I drank for the first time in a while last night. I wanted the drink. I wanted to taste an Old Fashioned and enjoy a moment having one. The first one was wrong. Twice as much mix as needed. Half the required rye. It was sipped, spat, and dumped. The second was better, but by then the joy of the engagement had fled and I kept thinking about how it could possibly help me sleep through the night.
It didn’t. I experienced the worst series of dreams in some time. Each built off the last and was awful and degrading, even occasionally violent. No more drinks late at night… Except maybe red wine. It’s been a while since I tried that particular beverage.
All of this comes at a time of transition. I’m winding through the final 12 chapters of this novel and preparing for a wedding and preparing for a new semester. All the while the summer work is ending/shifting to another session. I have so much change transpiring that it is easy to get displaced. The one constant is the routine of waking, spending time with the love of my life, walking, writing, and eventually, lunch. We plan to keep that going throughout. There will be minor tweaks to when the words happen vs when the walking goes down. All of it is process. We are trying to be healthy and happy in these routines.