Measurements

Why drink when you could just not? To that I say, why stay sober when you don't have to.

I once knew someone who made life different. Not that they really changed me, but I felt changed in their presence. Some people make you question why you do what you do to yourself. This person was one of them.

As obvious as it was that it couldn't last, I felt forever in their touch.

If every sip more is a step further down, being with them was a pause in that descent. A brief one, But a pause nevertheless.

They might've actually afforded me the experience of happiness. Or they may've just made me think I'd had it. But either way, it's something hard to let go.

I was big with the drinking before I'd ever met them. Was big with it during. And after.

It's not as if my life changed because I met them, but in a way it is.

Because several months and many beers later, it occurred to me that I'd finally experienced something I never before had. Something, someone had made me smile besides beer or bad internet porn. Someone had made me glad to be alive.

I wish I could've done the same for them. Or failing that, not have been so very sober the last time I spoke with them.

Because then happiness would still be something we could believe could be possessed. And life wouldn't be measured only in bottles. It would still be measured in friends.