The bar was reaching closing time. Tony wiped down the counter again without noticing he was doing it, just as he did every night. It was almost a meditation taken on every few minutes, keeping him grounded to the present moment. There was something about physical chores that helped keep his mind from wandering, his ears from tuning in to the conversations happening around him.

He knew all the faces in the room, as if these patrons were a part of his family. He knew things about each of them that he didn't even know about his own family, and that was treading far too close to the invisible – but very present – line he drew between himself and the rest of the world.

They didn't know much about him, aside from the fact that he was as attentive as they needed him to be. He poured strong and tended to every half-empty glass before anyone had time to ask for a refill.

It made life easier to keep his customers at a distance. In fact, he kept most people at a distance – even his own family. The place in his life where friends should exist was filled only with coworkers and patrons. Once he put the apron away and locked up the bar, he retreated to a very solitary existence. Not because he didn't want friends, but because he learned the hard way that he could only know peace if others didn't get close enough to discover – experience – the secret he guarded. He discovered it quite by accident when he was 22 years old, and he would carry the guilt with him for the rest of his life.

Writing group time is done!

You see...

Dearly beloved....we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life... Thanks, Prince.

For real though...

The holidays were weird. They were weird for everyone in the world, no doubt. Thanks, COVID. I've recently moved 1000 miles away from the place I called home for 30 years (job relocation, not just because). We left our kids behind (awesome thriving adults, but still...), friends, and my job as I knew it. So for the first time in 18 years, I didn't see my children for Thanksgiving. We celebrated in waves for Christmas, staggering their visits because they're grownups now with work schedules to juggle. Yes, they traveled to see us, but we didn't go anywhere so social distancing was in effect.

What's the point of this incredibly boring post? Well, excuses, of course! While they were here, I wanted to maximize every minute I had with them, so I didn't disappear into the office to write. Then we jumped back into the usual work schedule after the New Year, and I had a lot of big projects, one after the other, so by the time I clocked out, I was done with mentally taxing tasks. Like writing.

What's that sound? Apparently, my cat has psychic ability and he knows that I am not, in fact, wrapping things up here and on my way to the couch for evening cuddles. Of course, he's a resourceful sort of person and he has a solution to draw my attention where it belongs. On him. Vomit be damned. Thanks, cat.

Back to the point. I'm a person who thrives on schedule and predictability. I recently joined a Meetup group that gathers online to write. We're all muted, but some of us have cameras on. We're writing together, apart. The timer is on and we write for an hour and then come back together to share (if we want to). This is just a very casual accountability thing I'm trying now, just to get myself back into the groove.

So the point of this entry is just to put words down. I've done that. Now, off to find a writing prompt and try something more creative. 39 minutes left in this virtual collaborative-but-not writing session.

“Well, this is some bullshit.” That was the first coherent, sensible conclusion Alex came to when he woke up. “Woke up” was probably not the right phrase, considering he was unquestionably, quite definitively, dead.

Alex spent his youth questioning religion, but in his early twenties, he determined that God was real and he should go to church, pray for salvation, and of course, be nice to people. Well, be nice to most of them. God would forgive him, he was sure. As he took his last breath, he felt peace and excitement about his final destination.

“This,” he observed, “can't be right.” He looked around at the scene. The Main Street train station wasn't busy, being a less populated stop along the way into the city. The usuals were standing on the platform, staring into their phones or gazing absently at the odd collection of art and posters hung on either side of the tracks.

Alex woke up standing on the familiar platform, uncomfortably close to Suitcase Lady, who was there every morning around the same time he was. In fact, he seemed to be standing directly in her boots, and the shock of that realization sent him stumbling backwards to get out of her way. He watched a hazy mist trail after him. As he regained his balance he muttered, “Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am!” He was struck with the sudden awareness that he couldn't hear his own voice, and Suitcase Lady was completely unaware of – and untroubled by – his presence.

And that mist was weird.

Last night my sister and I traveled to a dilapidated house, the skeleton of a home that we lived in as children. Our brother was absent because he chose to leave this world almost two years ago. Mom was absent because she's chosen to be...absent.

My sister and I walked through the front door, determined to find fragments of our childhood. There was an eery stillness in the house, but there was almost a tangible energy or presence following us in each room and hallway. We explored together. In every room we entered, she found boxes of her old toys and sketchbooks covered in dust. We found my sister's and brother's treasures tucked into cabinets, rickety old drawers, and closets. With every toy and book she found, I fell deeper and deeper into the sad realization that all my childhood belongings were gone. An overwhelming sense of grief and pain swept over me.

We had backpacks. My sister filled up bag after bag with her tattered stuffed animals, books, and sketchbooks. I carried a few bags as well, filling them with our brother's old Transformers, G.I. Joe, and He-Man action figures. My backpack was empty, no matter how many rooms and boxes we found.

We'd gone through almost the entire house. As we were about to leave, we noticed a door leading to a room that we had never seen before. We knew we were dreaming, and we knew weird things happen in dreams, but this still puzzled us. We looked at each other and silently agreed to explore this room that didn't belong here.

We opened the door and walked in. There was a daybed against the back wall and a long dresser on the opposite wall, supporting an old television and Nintendo console. Our brother was sitting on the edge of the daybed with a controller in his hand, playing Castlevania. He looked up when we walked in and nodded at us, smiling briefly before turning his attention back to the game.

My sister and I were stunned – he shouldn't be here. What was he doing here? After a few minutes, he shut the game off and turned his attention back to us.

“What took you so long?” he asked. Before either one of us could answer, he chuckled as if he knew something we didn't, and then subtly nodded his head towards the door at the back of his room. “It's all there,” he said, as he got up to lead the way.

...

I recently had to face a harsh reality about a friendship I thought was one of my closest. To test what a friendship is made of, tell your friend the truth about your feelings. To make it even more exciting, share something that your friend probably won't agree with, something that might make her uncomfortable, even though it's coming from a place of caring on your part. In my experience, that's when you find out if that friendship is solid or simply one of convenience, which is easy to dispose of the moment you aren't “fun”.

On the other side of it, there are friends I've had for many years, but we've drifted back and forth, sometimes apart, sometimes closer, depending on the season. A recent major life change instantly resulted in those friends coming through for me in a simple but profoundly significant way, and in a way that the person who had become my “closest right now” friend wouldn't, or couldn't, do.

So there's my rambling for today. I'm going to head over to my Zoom lunch date with my friends.