What's Going To Replace That Fun?

 "Now, unfortunately, they're hitting the age where they still love me but they think I'm completely boring, and so they'll come in, pat me on the head, talk to me for ten minutes, and then they're gone all weekend. They break my heart. Now I've got to start thinking, "Well, what's going to replace that fun?"

President Barack Obama, from Waiting For The Punch, by Marc Maron

Well, what's going to replace that fun? That's how I feel with Keith and Craig gone. The ungrateful wretches moved out to live their own lives. How unbearably ungrateful. As is my way, even though they have been gone for 21 years, I still have not adjusted. My definition of fun now is not waking up dead. And even that is under judicial review.

They saved my life. I came home from work furious every day, and filled with self-loathing because of the jobs I worked. I'd get home and it was instantaneous smiles, piles of laughter.

We played outside, we played inside, we talked, we laughed, we watched TV together and laughed some more. We ate meals together. We watched sports together. Ate my Supreme Individualized Nachos together. We laughed so fucking much. 

Are you fucking kidding me? Now I have to pay a therapist to try and recapture that.

If they weren't around, I would have consumed whiskey out of a special faucet installed next to my recliner - from the moment I got home to the moment I passed out. I did eventually establish that habit (without the faucet) - I just don't remember when the full-on debauchery began. Probably when they were older and began to pat me on the head.

Obama's comment hit me in the face. It was a special kind of fun I had with my sons, because they are my sons. That relationship takes the simple concept of fun and ramps it up to dizzying levels.

I do miss it, but it's time to move on.

Bring on the psychedelics, baby.