"Denial"

There was a time when I was not there, but I did not know it yet. I would drink to forget, forgetting what I did not know. Not yet. I did not know yet. Where was I then, when I was not there?

For years I lived somewhere between myself and the next drink. I would drink to forget what I

could not think, halfway to nowhere and another drink. I was grieving and I did not know it. Someone was dying, but I could not feel it, feel my own dying. I could not own it because it owned me.

Denial is so hard to feel, yet, there it is, standing next to you. You- halfway to nowhere and another drink.

--from "All Drinking Aside", Chapter 40 (rough draft)