Different and Anew

A place where we use to hang out, so familiar yet so strange. Dimmed yellow lights, distinct smell of alcohol and cigarettes, house band playing jazz in the background in a lounge that is probably no bigger then a couple of most apartments.

Friends chatting across the room, laughing, dancing, and drinking. In an instance, my world goes quiet and lights dimmed even further. All of a sudden I become ever so aware of my surroundings  as I sit back, not as a participant of life, rather as the observer from outside looking in and my mind begins to wonder. Behind how many of the smiling faces, how many are truly happy? A soon to be divorcee, a once proud home owner that is about to lose his house, a lifer stuck at his job who has been turned down multiple times for promotion, a musician desperately to hold on to his dream as the band is falling apart. On the other hand, an untamed soul finally settled down and just had his third child, an engaged bachelor soon to be wed in the fall, a successful businessman who just got the promotion of his life. Underneath each smile, there seems to be so much more to his or her story. These are my friends, each at a different place in their life. These are my friends, each with a life story yearning to be told. Everything seems simpler when we were young and without a worry in the world. Everything seems more colorful when we were young without the grey vale of life. Oh I’m so intoxicated with what it was. I’m so drunk with whatever the life has in store. Be well my friends. Be the light to your own shadow and light up the road ahead. Be happy my friends. Be the creator of the happiness we all so craved. As the minute hand moved ever so slightly on my watch, it’s eight minutes til midnight.