It’s never a good idea for me to sit alone too long with the voices in my head. But I arrived home a week ago and my wife is not due back until tomorrow so, alone and sat I have been. Thinking about the last two years of the whirlwind that has been my life. Thinking about the mundane – money, cleaning the apartment, family, blah, blah, blah – and the abstract.
One of my favorite mental cunundrums is vascillating between wishing I had gotten and stayed sober sooner, and the knowing that if I had my life would look very, very different than it does now.
After the mind fuckery of that exercise I arrived in the same place I always arrive: here and now. There is no place I would rather be. I do not say that because my wife might be reading this and I don’t want to hurt her feelings; I say it because this life, this moment filled with all of its anxieties and missing her while she’s away is precisely the life I couldn’t have imagined, but absolutely would wish for young Li’l Rudy.
My dad was Big Rudy, so, well, you can figure it out.
So then I caught myself thinking about Li’l Rudy and what I wish I could go back and tell him. First thing I would tell him is: do not start drinking. Just leave it alone and never pick it up. Like ever. Your life will go in a different direction – no rehab, no relapse, no less regrets. Don’t get it twisted, li’l dude, you’re still gonna fuck things up from time to time and life will still be an absolute cunt of a thing sometimes, but you’ll hate yourself a lot less. Maybe not even at all.
Then find a good therapist. I recommend a doctor in Ohio, but you do you. Just find someone you trust and get to sifting through all your broken bits. I know you, you are very, very broken. I also know that you blame yourself for most of it. And carrying that shit for the next few decades is way too long.
And when you graduate high school listen to your dad and get your ass into college and go into tech. You don’t know it yet, but you are going to fall in love with technology and become a big nerd so, get on it early. You’ll thank me… er… you… for it later.
You know what, nevermind that last bit. Do the things you did, but do them sober. Run away into the Air Force. Let the ebbs and tides take you where they will, but keep your head about you. I would love to see where you would end up. I suspect you would have still made some of the same dumbass decisions I made, but I also think there would have been a lot more awesome.
Li’l Rudy, if I could, I would send you a very extraordinary map like the one Claire makes at the end of Elizabethtown – with a soundtrack and everything – to guide you from where you are right now to where that beautiful the gorgeous blonde is waiting for you. Along the way I would want you to dance and laugh and love hard. Lean in as much as possible.
And when you get to The Gorgeous Blonde be ready. She’s not like anyone else you’ve met. She’s the best of everything. Her laugh is going to knock you on your ass, I promise. And when she dances… boy, you are going to smile so big your face will hurt. She’s the strongest person you’ll ever meet, but don’t make her carry every burden on her own. Just because she’s strong doesn’t mean she should have to be.
Because here’s the thing: if you get to work on yourself now – stay sober, smooth off the rough edges, and put the broken bits back together – this life will blow you away.
Alight, Li’l Rudy, it’s been nice talking to you again, but I gotta get the apartment cleaned up. The last week alone in my own filth leaves a bit of a hazy film over everything and The Gorgeous Blonde comes home in the morning.
