This Moment in Time

There was a day long ago when I thought

myself an entrepreneur. I abandoned my

company for a woman. I thought myself

a lover then. It turned out I was neither,

having lost my business and the woman

as well. Another time, I fancied myself as

an artist and a writer. And so, like many of

that kind, I took up drinking, but wound

up in a constant stupor, sleeping off hang-

overs instead. How I managed to come out

of that alive is still a puzzlement to me. Oh,

the diminished days, and nights of despair,

the missing links to memory, the wastelands

of loneliness and misery. Over time with

therapy and treatment, eventually I recov-

ered and became a sober participant re-

entering society. I did what I needed to do in

order to make my way. And today, quite a long

distance removed from my youth and the errs

of yesterday, I find myself retired and disabled

in my old age. I write about that, and quite a

price I paid for the mistakes I made. Some of

it was serious as a deathbed tragedy, I’ll admit.

And now that I am alive to tell the story, some

of it was, I must say, a foolhardy comedy.

Had things turned out differently, likelihood

is, at this moment in time, you would not be

hearing a bloody word from the likes of me.

                          -30-

Chris Hanch 2-22-2020