Last Friday night, I realized, admittedly not for the first time, that I was getting old. Not bed-ridden, dispill-carrying old, but old nonetheless, like a budding pot-belly or a longer hangover.
I had endeavored to walk from my place in the Mile-End to downtown, on Bishop, where the launch of our second issue was about to start. A nice walk, in the cool night air that had just begun to fill with the unmistakable aroma of spring - including both wet grass and the yearly crop of turds. To get to Bishop, I decided to cut through the McGill ghetto where it was, of course, Friday night at the residences, which means I met a lot of students at various stages of alcohol, or other, intoxication. And here's exactly what I mean: I presumed they were drunk mostly because they were loud, boisterous, laughing a lot, having an obvious good time, and annoying me to no end.
It's the annoyance that bothered me. Why was I annoyed by people having fun? It made me wonder if maybe I'd forgotten how to have fun like that, how to not care, or maybe it occurred to me that to be like that, to be boisterous and to laugh in exactly that manner requires something that I may have lost: total freedom and having the whole wide world in front of you with the feeling that it will last forever. Not a very original thought, I grant you, but nonetheless kind of dark when it strikes you.
Of course, I then proceeded to go to the launch and have a fabulous time and laugh and maybe I was even a little bit boisterous. So I might not be that old, who knows. My hangovers do last longer, though. I bet they'd still ask me for ID if I asked for a drink in the states. I'll have to go try.
See you all soon.
Vincent
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