Brilliant … But Bouncy

That Could Be Me.

I was at The Hood one day when I noticed her: a woman who wasn’t a college student, who didn’t work at the bar, and who sat in the corner from before my arrival until after I left.

I can’t remember what year I noticed her. I can’t remember how many years she stayed.

I only remember the day I saw her – really saw her – and could never look away again.

Her name may have been Diana or Sharon or Cindy; I can’t recall. I’ll call her Grace, even though I’m certain that wasn’t her name.

Grace had a short, boyish haircut and a round face that belied her age. She looked young, but not young enough to be in college. She looked old, but not old enough to be a grandparent.

Grace was always sitting on the same bar stool, in the same corner where I’d once kissed Sam, the one furthest away from the front door, the one near a wall that doubled as a place she could lean.

Sometimes Grace smiled; other times she frowned or cried. Sometimes she chatted with Karen, the bartender; sometimes she sang along loudly with the jukebox. Sometimes she was so quiet, I thought someone in her family had died.

It was when I realized that she might have a family that my perspective suddenly changed.

It was then that I really saw Grace, there on that bar stool, quiet or singing, smiling or frowning. I saw her and I thought quite suddenly: That could be me.

This thought was followed immediately by another thought: I don’t want that to be me.

Grace was at The Hood a lot. She was there, drinking, during the daylight hours. She was there during the evening hours. She was there on weekdays and weekends. She was there all the time.

I know when she was there because I was there all the time, too.

I don’t want to become like her, I thought. I don’t want to spend my life sitting in a dark bar after college, growing old with no windows. I don’t want to spend my life chatting with bartenders and singing with the jukebox. I don’t want to be her. I don’t want to be anything like her.

And as I thought these thoughts, I knew in the exact same second: I am going to become her.

I didn’t know, when I was in college, why I was going to become her; I didn’t understand that it had anything to do with my drinking. I thought bars were fun, that people at bars were fun. Hanging out at bars was my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

I didn’t know that my only reason for being there was to drink. I liked to drink, sure, but I could drink anywhere. I could go to parties. I could go to concerts. I wasn’t going to stay stuck in bars for the rest of my life.

But there I was, in the bar, sitting on a bar stool, playing songs on the jukebox, playing darts when it was a wild night out. All I wanted to do was be in that bar – any bar – so I could drink non-stop.

And I knew I was doomed to spend my life in a dark corner of a bar if something didn’t change, but I didn’t know yet what that “something” might be.

So I watched her, and detested her, believing deep-down that Grace was my destiny.