Thursday, March 31, 2011

Clinging/Suffering or getting out of the sand trap without losing too many strokes

I went to have dinner with some guys in my golf league last night. We met at five for the eight dollar dinner special at Burden Lake Country Club. Special is on Wed before 6. Great cheap meals. I had Mesquite chicken and shrimp. So this is not a restaurant review but I think it's a good place to go eat especially in the nice weather when you can sit on the deck.  Just don't sit too close to the cigar smoking golfers.   I went at four hoping to hit some golf balls on the range but that was still closed..So I ordered a Jameson and sat out on the deck in an Adirondack chair in the sun smoking a H.Uppman Camaroon cigar.  Very nice moment.

I have great memories of post golf good times on that deck.  And that's where I'm going with this.  Nostalgia vs. reality.  The whiskey, cigar, chair and sun were all very nice.  And I was happy being by myself.  I'm confused about how much the pleasure of that moment was tied to the memories I have of other moments in the same place.  If I'd been at a totally new locatiion would it have been much different?

 This comes into play because of the pending move to Binghamton and my plan to drive back to this golf course every week($40 in gas alone) so I can continue have time with a group of men I've come to consider friends. And to be at a place I feel connected to.  Both the people and the place are big in my memory bank.  The problem is I'm starting to wonder if my plan will work. As I sat eating my meal with five of the guys I felt a new, disturbing distance from them.  I think I realized that I'm  on an irreversible path away from them.  Conversation felt hollow.  I left early, full of sadness.  This idea of life being a series of losses  sucks.  So now I'm thinkin maybe it'd be better not to come back at all after I move. But that's too big of a loss to face in the middle of all the other changes.