Corking the Bottle

The older I get the less I like change, but the more I understand it. What I mean is I mourn the loss of the familiar. I was sorry to watch my childhood home turned into an insurance office. I loved the years I lived in Boise, but I'm disappointed it is so much bigger and unfamiliar than when I moved there in 1979. My children have changed. I miss their little selves and their little voices; one moved to Colorado, the other turns 40 this year. I miss my aunts and uncles; only one 90-year-old aunt remains. But in my wise old age, I see the inevitability of change. I've seen two new generations born as we babyboomers watch time tick away faster and faster. The pine and maple seedlings we planted in our yard are now a mature old-growth forest. I remember dial phones changing to push-button, then to cell, now in some cases to watches. The red-headed kid who played with my sisters now is a Pennsylvania legislator. I am happy to witness my life changing. I'm sorry my mu...

I've written  umpteen times that the issue that led me to drink was looking to my past and comparing it with my present. That was depressing, and seemed to be fixable only with another drink. Then another. One of my favorite Beatles songs, probably not surprising, is one that goes like this: There are places I remember all my life Though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain I went through an onslaught of change that caught up with me around 2006. From there it was a slow descent into depression. If I drank a little, my mood would swing to a better place. But eventually, I couldn't drink just a little. And I know I'll never lose affection For people and things that went before I know I'll often stop and think about them... The Ninth Step Promises in the Big Book, which we read before every meeting, describes the way we should remember our past: "We will not forget the past nor wish to shut the door on it....

Size is a relative thing. So is temperature. So, too, are age and time. Do you realize this year's freshman class in college largely wasn't born when Y2K arrived? I have season tickets to University of Louisville women's basketball. Literally -- don't laugh -- I wear shirts older than anyone on the team. After I left the world of newspapers, I worked for six companies. None of them exist any more. I was 50 when the last of those companies was bought out and I lost my job. I tutored and worked as a communications consultant (until that consulting firm was bought out and moved to Denver), but -- literally again -- I was, in effect, retired, like it or not. I had a couple job interviews, but nothing came from them. That's about the time my drinking got out of hand. My life was changing in ways I hadn't planned. For the first time, I lost most of the control in my life. I saw that the only thing that never changes is change. Then I found security with ...

I'm on a break so I'll make this fast. My wife drafted me to move furniture in the family room; not just move it, but tear it apart. Do you suppose I have any say? We have had a big curved couch for many years that took up space and made furniture rearranging -- call it "female nesting" -- more difficult. With little measuring and front-end planning, we lifted, tugged, pulled, and pushed to separate the couch into three sections. She just excused me while she empties the antique desk drawers so the large upright piece can be moved from that side of the room to this side. Then the middle section of the couch can fit where the desk was and the large recliner in the corner will be moved to my basement man cave -- if we can fit it down the narrow stairway. Note sarcasm and surrender. You don't care, and the details are unimportant to you. My point in all this is to: 1) vent, 2) talk about control, and 3) talk about change. Number 1 was taken care of by writing t...