The Dash

There is a time when I look around at the faces here in this rehabilitation center and realize that I am perhaps the youngest one.  For a split-second, that gives me a sense of satisfaction, until I remember that they, too, were once here when they were my age.  Then I begin to panic, wondering if I am also caught in the undertow, too fagged out to reach the shore, destined to return again and again until I can simply never leave.  I feel too strong, though, too smart.  How could I let my life slip away into the horrible death that is alcoholism.  That is a problem.

A while back, I read a book called The Dash.  It was basically the musings of the author in a graveyard, looking at the birth and death dates on those old tombstones, and realizing that the dates meant nothing - it was the dash between the dates that told the story.  It reminded me of an old Smiths song, with Morrissey musing about the dead poets - Keats, Yeats; and trying to imagine them living with "loves, and hates, and passions just like mine.  They were born and then they lived and then they died."  Pretty profound.  I hope my dash tells more than the story of a man broken by alcoholism, with the musings of what could have been, a wasted life.

That scares me more than anything - the regret of a life lost, potential unfulfilled.  I am running out of time; the whispering has already started.