Nothing Personal

I'm walking to the bustop and I'm forced to pause a moment when a blue Toyota noses out of the parking garage to my left. The driver, a beautiful dark-skinned woman, waves at me and smiles.
I smile politely back and continue walking, but she keeps waving.
Her window comes down and she calls me by name, beckons me over to her window.

Me? You know me? You want me to talk to you? Can do!

This is exactly the kind of thing that should happen to me every day but in reality never does. Except maybe now.

" Hi! Hi! Remember me?"

Wow. She is remarkably beautiful. My IQ plunges as a dormant part of my mind rouses itself and starts searching for something cleverly stupid to say, draining resources from my already faltering memory.

I don't recognize her.
Or.
Maybe I do. Ah...it's like a mnemonic sneeze waiting to happen.

"Uh..."

" I'm Kris! From Bank of Generica! How are you?"

Oh yeah. Now I remember. Kris with a 'K'... I liked her, but we didn't work on the same "team", so we didn't get much time to chat. She looks different now, but I can't say how.
I was mortally drunk during that period, so my recall of those days is just a little blurry.
She was nice to me. I remember that much . It's a start.

"Doin' good! Nice car."

Jay-sus. That's not quite the dumbest thing to say, but it is close. There's a second car pulling up behind her, forcing her to move out of the lane and I've blown my one chance at being witty and charming. Her face is round, beautiful, her expression expectant; I look at her and I go into instant mourning for our never-to-be children. They would have been wonderful, talented kids. Our life together would have been a blissful celebration of unending love- but I have already fucked it up. Our future dies a painfully existential imaginary death.

Years into the future, I feel the leaves falling on my solitary, unvisited gravestone.
No one clears them away.

"Need a ride? I'm going towards Suchandsuch street."

"Sure! Thanks!"

Hah! So much for falling leaves and unmourned graves!

This is cool. It's twenty years in the future and we are walking hand-in-hand along a moonlit beach and laughing about the old days which have suddenly ceased to not happen yet.

But first we have some small talk. We live in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks apart.
Good.
She refers to our ex-boss as a "fucking asshole", breaking the profanity barrier and establishing some common ground.
I am so digging this.
Ha ha, yeah you are right, I agree, that dude was a major asshole. Fuckin' checklist this, ya know?

Haha!

Do I need to be somewhere? No, not really.
Why?
Sure, that sounds great. They have a patio bar, maybe we can sit outside.
Park and walk? No, I don't mind waiting on your porch while you change.
Trust me, I understand what you mean when you say it's a mess inside!
It's a gorgeous day, take your time.

She's a quick changer and she looks great in jeans, two admirable traits. We head to the corner bar.

Dude. You are rolling. Don't fuck up.

Kris orders something with Crown Royal in it. I order coffee. Kris doesn't say anything specific, but I sense that my failure to order an alcoholic drink is a minor breach of an unwritten social contract. Not a fatal error, but a sign. Of what?

Nevermind to all that. This is going really well. Kris just got a promotion, she's branch manager at a competing bank; she's pumped up about it, thinking about buying a house...I can feel her imagination from across the table and it is warm and inviting. Kris is very articulate and funny, haha- I think everyone hated the "ice cream socials" at the Bank, but no one said so- Kris tells me she despised them, I tell her that I was actually ejected from one.
That was you? Haha! Awesome!
She gives me a hi-five. Well done!

The ice cream the bank served was barely edible cheap, mushy, terrible stuff made from tainted Chinese yak milk; yet we were supposed to act grateful and obedient for having it foisted on us in lieu of raises. Ten cents an hour more would have been better for morale than bad ice cream.

Kris points this out:
"The only thing worse than having a shit job is being forced to enjoy it".
Ha! Damn, that's true.. I like women who say stuff like that. It shows realism. I bet she's a good manager.
Hello, comfort zone.

Sure, why not have dinner while we are here?

Tonight's special: filet of carpe diem served with a garden salad of earthly delights. Just don't fuck up.

Kris is very animated, I'm entranced by her delicate hands as they tell the story of how she went from temp worker to management in less than a year. She is looking at houses, thinking of moving to the country even though the commute will be long. She would like to have a greenhouse and an outdoor dog. She has a cat now and it's stir-crazy in her apartment; her fingers make scampering motions on the tabletop as she talks. Manic cat, they say.
Her talking hands are not wearing a diamond. They gesture at me.

"How did you do that?"

Do what? My exploits are legendary. She could be referring to any number of my award-winning accomplishments but I haven't even had a chance to tell her how totally fucking awesome I am yet.

"What's that?"

"The weight. How'd you lose it? I hope that's not being too personal...but you look great."

That's right! I was fifty pounds heavier back then. At this moment I feel 75 ft. tall, but in reality I am short. Fifty pounds was 25% of me. I was in terrible shape back then.
I'm proud that I look good to Kris.
Don't fuck up.

"Well, I...uh...well let's just say there's a lot of calories in beer."

Her gaze shifts to my coffee and then to her cocktail and back to the mug. Behind her bottomless brown eyes, her banker's brain is busily calculating, doing the math. She adds it up. Smart woman.

"So...you don't drink at all?"

"No."

"Oh."

She needs to tell me something. She has dated two alcoholics and they are both dead. She was engaged to the second one when he killed himself. It is nothing personal, but if I have a drinking problem, she'd appreciate it if I told her now.

Don't fuck up. Now is not the time to mention my family history of self-annihilation, yet here it is again- the past is destroying my present.

I pause, fumble around... a refill buys me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.
This is tricky stuff.
I am convinced that I will never drink again, but I can't deny that I have a drunk in my past or that a single drink might kill me. I won't let that happen but I don't know how to explain this to her. There is no guarantee. I can't promise anything to anyone.

"I used to drink. I don't anymore."

"Used to... a lot?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Again, it's nothing personal, but she can't take a chance with a drug-using heavy drinker again. It's been too hard on her and she can't go through it another time.

I can tell that she has been having an imaginary future too, and in her vision a life that never was has just ended.
It's a familiar feeling and I recognize it for what it is.
And she is right.
It's nothing personal. I've had a number of variations on this conversation over the last two years and I know the only reasonable outcome is unfavorable to me- in an impersonal way.
I can't offer up any proof that I won't drink again. There isn't any.
I can't expect her to take a chance - not after what she's been through.
If you are betting on horses, it's not wise to put money on the one with a record of falls.
Given her luck, maybe it's best to avoid the track altogether, but we are all gamblers at heart, so some chances will always be taken.
Some will not.

Like people, the better the chance, the more likely it is to be taken.

I am an untaken chance.

This is an awkward moment. The chemistry is intense but Kris isn't looking for a one-nighter and frankly, neither am I.
It wouldn't work like that. We can both tell, no use pretending otherwise.
We are both looking for a nearly identical imaginary future and that search is what separates us.
Her dream requires an absence of alcoholics , mine merely requires my own sobriety.
It's a subtle but irreconcilable difference and it brings our imaginary tomorrow to a real end tonight.

Maybe my feelings should be hurt. Maybe they will be, but I doubt it.
I didn't do anything wrong- I didn't fuck up!- but I can't ask for trust that can't be given. Watching someone you love kill themself will fuck you up, no doubt about it. I know.
Two drunks in her life was two drunks too many and there is no third chance to be taken or given.
Who wants to volunteer for a suicide mission?
I understand this. It bothers me but it doesn't destroy me.

It's nothing personal.