While digging through a drawer this morning, looking for a Crown Royal bag filled with my girlfriends’ mom’s jewelry, I found a plain, white cardboard box.

I instantly knew what was inside.

I popped it open, and was taken back a few years. As I looked at the now open box, I saw “John Randolph Hospital”, “Christy’s EuroPub”, “Sun Journal”, “Ceasar’s Las Vegas”, lots and lots of Bic “Clic Stic Med”s, “Hilton’s”, “Whynham’s” (note: Motel 6 and Super 8 pens are much rarer)…

These are the pens I used to write with. On actual paper. For years and years and years. I haven’t done that in a long time. Sit down and just write. This has been an issue of mine for most of my life. I start to get better at the craft, then I get happy. Or distracted. Or whatever excuse I want to make at that time.

Being miserable. Being drunk. Being heartbroken. Those are the easy times to write. Which is why I did it and do it.

But I don’t drink anymore. And I’ve kind of resigned myself to the memories aren’t going anywhere part of death at this point.

I don’t dare try to write with any of these pens immediately. That would be too easy of a metaphor. So, I wait. Which, is of course, another perfect metaphor.

There was a time when I thought I was close. The ideas were similar, the writing crisp. Then it stopped. No longer isolated, the write whenever it was convenient times dried up.

“I don’t want to be the person who gets up a 7 a.m., puts on a cup of coffee and writes for a set amount of time.” I always told myself.

I also didn’t want to end up like my dad. Have you looked in the mirror lately???

So, I make excuses. Just like my back. I know I have to do my exercises, or my back will hurt and it will get worse. My writing got better as I wrote. It’s a muscle.

I’m back now. I hope. I made a promise two-plus years ago, that I have not lived up to. But, I have an office space now. That way I can become what I used to loathe. Is that inevitable? Nah. It’s an excuse. Right? Voice in my head says no.

Moving on to the next thing. Do I write about a bar? A redhead. A Shiner Bock bottle? Driving on the roads of the United States?

Nah. I don’t do a lot of that. Write what you know.

Work. Pain. Kid. Girlfriend. Albums. Ollie’s Bargain Mart. “Good Stuff Cheap!”

I have a plan ticket and a concert ticket. Texas. July 19. Irony there on full display. I want to go. I need to go. Will I go? Bettors seem to think no.

These are the moments that I used to not consider the consequences on. Yeah, another notch on the debt guillotine. Fuck it. Let’s ride!

Now, I pause. Little less than a month to decide. That’s a lot of time. And not a lot of time.

Job? Eat puss.

My box of pens says “Write, God Damnit! Write.”

My mind says “Write. You HAVE to.”

What do my fingers do? Type. Type. Type.

It’s a slow start to getting back inside of my brain. Finding words that I think the damage of drink has removed, or at least made hard to find. The other day, I couldn’t describe a yellow jacket burrow in my yard. The next day, I couldn’t come up with a word to describe my disgust for the current politics of the world, err, United States.

Yeah, the signs are here at 54. I wonder what it will be like at 55, 60, 70 (if I make it).

Go to a doctor. Sure. I used to say the same thing when I peed blood. Rarely did. It was the booze, I said. It was kidney stones. Now, I have a kidney lump – “not cancerous.” I went to a doctor for that one. I still pee blood. I still have kidney stones. I take meds for it. Don’t work.

My eyesight is terrible. I have to wear computer glasses to work. And to type.

For some reason, Sinjin Smith just popped into my brain. Not so much Karch Kiraly. Tall, sweaty dudes on the beach jumping really high in the air, grains of sand flying here and there, hitting volleyballs at each other really hard.

Metaphors.