33

I was at the age where I realized the cigarettes and whiskey-soaked nights weren’t anything to all that proud of anymore. I didn’t have the vices to hide behind. All I had was myself and the choices that I would have to live with. Truthfully, they weren’t half bad. In fact, some people wouldn’t tell me to be proud of them. I quit my job. I left the warmth and familiarity of my s****y apartment and I moved my life halfway across the country to chase a dream. A dream that I wasn’t even sure would be waiting for me when I got there. It didn’t matter, though. Not one bit. I needed a change, and I’d changed so much I didn’t even recognize myself at times. Those were the most frightening times; when nothing seemed certain. When I was a stranger to myself and who I always felt I had to be. I couldn’t drown the nights away with the boys at the bar. I couldn’t chase after another lonely heart for some false affection that never lasted into the next day. All of that was gone. I was stuck facing myself and the loneliness of maturing out of my vagrant ways. The hope of a cigarette prayer had burned out years ago -along with all of my other half-hearted thoughts and easy fixes to kiss away the feeling that I was unsatisfied with everything around me. Now, it was only me and the man I was growing into.