Dreamer's World August 30 2015

There is an old saying, or at least there probably is because there always seems to be one lurking whenever we need it, about random events shaking us out of our sense of complacency. In my case, it was something random that shook me out of a rut that I had fallen into over the last week.

My writing had begun to stagnate, that is the reason I wasn’t posting anything. I would look at each attempt and see nothing more than a repeat of the previous unsatisfactory attempt. My frustration level was growing, but I was unsure what to do about it. The desire to write was there, but it could not get past whatever was blocking it.

Saturday night I went to bed early. I had been on the edge of a migraine throughout most of the day. Writing was the furthest thing from my mind, because all I would have written about was the dread of the oncoming migraine and my attempts to thwart it beforehand. At least I can say that I succeeded in that, pulling down the shades and keeping things dark and quiet helped to stop the migraine in its early stages. I’m sure that the Aleve I took also helped, but I want to feel like I actually accomplished this without any outside help.

I went to bed early, and I slept extremely well until around 0400 SUnday morning. I reached that semi-waking state and could not manage to get back to regular sleep. Eventually, I decided to get up. Under most circumstances, I would have tried writing at that point, but I was still leery of doing so. I didn’t want to tempt fate and end up being frustrated once again.

I decided to step outside on the balcony and smoke a cigarette. The night was extremely peaceful for the first few minutes. Then I heard voices from below the balcony from an area that was obscured from my view by trees. There were 2 women arguing. Obviously, they were both drunk and trying to stay relatively quiet. Perhaps I didn’t hear them until after those attempts fail, as they so often do when alcohol is involved, and they began shouting at one another.

I don’t understand the real point of the argument, other than the apparent fact that one of the women was drunker than the other. She was apparently demonstrating this by projectile vomiting at or near the other woman. Luckily, my view was still obstructed, I really didn’t want to see any of this.

The less drunk woman began yelling at the more drunk woman about the vomiting. The tone was what we all know from nights out where we have drunk too much, or been around a friend who drunk too much. Yelling at her for getting sick, and then quietly trying to comfort her in rapid succession.

I have to admit that I was tempted to go to the elevator and go donw and outside the building to get a better look at what was going on. Thankfully, common sense prevailed and I remained on the balcony. The yelling continued for about 15 minutes, and it became clear at that time that there was a man at the center of their argument, if not necessarily being the person responsible for the vomiting. I obviously don’t know the details, but the less drunk woman told the other one “I have supported you through all of this shit with him, and now you want to turn on ME?”.

Eventually, things got quiet. I thought that they had left the area or gone into one of the apartment buildings. Then I heard them talking once again. They were in the “I’m so sorry, you are my best friend and I will always love you” mode of the drunken dance. I heard the click-clack of heels on the pavement in the parking lot, and then they emerged. It was still dark, but they were both well-dressed anbd young, which had been obvious from their conversation. At least the young part was. As they neared the building, it was clear that they were done with their evening. The less drunk woman was walking well ahead of the more drunk one. Well, perhaps “walk” is the wrong word, stagger would be a better choice. So, they were staggering towards the building and thankfully they were quiet at last. I could not see which building they entered, that is for the best. I felt like I had inadvertently intruded on something private without meaning to, but then I realized that they were the ones making the loud scene at around 0400 in the morning.

Apart from the fact that this episode cleared my writer’s block, it also set me to wondering about several things. First of all, I felt sorry for someone who was so despondent over some relationship that their response was to get shit-faced over it. We have all been at a point in our lives, or in our relationships, where that seemed a rational thing to do. Sometimes we follow through, sometimes we don’t.

The second point that struck me was the friendship that will probably survive this episode. It was obvious that since both women were drunk that things were said that should just be allowed to lapse out of memory altogether. I hope that is the result. If the words said linger after the hangovers pass, then this could get rather ugly. I suppose a lot depends on how strong their friendship is to start with.

Third, I found it sad that someone could feel such an attachment to another unknown (in this case) person and yet be so easily fooled by them. Again, I think that we have all been there at some point in our lives. A clean break is the only real solution to things like this. I hope that the woman takes that course.

Now, back to me at last. Obviously this episode has broken the writers block I was sufferning from. The lesson that I learn from this is that no matter how routine or monotonous things might be in my life, I have too much to be grateful for to allow myself to be deluded into thinking that I can cahnge things by performing some kind of public stunt like I witnessed. My life is pretty sweet actually. I have been through the peaks and valleys of relationships over the years. At least that gives me the ability to recognize things more quickly. I cannot and will not judge others, except to say that things will eventually work out for the best. The unwelcome part to that advice is that you cannot rush things, sadly some of us are more inclined to go through multiple heartbreaks before we learn our lessons. Others learn everything they need very quickly.

I realize that I have been writing this for nearly an hour now. I feel alive again, but part of me recoils at the thought that it took witnessing the tragedy and sadness of another person to get me to this point. Perhaps this was unavoidable, serendipity is a strange thing. At any rate, I do hope that I will not fall back into the rut that I was in recently. I enjoy writing too much to let myself stop doing it.