high or low

Did you ever have a moment like this?: I stood up, looked down in the toilet and thought, holy shit, I've got to start taking better care of myself. It was because of all the drink; we'd gone over to the neighbors' for dinner, and drank all manner of stuff. Way too much, so much that I can't remember if I said anything totally inappropriate. They're good people, the best I know, and their daughter is one of those you can see already has endless potential. The son is a hoot, but the daughter is so sharp - she's like a confident 24 year-old in a 10 year-old body, ready for anything, just waiting to take the reins... Here I am in a 42 year-old body, hung over, already feeling somewhat burned out, wondering if I ever had any potential, barely able to make it to 10pm on any given night.

Robert said: "What'll really be something is your 50s. That's when you're firing on all cylinders..." He was 65 when he said this. A week later he was gone. I was certain all his cylinders still had plenty of miles left in them, and told him as much, but he felt there was nothing left; no potential, no meaning, the reins in tatters, the narrative played out. There had been chaos and tumult for over two years, and he never breathed a word of it. We'd listen to Beethoven's 9th and talk for the bazillionth time about Taylor's Sympathy solo, and all the while little pieces of him secretly fell off into the darkness, and he turned onto a dead-end, reached the end of the road, and stopped there, obdurately refusing to turn around and look for something else. And I wake up at 5am, dogs already restless, lying in the dark, wondering why he couldn't just turn around. I tried to bring him back. Many of us did. I turn it over and over in my mind, hour after hour: why couldn't he turn around? And there's the awful kicker: I'll never know. I'm left with this terrible emptiness, this wound that may scab up in a few years, but may just remain open forever. And five days a week I drive to work, playing nice to the losers of the world, the dregs, the tirelessly bitter who offload their empty, meaningless rancor on perfect strangers, deflecting their vitriol while remembering a hike on Tsankawi, a lunch in Playa del Rey, a Redwood in the desert, an annoying prank call, an egg over easy, a turkey enchilada with red chile, a lesson in tone, a picture of Robert Johnson, a shelf of frogs, a handshake with Lily Tomlin, and 28 years of laughter, trying to make sense out of what's left, this impossible emptiness.