a bit. And even though it seemed you left a little late, you never did indulge too much -- not amongst such a fine set of friends.
I miss those days.
The conversations that turned from good books read to politics too well understood. You didn't always agree but you were always willing to listen. The buzz in the background of some drunken fool vainly trying to purchase you a drink and the ones who never touched an ounce of alcohol but only dropped in to be surrounded by the good company a well-run joint could procure.
I studied there during college, I read my books there during quiet afternoons, I walked there during blizzards when no one else would be in attendance and, once in great while, I even stumbled home. I cried on the shoulders of tar benders and laughed at the pranks we played trying to scare each other as we exited the bathrooms on a slow night. I celebrated birthdays and a college graduation, made too much noise or remained silent in an effort to organize my thoughts. I was free to be me, whoever that was that day, without the responsibility of another or the weight of the world on my shoulders.
It was the one bit of normalcy I had after the fire because there, nothing had changed. No one was different, nothing was missing and I didn't have to search for that which I was quite partial to. It was all right there, untouched by disaster, and it would be there again tomorrow.
A cold Heineken Light, hugs all around, a good tune playing in the back ground and my people�
I could use a bit of that right now.