My Recipe For Bliss On A Friday

Our Culture Thrives On Black-and-white Narratives, Clearly Defined Emotions, Easy Endings, And So, This Thrust Into Complexity Exhausts.

My Recipe For Bliss On A Friday Night Consists Of A 'new York Times' Crossword Puzzle And A New Episode Of 'homicide;' Saturdays And Sundays Are Oriented Around Walks In The Woods With The Dog, Human Companion In Tow Some Of The Time But Not Always.

When You're Starving Or Wrapped Up In A Cycle Of Binge-ing-and-purging, Or Sexually Obsessed With (someone), It Is Very Hard To Think About Anything Else, Very Hard To See The Larger Picture Of Options That Is Your Life, Very Hard To Consider What Else You Might Need Or Want Or Fear Were You Not So Intently Focused On One Crushing Passion. I Sat In My Room Every Night, With Rare Exceptions, For Three And A Half Years.

Trying To Describe The Process Of Becoming An Alcoholic Is Like Trying To Describe Air. It's Too Big And Mysterious And Pervasive To Be Defined. Alcohol Is Everywhere In Your Life, Omnipresent, And You're Both Aware And Unaware Of It Almost All The Time, All You Know Is You'd Die Without It, And There Is No Simple Reason Why This Happens, No Single Moment, No Physiological Event That Pushes A Heavy Drinker Across A Concrete Line Into Alcoholism. It's A Slow, Gradual, Insidious, Elusive Becoming.

The Real Struggle Is About You: You, A Person Who Has To Learn To Live In The Real World, To Inhabit Her Own Skin, To Know Her Own Heart, To Stop Waiting For Life To Begin.