Chipper Dreher

Tag: life

  • Death of the Indie Bar: Navigating Nashville’s Bar Scene Challenges

    I wrote this for any magazine who wants to pick it up. Here it is in the meantime.

    Bartending is the science of dilution.

    Whether shaking or stirring, the only real objective is simply to water down the drink enough to be palatable; sipped without the sting that naturally accompanies hard liquor. While shots and beers will also do the trick, extravagant cocktail bars have popped up like dysfunctional whack-a-moles as many demand more and more of an experience out of their bars.

    Fat-wash this, craft syrups that. Elegant, profligate garnishes made of flowers and rocks from the banks of the Harpeth thrown on fucked-up variations of Cosmos. Dust collected off the train tracks in WeHo and sifted onto Whiskey-Sours in funny shapes as a “farm-to-table” promise. While a bit of an exaggeration, you know what I mean.

    Today’s clientele refuses to budge; they crave more, expect more, drink more. My generation has grown up as the least alcoholic, consuming less than $3 billion in alcohol sales a year in the United States. That is compared to Millennials at $23 billion and the ever-loving Boomers with almost $26 billion. But does that mean that we have low expectations when we go out to drink? Hell no. Growing up with social media and the proliferated effects of Unreasonable Hospitality, we are actually the most critical and dictatorial generation with our anticipations.

    We expect to be treated like royalty when we go out; the imperfections and flaws should be ironed, starched and dried out before we ever step foot anywhere. Spontaneity with places to eat and bars to drink has been effectively eradicated. Without proper planning and preparation when choosing destinations, most won’t even leave the house. Less than four stars? Automatically out. A single review about a bad vibe? Next option immediately.

    While this seems like Habeas Corpus in motion, the so-called “due process” occurring as the voice of the people have decided the fate of the bar, I believe that it fails to take into account something very important: individuality. Somehow a concept that has become incredulous in practice, people lack the ability to discern the simple fact: What might be right for me may not be right for you. What I hated is not the same as what you will enjoy.

    We see that a bar has a review about grumpy bartenders, about cocktails that don’t taste good, about a lack of selection or what have you. And while the cocktails might admittedly not be perfect, the barman might be a cynical bastard, the beer selection is just Banquet and Miller Lite, this often is a major piece of a bar’s allure.

    This is pretty much a summation of The Villager Tavern.

    The gruff, solo, bartender was outside smoking a cigarette when we arrived. We sat at the bar for another three minutes before she finally stamped her boot on the yellow roach and came in to take our order. Merely looking at us and asking what we wanted to drink was peak hospitality. Mercifully, no Guidara influences were to be found here.

    And yet, I loved it. It is a local-oriented dive that serves only beer and throws the best dart tournaments in the city. No frills, just a wall full of board games and an attitude that encourages you to be completely present in the moment.

    I went back and looked it up online after I left. Based on what I saw, I likely never would have tried this place out unless I had stumbled in. While I said other spontaneity doesn’t exist, I should add that once you’ve been sufficiently intoxicated, suddenly the world opens up. The last living vestiges of a present generation.

    Nevertheless, bars independent of any conglomerate have much fewer resources to work with and, as a result, often have more kinks and imperfections more explicitly apparent. This scares my peers especially. Things should be smooth, service should run with casual, light conversation, the food and drinks should run with a good, exciting theme. In short, they should play it fucking safe. No interruptions, no unexpected occurrences; just a smooth experience. There is something to be said for this, admittedly, but there is a way to be hospitable to the customer without beating it over their head. 

    As someone who has bartended for five years but been a professional alcoholic for more than ten, I can count my favorite bars in the world on one hand. The base commonality between the handful is authenticity. They created within the bounds of financial constraints and, as a result, the ingenuity is contagious.

    In Nashville, Never Never is an industrial speakeasy and overall anomaly. A gritty dive bar, built out of an old-school welding and repair shop, manages to serve some of the best cocktails in a city proliferated with great drinks and bartenders. The mismatched vibe of intensely loud music over the speakers and cigarette smoke wafting in from the patio combines with glittering, aristocratic dry martinis somehow works.

    Will I get stabbed coming out of Dino’s in East? Probably, but I’ll have the best late-night burger and beer of my life at 2 am. I’ll sit in the company of others who are ending their night on a calm, high note and revel in the energy.

    To most conscious observers of Nashville city life, the death of the indie bar is no new phenomenon. In this economy, how the fuck are you supposed to start a multimillion-dollar venture in a world where hospitality groups backed by billions in venture capitalist blood money operate restaurants on a grand scale unseen before. Every town is Vegas now. Small restaurants and bars are swallowed whole by the bigger fish; expected to either join the conglomerate or die a slow death. 

    Living in WeHo the last year has been especially eye-opening. A compact, gentrified industrial zone pantomiming as a baby Brooklyn has seen investment and corporate interest on a scope unseen in Nashville. Where once existed only a small row of boutique shops, a burger stand and a few local bars now caters to SoHo House, Hermès, and the Lululemon clad frequenters of Pilates studios that reproduce around the city like rabbits. Apartment studios begin in the low 2,000s and cost of living might as well make this Williamson County Pt. 2.

    And the problem resides in the fact that every new restaurant and bar in the area is going to succeed, if only for the simple reason that too much money has been pushed into it to fail. Rent prices are driven up with this guarantee and only chains are given the opportunity of having such a level of exposure. Indie bars like Present Tense or Never Never—my favorite in Nashville in case you didn’t know—have to compete against the big bank of Momotaro, Alla Vita, Middleman backed by Boka Restaurant Group. It feels an impossible task.

    Where do we go from here? With lack of spontaneity, an increasing demand for better drinks and crazier flavor combinations, and demand for flawless service, bars and restaurants without backing don’t have the money to burn coming up with ridiculous drink ideas. Who’s to say that Patterson House, without the help of big daddy Strategic Hospitality, has the capital to infuse every bottle of gin with exotic, black tea leaves just to “fuck around and find out” and see if a cutting-edge drink results (I’ll give them credit, it usually does).

    None of this even accounts for the shitshow that is Broadway. Every day I’m still somewhat surprised to see Robert’s, the only real legacy bar, is still kicking.

    The classic, incubating music venues that used to spur the indie rock scene from the likes of The Dead Weather to Kings of Leon, from Edgehill to Blake Ruby, are disappearing or being bought out (AJ Capital and Exit/In being one of the most inflammatory examples, though it was a rare happy ending). The Basement effectively caved to the Live Nation monopoly to stay afloat and who can blame them; The Truth’s opening will steal even more business from the smaller scenes like them and The End. In a city dominated by Morgan Wallen wannabes, it’s clear the indie side has been neglected and forced to move elsewhere.

    How can a Roy’s survive? How can someone open up another Sullivan’s without a consistent, rich benefactor? If approached by the parasitic hospitality groups, how do you say no? Costs on everything have risen to the point of an unrealistic barrier of entry and I know business owners are struggling with the math.

    The death of the indie bar is a problem that needs to be addressed as this city’s growth spurt advances unrelentingly. Creativity and character should be at the forefront of the Council and City Planners, otherwise Nashville succumbs to the corporate takeover and we become a city not worth remembering.

    We become a city of chains that move here with predatory intentions; LA, Chicago, and NYC bringing a copy and paste business model from their original locations without a clear direction besides printing money. Call me old-fashioned, but I love bars and restaurants started by owners with the sole, innocent purpose of bringing new perspectives and life to an area with a unique voice. Who can argue that The Henry is here to enrich our community?

    Broadway’s appeal will not last forever; tourists will eventually want to venture off the beaten path. I would hazard to contrast us with New Orleans. While we are similar in the fact that we essentially co-opted their French Quarter, this is where the similarities end.

    Unlike us, they were smart. They are not simply known for Bourbon Street; although, like Broadway, that is the most immediate, eye-catching draw and most people’s first impression. No, it’s a city with more breath and energy than most others in America because it allowed itself to grow with unique perspectives and collaboration in mind. It is rough and ragged, dirty and, very occasionally, crime ridden. And yet, art and innovation still find resolute sanctuaries within the mossy Live Oaks. It is remembered as a one-of-a-kind city worthy of being discovered and unpacked. It is a town well-lived-in.

    I believe Nashville has this potential. Growing so quickly has allowed the city to essentially restart. Because everyone here is a carpetbagger, there is no status quo to adhere to. The term
    “disruption” doesn’t exist because there is no norm to disrupt, it is simply transplants who have come to seek refuge in a city historically known for music. With the addition of interlopers, fresh voices and talents have come onto the scene in a way that resembles jazz music moving from Chicago to Kansas City in the early ’30s. All at once, we have a talented city in aspects not just involving country music.

    We have the ability to reinvent ourselves as a result. We have three Michelin Star restaurants; we are no longer just a southern-hick town full of Nashville-hot and barbecue. We are no longer just $30 Jack Daniel shots on Broadway (although that will probably never stop). We have Babu and Coral Club finding ways to reconcile Middle Eastern flavors with the tastes of a modern Tennessee audience. As a result, I’ve never visited either of those bars when they weren’t obscenely busy. Bring a fresh idea and people will respond, regardless of how imperfect and different they are.

    In a city dominated with great drinks and greater expectations, space should be held for the small-timers that provide this on their own, authentic scale.

    I don’t want everything polished; I want to see what we can do with less.

  • Approaching the Wall

    Approaching the Wall

    When I was a child, I used to look up at the moon almost every night. I was entranced by it.

    My dad told me that it was made of blue cheese and I believed him, thinking the whole thing was a magical escape actually closer than it seemed. I only saw the parts that were glowing; the soft white curve of light was all I focused on.

    During a crescent moon, I would see only a golden sliver and wonder where the rest of it could possibly have disappeared to. I felt as though some God must have taken a bite of the cheese and accidentally ate it all. I looked up in wonder. 

    Today, I focus only on the dark outline. During new moons, I can faintly see the black surface, shaded by Earth’s intervention of the sun’s rays. I see the whole picture; it isn’t just the white anymore.

    For a while, I considered this to be a pessimistic thought: I notice the black more than the white. In my head, everyone else perceives and appreciates the part that is most noticeable. The moon is half full rather than half empty to them, I thought. I wondered what was wrong with me. Why had I grown to be so cynical. 

    I see now my mistake. Crescent moons are defined by the limit of the visibility. Life isn’t just one shade, it’s both. The beautiful half-moon we take for granted is made possible only by the darkness. We appreciate it for the lack of something else. If it was a full moon every night, it would lose its power over us; it would simply be another sun to keep us up at night. 

    We love the moon because, like us, it is dynamic and evolving. It is different every day, it is capricious. It gives and takes. Our tides, our moods, our gravity is dictated by how the moon appears, even if we don’t realize.

    The sun is a constant figure—it is always going to be there and be bright. The moon is under no such guise, she is there one day and gone the next. When I see an outline in the sky at night, I see the deeper personality that others don’t notice. I feel a sense of pride in my intellection. There is a bigger picture that we have only begun to discern. 

    ***

    Life has been difficult again lately. I see only the dimming sliver illuminated against the darkness; and it seems as though the shade is quickly overtaking the crescent. It feels harder to breathe. 

    In a post back in December, I felt like I finally had my life back on track. Everything was looking up and the world felt promising. The moon was bright. As I worked through the long, dark winter, the rotation spun and answers that I felt permanent began to work themselves loose.

    Preconceived notions began to fall on their face and the bricks I had built as my foundation began to topple one by one. I feel now as though I’m standing on a small platform with only a few, bare stones beneath me to support my floundering balance. 

    I am coming up on an immovable wall with my “career field”.  Bartending no longer scratches the itch that it once did, and the place I currently work treats me as no more than a cog in the gears. As someone who finally understands the potential I hold, I feel my creative and leadership spirit dying a fast death and I worry that spending too long in the quicksand will swallow me whole. 

    My support group in Nashville is going through an ill-timed journey, as life mandates. It’s never a good time. It won’t be until October that we will all be reunited in the same room again. Someone will always be gone and, especially now that I have left Franklin, it is harder to see them at all.

    It is a tough thing to go through life feeling like a man without a country. I don’t make close friends easily and it is a difficult task to be away from the ones I do have. 

    Creatively I have been blocked to the extreme. This is the first time I’ve sat down to write in over a month. Reading The Artist’s Way has encouraged me to try to pick it back up.

    According to the book, I am learning I’ve been a “shadow artist” for much of my life. I don’t feel as though I am allowed to rely on creativity and my inner artist to support myself so I gravitate toward people and jobs that do allow themselves to give in. Growing up, creativity felt like a hobby, not something I was allowed to completely succumb to. I needed to be realistic.

    This was no fault of anyone’s except myself. The inner voice in my head wouldn’t let me really give it a try. Anything I was interested in, I would talk myself out of or pretend as though I didn’t care about it. As a result, I am an editor for people who aren’t any more creative than me but, rather, more audacious. I see people on stage with the same talent as me and I must give them credit, for they had the courage to use the creativity to fulfilling ends, regardless of the inner critique in their head. 

    The root issue is that I feel weak lately. Weak to pursue the life I really want. Weak to speak up and speak honestly. Weak to give life an sincere try. It feels hard to have conversations lately as I don’t reckon I can get across the point I’d actually like to make. It feels hard to go into a job where I don’t have the authority to just be myself and have that be enough. It feels hard to watch my friends travel and living a life made of worthy stories while I sit and nurture regret. It is to the point where I have a hard time just getting out of bed again. 

    I never usually make new year’s resolutions, but this year I had two: Live honestly and be present. So far, as it appears to me, I’ve accomplished neither. 

    But like the half-moon, I understand there is more to the picture. I need a solution for the immediate problems but it only exists through expansive, intensive inner change. My weakness, mental truancy, and sadness have to be addressed before moving forward. 

    To begin, I am changing a small, yet distinctive, thought process I’ve been having. 

    Somewhere along the way, my thoughts became skewed to a mindset of: What can I gain from life? What actions exist to benefit me directly? I have considered compromising my inner code to look for a corporate job just so I can receive financial stability and some HOA-branded form of power. I don’t want to do a job like that, but I could gain a lot from it and the temptation, admittedly, is proving to be hard to beat. 

    However, the question I should be asking is this: What can I give to life? What can I provide to the world that is unique and special? How can I improve the lives of others rather than just take from them? 

    I need to flip my line of thinking to get anywhere in life. I spent a long time in my early twenties just expecting the universe to hand me the things I wanted; understanding and accepting that I alone am responsible for making things happen was my first tough lesson in life. Once I understood that, I started to work harder and take more accountability for the things I do have. 

    But that isn’t enough, I’ve realized.

    I thought once I buckled down and started to show results, this would be the key to unlocking the secrets of the world. I expected life was like The Odyssey and once I finished my journey, I would have the things I wanted. I would have stability and money and freedom to travel. 

    I fought like hell to carve a dream job out of nothing last year and actually made it happen. But that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly happy. I certainly don’t have the money to back it up.  

    I practiced, studied and grit my teeth at bartending for the last three years to wind up as someone with great skills and a terrible state of mind. 

    So where do I go from here? Now that I’ve decided to change my tune and try to focus on giving rather than taking, it is a good start but I still need money. I need immediate and eventual solutions. 

    Eventual honestly seems easier to tackle; I want to write my way out of this.

    One of the few, irrefutable skills (I hope) that I have is writing. Conversations seem to get harder for me lately, especially as I escape further into my mind, and it feels as though I can never truly say what I want to say. I’m better at being honest but that doesn’t make me better at having honest conversations.

    Writing is my true form of escape that I know I do more effectively than the average person. While many probably have the same thoughts, I have geared my life toward immersing myself in the literary world and find a great satisfaction in it. Books live forever. Writing lives forever. I have a voice that is unique in experiences and choices; I think it deserves to be heard.

    I want to travel and write about those travels for others. That is the way I hope to contribute, by making the world smaller and linking universal experiences across the world. In a time where fear increasingly dominates the news cycle, I hope to show that people are the same wherever you go and educate others about the important stories and figures that contribute to rich histories. 

    Immediately though, I’m conflicted. I don’t have money to travel and I haven’t written enough for a sponsorship, magazine deal or rich investor to put their faith in me. Obviously I have to begin writing a lot more in the meantime and practice while building up a base.

    But I’m still incredibly unhappy bartending right now and I am unsure how to reconcile that. I don’t know whether to look for another bar job that might inspire creativity or abandon ship completely. Likely the former is the answer as the bar provides my income and I have demonstrable skills that can get me in the door anywhere I want to go. 

    I use this post as a form of posterity to detail my thought process for myself and for anyone reading.

    Even when life seems to be heading in the right direction, it can be derailed just as quickly the response to that is a true test of character. I’d like to be able to look back at this in a few years and see the kindling of creative thought starting to grow into a flame. I’d like to think this is the last time I’ll go through this but I know it isn’t, so I want to remember how I responded in the midst of it. 

    Whatever my future holds, I want to hope it involves using my voice to make others happier. No matter what I do, I want to be a figure of positivity. In my current quagmire, I know I’m not living up to those standards. Once I have a second to breathe, things will change. 

  • River on a rock

    River on a rock

    There is a toxic poison that goes unnoticed by the FDA today.

    Technically there are a lot. But this one in particular has destroyed the health and spirits of great men, kept untold thousands bedridden, and, if left untreated, destroys from the inside out. It is gradual; the effects aren’t seen immediately—rather, they slowly mold and form and contort until they determine how best to eliminate their target. It is a river on a rock. 

    The poison, of course, is disappointment. To be more explicit, this refers to disappointment and the way by which we respond. 

    To begin, everyone in life will face disappointment. It is a common, uniting characteristic of being human. At some point as a child, you will be let down. Your birthday won’t go the way you planned, that kid you like won’t like you back, your parents will do something to upset you and cease to be perfect gods. However it begins, the inevitable start will quickly snowball into larger, and more grand, disappointments.

    The worries and issues become more pressing and more intense. The stakes get higher as one grows into adulthood and beyond; resultantly, the feelings and disappointments grow more intense. 

    And it works on a person like a poison. If one never fully recovered, or at least processed, the last disappointment, the next one that occurs a day later isn’t going to suddenly restart the count and begin anew.

    Instead, the bitterness amplifies and augments to include another heartbreak. Soon, without reckoning with the past, a fully grown man will find that they have so much anger residing within that the idea of another letdown becomes too much to handle. They find they would rather shy away from trying anymore; it’s too much. It seems that anytime they attempt to find happiness or accept that the best possible scenario could occur, reality comes striking down with more bad news. Maybe they weren’t meant to be happy. 

    So it goes, a downward cycle of what they consider lost potential. Disappointment strikes and the affected fellow becomes fixedly nostalgic for times when the lucky break did occur. For when life felt easier and more simple, when life was seemingly rational and logical. This, of course, is another fallacy, for life is absurd at its core. Life itself has no plan for us. 

    This is when many turn to religion or predestination. It is easier to put one’s trust in something larger than life, something that has a plan laid out for us, rather than try to do things ourselves and face another potential heartache. Life is so much easier when one gives up their “free will” in acceptance of a way of life that determines all will be okay in the end.

    The disappointed person becomes institutionalized by this thought process, similar to a prisoner who begins to crave the rigidity of a schedule, the career army man who can’t imagine life without orders. If life is all working out according to a predestined plan, that’s more room to take the foot off the gas and try to enjoy life.

    The crazy part is that this oxymoron can actually work in a backhanded way. Once the fear of choice and disappointment is seemingly alleviated, many will feel as though they can relax and enjoy themselves. This allows them to begin to make choices regarding their future again, but this time with the authority of a higher power—if it goes bad, it is just fate or God saying no. That is easier to bear than the thought of failing from your own devices or inadequacies. 

    Nothing I’m saying is new, Camus discussed this in The Myth of Sisyphus: “As in all religions, man is freed of the weight of his own life.” While he took his view toward religion, he still recognized and empathized with the need for it. He saw it as a method for man to make decisions without the burden of their self bearing the consequences.

    While appealing to a higher power works occasionally, I still feel as though this fear of disappointment can seep through the cracks that religion or predestination so hastily tried to pave over. Until we find ways to process failures and setbacks, we will never be truly happy or courageous, no matter what band-aid solution is used to alleviate the sting. 

    I am twenty-seven years old this year. In all honesty, I don’t feel I have much to show for my quarter century on earth. I embed myself in new jobs and industries, hobbies and interests as often as I can to learn new things and become more rounded as an individual—whether I do this out of fear of actually having to commit to something could be debated—but I still feel I don’t have much of a grounded, secure life.

    I haven’t found a long-lasting, meaningful career. I haven’t started a family. I don’t even have much money in the bank to show for my wandering ways. Last year, I thought, not a few times, that I finally found my way. Each time, I was let down. The gold in the rough turned out to be more rough. 

    I gained confidence in strange ways and lost it in stranger. I felt as though I could do anything for a while but found that most of the things I started up just fizzled out. I give myself credit for trying. I wanted to edit books, so I became an actual, professional editor. I wanted to start a company, so I did. I wanted to be a journalist, so I got a job with a local newspaper. I wanted to be a PM in construction, so I became one. 

    Unfortunately, many of those things have come collapsing since inception. I want to give myself more credit for doing it anyway, regardless of result, but I find it actually makes me sad. Here I sit at a coffee shop, a MacBook to my name and a job as a bartender as my only occupation. Close personal relationships let me down a lot last year and it feels as though I have less friends and inspiring people in my life this year than at the exact time last year. 

    As a result of how I perceive my current situation, each step becomes harder to take now; how much easier would it be if I played it safe. Remain a semi-broke bartender without insurance and hope that fate would come and rescue me specifically from the clutches of unhappiness.

    But how egotistical is that to think that fate would care about me. Nothing predetermined my path and nothing is coming to rescue me. I cannot sit back and say “oh well, whatever happens will happen” because nothing will happen until I myself move it into action. 

    At its core, disappointment is a spiritual problem. One that cannot be cured by physical ailments or mechanisms. Some turn to the bottle, some to exercise, some to retail therapy, some to actual talk therapy. No amount of talking, walking or drinking will cure the bitterness and fear inside that results from disappointment. It is an issue reckoned by spiritual movement and resolve. If the decision is never formally made to accept the doubts and fears and proceed regardless, to put aside the past and consider the future, happiness and freedom from anguish shall never be felt. Like sour candy on the tongue, the piquant feeling shall remain perpetually. 

    Bitterness from disappointment is river onto a rock, eroding any sense of self-worth or self-confidence. With each passing heartbreak, the torrent grows stronger and faster. It cuts further into land and becomes harder to stop. Soon, one may find their entire inner selves dictated by the current of the water rather than the foundation they used to stand on. Bitterness begets more bitterness, the water flows stronger. 

    Until a dam is erected to stand against the stream of hatred, no progress will ever be accomplished. Body and spirit must be in accordance if there is any hope to build the structure. The water will always be there, the disappointments will never stop. What we choose to do with the water is what determines our future. We can allow it to flow harder each day, accepting the futility of life and dreams. We can sacrifice and resign ourselves to a lesser fate than the one that is deserved. We can believe things are predestined and give up on making independent decisions entirely. We can skate by without ever truly attempting something again, better to live safe than get our hopes up and have them let down again. 

    Or a spiritual dam can be built.

    The thought of making decisions, while scary, can still be put to good use and eventually lead to a better future. We can put aside the bitterness of the past mistakes and grievances to try something new. Humans, throughout history, have always been dreamers. Our society has come this far because every generation has those who refuse to acknowledge disappointment and, instead, dream of better, finding ways to substantiate their ideas and keep the ball rolling. Until the fear of disappointment is alleviated, nothing will be accomplished. But once it has been handled, anything is possible. 

    And, admittedly, the fear is never truly gone. What determines character is the movement beyond fear and the perseverance of spirit. So long as that is held tight, life becomes a litany of possibilities.  

  • Acceptance

    Acceptance

    I’ve been rereading The Great Gatsby again and I feel like I’m finally understanding it. At this point in my life, I’ve taken a lot more lessons from the short novel than the last time I tried to finish it. It is more an essay on trying to run from the past and being unable to reconcile how it doesn’t define us but it does build us into the people we really are. Gatsby can’t acknowledge his past because he wants to try to build around the facade of high society. He can’t acknowledge who he really is without letting the past define him.

    In the last few months, I’ve had intense writer’s block. Nothing I write seems worthy of my expectations—it revolves around my time abroad again or it’s too sad. Quite frankly, I’m almost sick of trying to relive my memories from Germany. I feel like a one-trick pony who is only capable of telling moments that, at this point, happened five years ago. Half a decade of living in the past. 

    I let memories from the times I really lived distract me from life I experience now. 

    In the past, I would wake up suddenly, sweating—feeling as though I were back in some moment abroad that made an impact on me. A song would come on the station that reminded me of someone or something and I would have to turn it off as it was too painful to hear, knowing that I was currently in an unhappy, unfulfilling life when I knew what I was capable of feeling and experiencing. How can I calmly live a life of disappointment after two years of intense, piquant adventures. 

    Not every moment was happy. In fact, looking back at my old blogs I wrote in Germany, they seem downright depressing as hell too. That is a case of wherever you go, there you are and I can reconcile that. But I did feel sad in a place that made me happy, and I knew the sadness wouldn’t last. Every day felt like a new start there, I could step outside and choose to be in another country if I wanted. The friendships and relationships are magnified, intense and venerable. I had and have never made friends like I did there. The food was holistically flawless and delicious. The locals were friendly and caring. The sun was bright and happy. In short, life there was memorable, every single day of it. It was the hardest I ever lived and I wouldn’t trade a day of it. 

    But I write this blog not as another love letter to that life; I write it as a goodbye. 

    The only way for me to truly move forward in my personal and professional endeavors is to finally let go of those memories that hold me captive. I hold to my heart only ghosts of what once was. Those eternal moments that I was able to live and relive, dissect and repair have become bastardized versions of the actual truth. I didn’t feel this way toward those moments when I lived them; rather, I took them for granted.

    After five years, I realize that I have forgotten a great deal more than I thought. People that I once held close to my heart now barely register as strangers, places that I swore to remember silently flee from my memory. 

    For the longest time, I thought our past defined us. Memories were the real me and that, if I let them go, I would no longer be as cool or interesting or unique as I wanted to be. However, I’ve been facing the reckoning: the past is what makes us but it doesn’t define us. 

    That probably seems obvious to most people. Nonetheless, it is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way after twenty-seven years. I would go through something traumatic or impassioned and tuck the memory away as a defining moment for myself, reliving it whenever I had the chance to experience those feelings again and remind myself that that moment was who I am really. 

    Since returning from Europe, taking stock of my life, I’ve really done nothing important. Crippled with indecision, lack of purpose and conflicting motives, I have been content to revert back to the past. Memories are firm and decisive, at first glance, and it’s easy to cling to something firm in the midst of confusion. However, the memories I was reliving back in March 2023 are not the same as today. Today, they seem mistier, airier, esoteric. I don’t get the same, all-encompassing feeling when I reach back out to them. I have probably distorted the memory to fit my purposes now and how it happened is actually vastly different. I am escaping to a snow bridge, seemingly firm ground covering a large, gaping chasm. 

    It leads me to realize I must stop relying on these memories to get me through hard times. In reality, they are perpetuating my hard times. I must stop living in the past if I want to concentrate on the future for once. 

    I have finally hit a point in my life where I need to shit or get off the pot. Reality has slowly been catching up with me and now it’s arrived full force and, for the first time, I actually feel ready to face it. I have dreams and ambitions that I want to accomplish and I can’t do that if I’m constantly paralyzed with old memories of a man who doesn’t reflect the current version standing in front of the mirror. 

    I write this in the hopes that it might help someone else going through the same thing. Whether trauma holds you back or even happy memories that you love to comb through day after day, you have to acknowledge that the only way forward is to accept them. Know that the past is the past and what happened is what really happened, but until you are ready to get real with the story, you will be stuck in a loop.

     Accept who you are and how the moment affected you and understand you can’t move on without processing both. You are who you are and your past is your past. Once those two have been made into one, you can continue living presently and passionately. 

    I am going to finally move past what holds me back. I accept that those memories shaped me but they don’t define me. If I want the chance to be present, I have to finally accept that I am interesting and engaging as a human already, I don’t have to dwell on certain moments. 

    It feels as though a lot of possibilities are around the corner for me now that I’ve finally started to get serious about life and I’m excited. I don’t have the time to live in the past anymore—I am working on making my future as fun as possible. I hope I can get there.