PopcornJackTerry

For old time’s sake, I have two soundtracks for today’s blog. Here is the first one. (Trust me it makes sense. Well, as much sense as anything I do does.)

Between graduating college in the spring of 1993 and leaving for San Francisco that fall, I had a really cool summer job. Every year during the summers I had been in Jr. High and High School I had gone to camp for a week at a place called Camp Quinipet on Shelter Island. For those of who you don’t know, Shelter Island is located in the fork of Long Island. (For those of you who don’t know what the fork of Long Island is, check out a map.) Back then it was a quiet island, accessible only by ferries, one on the south side and another on the north. For many years it retained a quiet simple profile, more inline with life in the north fork (as opposed to the pomp and circumstance that is the south fork, otherwise known as the Hamptons.) Of course all good things come to an end and as real estate became more scarce in the desirable parts of town, “progress” happened. I haven’t been there in years, so I don’t know how much the island has actually changed, but that isn’t what I’m writing about.

I was hired as the Head Resident Counselor. Having had no previous experience as any kind of counselor and only one other summer where I had any responsibility for kids, I think I got the job because of my advanced age: I was 21. Regardless of what qualified me for the job, it was a great gig. I spent nine weeks on the island (well, okay, eight weeks. For one week in the middle I was traded to a camp in upstate New York to run a theater arts camp, which is quite possibly the only useful thing I ever did with my BFA in Theater) the first three of which were just training and preparing for the summer. The way the summer worked was each week there would be three or four distinct offerings: athletics, arts and crafts, sailing, etc. Each week long camp was run by a volunteer program director who usually brought their own volunteer counselors with them (this being a church affiliated camp, there was lots of volunteering) so for most of the weeks I basically just floated around, helping out where they needed me but mostly just enjoying my time. But that isn’t why I’m writing this either.

Next to my bed here at my brother’s, there is a piece of paper that I taped to the dresser and a couple of Sharpies, one blue, one red. Each night when I go to bed I take the blue Sharpie and make a little vertical slash. I do that until I have six of them in a row. The next night I take the red Sharpie and make a horizontal slash across them. One week down, an infinite number to go. Last night I drew my ninth red slash. Nine weeks. 63 days. Tonight I will make another blue slash, starting my tenth week, signifying my 64th day without a drink. And that is why I wrote about my summer job when I was 21.

I haven’t been thinking about that job because it was 21 years ago, in other words half my lifetime ago, although that puts things in perspective. I haven’t been thinking about that job because I miss telling kids what to do (I don’t) or because I fervently wish I was living out there (I’m not.) I’ve been thinking about that job because I’ve been thinking about those 63 days 21 years ago for one simple striking and somewhat sad reason:

I’ve been thinking about those days because it is the last time I can say with certainty that I went 63 days without a drink.

It was a sleep away camp, and even though we got two nights a week off (one during the week and one on Saturdays, after that week’s kids have left but before next week’s arrived on Sundays) we never drank because it was a small island and word would get back. Plus I was probably only one of the few people that was old enough to drink legally. I may have gone longer than the 63 days but I doubt it-being old enough to drink and knowing I couldn’t for so long makes me pretty sure I drank both the last night I was home and the first night I got back.

As for the intervening 21 years I can make no honest statements. I know I didn’t drink much the last time I lived here, but I also can point out a few dates on the calendar with certainty that I did drink close enough to each other to void the 63 day warranty. (Before those 21 years I had been drinking occasionally for six years and steadily for the last three. Thank you NYC.) Likewise I know that I have stopped many times over the years, but I also know that none of those were for more than thirty days, and most were just a couple of weeks. In other words I’m entering uncharted territory, but it is more than that as well.

The best way I have found to describe what I’m going through is to go even further back in time, to when I was a kid, ten years old or so. We had an Atari 2600, and the console had for switches on it: On/off, Color/Black & White, Game Select and Game Reset. The trick with the Game Reset switch wasn’t that you just flicked it and it worked. You had to hold it down for a few seconds. That’s what I feel like I’m doing. I’m hitting the reset button on my life, and to make it work I need to hold it down for a while. That means not running back into the restaurant business. That means spending more time alone than I previously expected to or thought I would need to. That means relearning how to do a lot of things in my life. And that means rediscovering who I am physically, emotionally, mentally, when I allow myself to just be me.

Tonight I’ll do what I always do. Crawl into bed, do some reading, get mad at myself for not accomplishing as much as I thought I should have (even though I spent all day procrastinating), mark off my sheet and go to sleep. In a couple of weeks I start training for my new job, the first job I’ve had in 20 years that isn’t connected with alcohol. In between now and then I’ll start going to the gym I joined. Beyond that I’ll (hopefully) settle into a new routine, create for myself a different paradigm, begin a new life. Along the way maybe I’ll finally understand why I’ve done what I’ve done, made the mistakes that I’ve made, hurt the people that I have, and maybe, just maybe, for the first time in a very long time, I’ll find some peace with who I am. And I’ll keep using those two Sharpies next to my bed. For how long?

As long as it takes.

This the second soundtrack. I’ve been listening to a lot of Tom Waits recently, not the best thing when battling depression and questioning the choices you’ve made I’ll grant you, but it makes me homesick for all the good things in my life. Anyway this song plays every so often and I’ve grown to like it very much. Click here to decide for yourself.