Will Power

As I left work today, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where Barney draws the dreaded black pickled egg at Moe’s Tavern and is forced to be the designated driver before a huge night out with the guys. Not only is he faced with staying sober during one of Moe’s busiest nights, it also happens to be the night when the Duff Mobile shows up to tell him he’s won their international contest and that Duff Man and the Duff Girls have come to party with him while he downs the “bottomless mug of Duff”. Loyal Simpsons fans, the first time they saw this episode, assumed our animated alcoholic friend was sure to fold, but no. He showed that somewhere, deep down inside, he had a store of will power that could get him through….

This flashback seemed apropos today on St Patrick’s Day, the busiest drinking day of the year. Being that I’m 1/8th Irish, and because I love to drink, I would normally be bellying up to the bar at 5:00 with the other merry, green-clad paraders (Actually, according to my National Geographic Genographic test results, there’s very little chance that I’m actually Irish…even though my father’s father’s father was said to be Irish and arrived in the U.S. through Jamaica, it turns out there’s a much greater chance I’m from the Middle East, North Africa, or the Mediterranean). However, yesterday I made a promise to quit drinking for a while, mostly to prove to myself that I could because lately I’ve taken to drinking alone in my apartment (more on that later). And I thought what better day to start than St. Patrick’s Day at Hannafin’s Pub in New London? I mean, if you can stay sober and avoid the mother’s milk that is Guinness Draught, you can avoid anything, right? What struck me as ironic was that the people at Hannafin’s all thought that I and my Diet Cokes were a symbol of will power and resolve, when the real display of those traits was that I was actually in Hannafin’s Pub in the first place! Or, more specifically, that I was in New London…in Eastern Connecticut…hell, even in New England for that matter.

Allow me to explain. I hate Eastern Connecticut. Words cannot begin to describe how much I despise this place. Not its inhabitants – my friends and most of the people I meet are great – rather the general aura of the place and what it has (or doesn’t have) to offer. There’s no nightlife to speak of. No culture. Almost no “young” people. If we think simply about the “Triangle of Misery”, as I like to call the area between Norwich, Groton, and New London, the lack of any bustling social activity makes sense. There are no big universities to speak of (sorry, Conn College and Mitchell don’t qualify) so kids have to leave if they want to pursue higher education. Most of the places they go to are a hell of a lot more fun than the Triangle of Misery, and since there are so few opportunities for employment here in Eastern CT, most anyone who has anything going for him or her doesn’t return. So the equation is a mass emigration of late teenagers and a nearly-imperceptible trickling in of college-educated twenty-somethings. You do the math.

I began my experience here in the Triangle of Misery in 2001, when I moved in with my good friend Ryan, telling him I wouldn’t put my name on the lease because “I’ll be out of here in three months”. If you were not aware, it’s well into 2008 at the time of this writing. Luckily, I’ve had stints in Manhattan and Buenos Aires that helped me keep my sanity, but I’ve honestly hated just about every minute I have been here and feel (other than making a couple of great friends) I’ve wasted seven years of my life that I’ll never get back. I like my job and the people I work with, so I’ve stayed and toughed it out as long as I could. And I’m still toughing it out, but it’s taking every bit of will power I can muster, and I honestly don’t think I can stick it out here much longer without picking up and moving lock, stock, and barrel….

How bad is it? Well, I have noticed I’m drinking a lot more lately, and when my mom asked, “You don’t drink alone, do you?”, I was forced to pull a Homer Simpson quote and say, “Does the Lord count?” It’s funny, yes, but also problematic. I should note that I’m not getting drunk alone – just having a cocktail or two – though now we’re getting into semantics….since there’s nothing much to do here, I am keeping Maker’s Mark in business while knowing that if I just lived in a better place – pick a better place, any better place – I wouldn’t have to drown out my boredom with cocktails and wine. Work is great, life sucks. Unfortunately, in equation number two, they don’t balance each other out! Let me be clear about one thing: I’m not depressed, so please don’t call the suicide hot line on me. In my case, there is light at the end of a lot of tunnels, I just need to get out of the black hole of a location I’m in right now and get on my way…

And so, though I’m kicking my exodus planning into high gear, I have to realize that it may take some time and that the great position, team, and manager I have at work are worth waiting (a bit) for. Luckily I’ve had a lot of experience with hurry-up-and-wait situations. Just takes patience and perseverance. Oh, yeah, and a hell of a lot of will power.