I keep hoping one day to wake up. I tell myself with every hangover, every heart palpitation, every night I have to take a pill to sleep that I will drink less, not buy another pack of cigarettes and exercise more so that all the energy is expended by nightfall. And like a compulsive gambler in a room full of blind card players, I cheat within seconds. The day was too long, the jobs aren’t coming, I have corn in my teeth … whatever excuse to be found under the sun, it seeps into my brain to give me that ‘just one more time’ moment that of course turns to regret and self-loathing the next minute … usually as I am doing it.
But it ain’t easy! I love the taste of a good beer, I hate running or doing exercise for the sake of just exercise … smoking just sucks, but I do it when I feel stressed (or bored, or just want one). Not sure why this is, as when I am into a project, I usually stay with it like a bad case of herpes. Back in Ruda, there was the garden and the house to constantly fill my time, with work also being a touch more stable and frequent, putting me on the move more … as well as a fairly decent sex life and me wanting to have a nice ass for the missus. (Hey, whatever push gets you there, right?)
There is a possibility I have worked out the answer to my own quandary just now: over two years without a sexual partner (minus a short fling that both of us were not ready for … including my libido) … THIS is what is making me lazy! Oh the curses of life! To quote Bob Marley: No Woman, No Cry … with the caveat: No Woman, No Sex and a Larger Belly and Sagging Neck Skin (I will let you scavenge your imagination as to why my neck and jawline were far more fit in the past).
To get back to the topic on hand, once more into the breach as this morning I took it upon myself to lace up some shoes and stress test my heart and lungs, followed by my once regular hand weights and some stretching. Nothing major, but it is not as though I am aiming to have the body of a young Schwarzenegger. The goal is not to keel over suddenly from a heart attack due to arteries gummed up with fried cheese and bacon fat (I am getting hungry now). Well, that and hopefully stop my knees from sounding like a bag of crisps being crushed every time I go up a flight of steps. Age is a bitch, is it not?
Once upon a time, I did manage to steal away four months off the evil fire water, with the conclusion that it was far more exuberant in pricing to consume water when out being social than it was to tip back a few pints … as well as I did not typically feel a massive difference during the day in terms of mental cognition or functionality.
As the years have stacked against me, partaking of the spirits in excess now reduces the following day to myself being a boiled potato that someone left upon the bed sheets for some unexplained reason, deciding they didn’t want to remove it as it looked like hell.
Quitting the drink outright for good is an impossibility, as that is not something I wish to accomplish. I like the rapturous taste of a craft brew, blood red wine, newly discovered local distilled shot, and there is not a chance for mozzarella surviving in original form in hell that my flesh could refuse a single malt. But, as someone should have fully explained to the idiot ‘influencers’ attempting to bone their way through hundreds of rock-hard stallions in a day for fame and fortune: you have to know your limitations.
And this, dear friends, is the core of the fruit: for me to just curb the intake and control the excessed of my nature. We must all start somewhere … and today seems as good a day as any to look away from the dried tobacco leaf, lard on bread and frosty cool beer in the fridge and get off my sedentary arse to make my four-chambered muscle of love (the heart, you fools) work for a change.
