Diverging paths

I’ve known a group of people for 15 years now. We basically met as young partiers and had great times together. With time of course things changed. Some got married, some had kids, some stayed single and devoted themselves to community and charity events, some continued to party. The one person that stands out however is the one who was too cool for school but has turned bitter. I guess it’s a rude awakening when you realize that the party truly is over when you reach middle age. Can you and should you keep doing drugs, staying up all night, having casual sex like a carefree 20 something when you’re in your 40s? I think you can. But maybe the bitterness comes from the emptiness once the music stops, the drugs wear off, the guy goes home and you’re left to wonder how to fill the rest of the weekend, and the weekend next, and weekend after that, alone.

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Judge Judy

Mar 22, 2018 at 6:47am

If people like you were my friend I'd be bitter too. Let people make their mistakes. You sound like an asshole.

rolling eyes hard

Mar 22, 2018 at 8:54am

Another conformist who thinks that we should all aspire to the normal life of school, career, then marriage and kids.
No the party doesn't have to end at middle age -unless one is doing it in an unhealthy fashion and that can happen at any age!
If you balance living healthy (good food, plenty of rest, etc) with the partying, it can be done for life. Though I would include travelling in there. Sure would be limited in how much I could do that if I had attached the ball and chain of normal life.
Maybe you supposed friend just seems bitter when she's around you.

same here

Mar 22, 2018 at 10:03am

i got a career and a dog, then started a band.

same here (again)

Mar 22, 2018 at 10:43am

to answer your question - after you stop going to the parties, the people don't really notice that you aren't there because they're usually jsut looking for validation to take more drugs. i tired to make a confession to that effect before but it wasnt posted for some reason.
please dont take drugs recreationally that could possibly be laced and kill you!

also that expression about the kids getting younger is pretty true.

we've probably shared a dancefloor sometime, i'd love to NOT take drugs with you some day. ..

Soothsayer

Mar 22, 2018 at 8:34pm

Waking up with a pounding headache. Laying on the floor, wearing only her white tank top, still soaking wet from last night's hedonistic melee. Vomit and broken beer bottles everywhere. A discarded condom. A burning itch between her legs -- the genital herpes commencing its cruel, unforgiving work, eating away at her vulva bit by bit. A laceration on her leg, bisecting the tattoo that she got years ago while on vacation in Costa Rica, with a bloody, crusty scab barely forming over the fresh wound -- cause unknown. The air throughout the tiny, 1920s-era Kitsilano bungalow, its proud glory days long past expired, reeking of a putrid mixture of beer, marijuana, sweat and semen. THIS is the grim aftermath of a party so wild, so intense, so full of drug- and sex-fueled action, that she could recall nothing -- absolutely NOTHING. As she rolls over to her side and moans in pain, a gleaming light of the morning sun suddenly pierces through the crack on the wall, caused by someone (her maybe?) punching a fist through the plaster during last night's crazy fracas. The morning light is as intense as a laser, and perfectly timed as if it was meant to deliver a message. It is that moment of revelation when it dawns on her that she has wasted her entire life chasing after the experiences that could never satisfy her insatiable appetite for endless pleasure. And in the moment after that, she realizes that she must change -- she must BE the change! Maybe she will take a year off and travel around South East Asia, doing volunteer work, building homes for the less fortunate, or digging a well for a water-deprived village to supply much-needed fresh drinking water to the impoverished locals -- instead of partying it up on a beach-side town, drinking, doing soft drugs and having hard sex in the dead of night on a full moon, and infuriating the locals with her blatant disrespect for their customs and traditions that they have held so dear for millennia. There are other fulfilling paths that she could take to seek redemption from her guileless ways. Perhaps she will seek solitude in a year-long yoga retreat on a remote South Pacific island. Or she may take the religious route and join a church, becoming a born-again Christian. One way or another, a profound epiphany will hit her. Her partying days can only last for so long. She will become an adult. It is only a matter of time

I fill my weekends

Mar 22, 2018 at 8:38pm

with lots and Lots and LOTS of reading...
and gaming...
and movies....
and music....
and other intelligent friends who have chosen the solo life.

Op

Mar 23, 2018 at 10:29pm

I see it as the bitter person being maladaptive. Sure, maybe I’m an asshole in my observations. But most of our crowd have moved on. We’ve found other challenges, other ways to connect with others, have actual relationships, gotten formerly committed with others. The bitter woman sleeps with her drug dealer and also takes antidepressants. Not a path that any of us would want for ourselves. She blatantly disrespects our choices and is stuck in perpetual arrested development for a 40 year old. Sometimes some people just can’t adapt and grow emotionally as a person. Maybe her best side is truly when the music is too loud and no real conversation about anything can be made.

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