There’s a place a few blocks from where I live. Nothing fancy, really. Wooden floors, low light, a good selection of drinks. More than I ever need to consider. There’s also a great fireplace that I almost never sit beside.
I am there now, drinking and writing this.
I used to tell myself I didn’t go there to drink.
That wasn’t entirely true.
I drank when I went. Sometimes drinking was part of the reason. On certain nights it was probably a bigger part of the reason than I wanted to admit. But mostly I went because I didn’t want to be home.
I didn’t necessarily want company either. At least not the kind that asked questions or expected much from me. I wanted to be alone somewhere other people were present.
There was something about sitting in a room that continued without me. Glasses being washed. Someone laughing farther down the bar. People coming in, people leaving. Music I couldn’t have named if you asked me.
I could sit there and not have to make the night happen.
I could just be in it.
Sometimes I told myself the ache in my stomach was hunger.
I have been in darker places, no doubt. This one had warm lights and people moving behind the bar and enough noise that my own thoughts didn’t get the whole room to themselves.
Every now and then someone would ask, “The usual?”
I’m still not convinced I have a usual, but I would say yes anyway.
It felt good to be recognized, even inaccurately.
Some days I brought a book and never opened it. Other nights I scrolled my phone without absorbing anything. Sometimes I watched condensation run down the side of a pint glass for much longer than a person probably should.
Nobody cared.
That helped.
After a while, the people working there started to know me. Nothing dramatic. A nod when I came in. A quick question. Sometimes another drink offered before I had completely decided whether I wanted one.
There were nights when that familiarity was comforting.
There were also nights when it made drinking very easy.
I don’t want to pretend otherwise.
The people behind that bar have watched hundreds of lives pass in front of them. First dates and breakups. Birthdays. Arguments conducted quietly enough that everyone nearby pretends not to hear them. People celebrating something. People sitting alone. People stretching one drink into two because eventually they are going to have to go home.
I don’t know how much the staff understood about any of us.
Probably less than I imagined.
Probably more than we realized.
They were good at leaving room around a person.
A simple “You good?” could stay simple. I could say yes and they would let me.
I never told them I was struggling. I didn’t explain the drinking or the fog or why, some nights, home felt like the last place I wanted to be.
I’m not sure I needed to.
They gave me somewhere to sit without disappearing completely.
At the time, I don’t think I understood how much I needed that.
There are nights from that period I don’t remember particularly well. Conversations are gone. Drinks blur together. I couldn’t tell you what I was reading when I brought those books, probably because I wasn’t actually reading them.
But I remember the room.
I remember being left alone without feeling abandoned.
There’s a difference.
I still go there.
Sometimes for a drink.
Sometimes because I know what the room feels like.
Sometimes, like tonight, I sit there long enough to start writing about it.
They probably don’t know what they did for me.
I’ll always tip.
