Day 104

Masks, Shel Silverstein

Friday

My brain is fried after this work week. Juggling dev handoffs for two pharma websites (whoever thought one AD could manage two full websites on the same timeline?!), with brutal clients and timelines and panicking coworkers all-day, every-day has left me burnt to a crisp.

I’m sure the pot is helping with that crispy too.

Headed to bed, but for one random alcohol-related thought.

I’ve just finished a novel set in Boston, about the ins-and-outs of an Irish family. Lots of Catholicism, guilt and drinking. One of the characters in Saints for All Occasions dies an early death in a drunken car crash. At his wake, a sibling reflects that at the bar where he would hang out it was considered a badge of honor if you could hold your alcohol. The more you drank, the better. But you had to exhibit a tolerance. Anyone who slipped up wasn’t respected as much.

Left me thinking about how true that is of drinking culture in general. 

So much about alcohol is hidden in our culture. Weakness in general is taboo. So struggles like dependance or mental illness aren’t talked about. The people like myself, who quit because they worried they’d lost control, don’t tell anyone about it! So no one knows who around them may be going through similar struggles.

Reminds me of a poem I read the boys all the time, by Shel Silverstein:

 

She had blue skin,

And so did he.

He kept it hid,

And so did she.

They searched for blue their whole life through,

Then passed right by – 

And never knew.