Ernie, I Think You’re Remembering it Wrong
I worry that I complain too much about being a 30-year-old college student. Or, “alternative student,” as some of the faculty call me, which is a term that I cordially invite them to shove way up inside their own butthole. Truthfully, I love what I’m doing. It took me an additional 8 years, but now I know what my passion is and I know what I want to do with it for the rest of my life. That is not a mentality that 18-year-olds are blessed with, trust me. I am also unencumbered by the need to appear “cool.” I sit on the front row, I ask a ton of questions, and I spend so much time in my professors’ office hours that bystanders think we are either a secret superhero/sidekick duo or that we’re sleeping together.
Yes, literature is my passion. It may bore everyone else, but it exhilarates me. Since I love literature so much, I love learning in general: the two are connected. At first, I was bothered by the fact that my route to higher education left me taking 100 level biology classes in my late twenties, but I learned quickly to apply it. Science is the basis for science fiction, so I can use biology to garner a better appreciation for Kurt Vonnegut. Sociology—how people relate to each other and how they relate to constructs—that’s exactly what literature is. Philosophy, psychology, history, anthropology: literature, literature, literature, literature.
Long story short, I love to learn. I also hate to learn. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I contain multitudes.” Who said that? Anyone? Anyone? It was Walt Whitman. By the way, if you find literature boring, you haven’t paid it enough attention. If you think that Walt Whitman is just some dull, flowery, old man poet, you don’t know Walt Whitman. Every time I thumb through Leaves of Grass I feel like I’m drowning in semen.
I love to learn and I hate to learn. I love my “book learnin’” and I hate to learn life lessons. So, naturally, because God has a sense of humor, I’ve gotten the most out of both courses of study in the last year. The two are not mutually exclusive, though. To learn about literature is to learn about life. To learn about addiction is to learn about life. To deal with addiction, you have to be able to accept life on life’s terms, quite the same way that you have to accept the sad, dissatisfying ending of a great book. We cannot change or control most of the things that happen in life, but we can control the way that we handle them. It is agony to face hurt and betrayal in the moment it occurs. Years from now, with a stronger constitution, you will find that things happened exactly the way that they were supposed to.
I used to despise the ending of A Farewell to Arms. *Spoiler Alert* A pacifist ambulance driver (Henry) gets injured in the war multiple times (common theme for Hemingway) and falls in love with a nurse’s aid (Catherine), who he knocks up. At first, they were just dicking around to deal with their separate emotional issues, but they actually fall deeply in love and escape to Switzerland (because he’s technically a deserter at this point.) They make it safely across the border and they are both planning on living happily ever after. Catherine has the baby, which is stillborn. Hours later Catherine dies of a hemorrhage with Henry right by her side. Henry tries to find the words to say a proper “goodbye” to his beloved, he fails miserably, and the book ends with him walking nonchalantly down the street back to their hotel.
I have read as many books about Hemingway as I have books by Hemingway. I’ve been fascinated with him since I was a teenager, but I had to get older and experience more of life to truly understand him. When I was younger, I thought he was just a drunk, philandering, asshole (he was, don’t get me wrong) who moved from country to country to evade the friends, women, and bookies that he had pissed off (also probably true.) Like I said, I knew as much about him as I did his work. Hemingway is arguably the most famous American fiction writer of the 20th century: but never once did that man write a piece of fiction. Hemingway wrote about his life in the ways that he wished it had occurred. He had the rare ability to look at himself in the mirror and acknowledge that his intentions and his actions rarely matched up with one another. If that’s not being a drunk, then I don’t know what is…
Maybe at 15, I already knew that I was an alcoholic, mentally ill, occasionally suicidal expatriot. When I first read Hemingway my subconscious thought, “brother/friend/comrade?!” and that’s where my obsession with him began. At 15, though, I finished A Farewell to Arms and I thought that Henry was just shuffling down the street, not caring, not feeling, looking for a cup of coffee, wondering where he’d find a Swiss prostitute to warm his wife’s side of the bed that night. At 30, I know differently, so I interpret differently. What does one do in the immediate aftermath of their life falling apart? You don’t wail. You don’t plead with God. You don’t sink gently into denial like it’s a warm bath. The man just escaped a bloody war—he knew what death looked like, and he knew that it was final. He knew he didn’t deserve to be happy with a woman like Catherine, so of course she was taken away from him. You don’t argue when things make perfect sense. So, what did he do moments after the implosion of his happiness? He stepped outside for a breath. He tried to see what was still in order: sky still above, mountains on the horizon, cobblestones still leading to cafes, himself—still alive and vertical.
It took 15 years, but I understand the ending now.
I’m sure you’ve all wondered why I spend the first thousand words of my posts on my blog about addiction talking about things that have nothing to do with addiction. First of all, everything has to do with addiction. Secondly, its my blog and I do what I want. Third, it’s a warm-up exercise for me. I don’t expect anyone to run a 5k without stretching first, don’t expect me to immediately jump into my issues, failings, flailings, humiliations, and liabilities without babbling for a page or two. A buffer page is one of the many things that I’ve learned that I need. I also need personal space, to take a pause before responding in anger, to stand up for myself when warranted, to apologize when I’m in the wrong, and to demand clear boundaries so that I don’t end up like Hemingway. Or Edgar Allen Poe. Or Sylvia Plath. Or Virginia Woolf. Or Hunter S. Thompson.
Yes, I know that Edgar Allen Poe didn’t commit suicide. He drank himself to death. So. Still a pretty big risk for me, wouldn’t you say?
The good news is that life is getting less risky for me day by day. As much as I hate to learn hard lessons, I am proficient at applying them. This is the part where Hemingway screwed up. Like I said, I know as much about the man as a I do about his writing. He is arguably the most famous fiction writer of the 20th century, but never once did that man write a piece of fiction. Hemingway thought he could smooth over his personal failures by rewriting them as successes and selling them to his publisher. Not so much failures to successes per say, but rather he took what actually happened and wrote down what could have and possibly should have happened. He wrote right instead of acting right.
For instance, in his very last (unfinished) novel, Hemingway took the affair he had with his second wife, while still married to his first wife, and told the story of a steamy, scandalous, ménage à trois that occurred on in indulgent summer vacation in Italy. In reality, his wife, Hadley, was quarantined with their sick son while Ernest was one villa over, fucking Pauline Pfeiffer against F. Scott Fitzgerald’s china cabinet. I see what ya did there, Ernie. Cute. Real cute.
You can love someone fully and still understand and accept their flaws. I love Hemingway. But it is obvious that he handled his issues the wrong way and couldn’t live with the results. Literally. Not only that, he kept repeating the same mistakes over and over, thinking that he could rewrite his wrongs. I selfishly like to think that he did things the wrong way so that I can do them the right way.
Hemingway drank to write about the hard things. I just use a buffer page. Hemingway tried to control his emotional status quo by pushing down the bad feelings and having affairs to boost the good feelings (assuming ejaculation is a good feeling, but I wouldn’t know.) I cherish the good feelings that come organically and tie myself to a tree when the bad feelings blow through. I get hit with a lot of plastic lawn furniture, but I survive, and it makes me appreciate the good feelings more. When someone shows me who they really are, I believe them. I don’t assign them new, more honorable characteristics in the next chapter.
The hardest lesson I’ve learned so far is that there is a paper thin line between the things you should fight for and the things you need to let go. The saddest part is that you will never know if you made the right choice, but you have to have confidence in the choice you make. The easiest way to go about that decision is to go with your gut—its usually right. Never confuse a gut feeling with an impulse, though. They’re both strong feelings, they arise naturally, but they have two completely different origins and motives. Wanting to be near someone—next to someone—touching fingertips, touching lips, drowning yourself in their smell… that’s an impulse. Being next to them, wanting all of those things, but knowing that it isn’t right and that its time for you to leave, no matter how badly you want to stay… that’s a gut feeling. And your gut would be correct.
As I said, everything has to do with addiction. Nothing teaches you about life and literature faster than sobriety. Your pervasive impulse screams, “drink away what you can’t change,” and your gut whispers, “no, enough of that.” You can only listen to one of them. Believe me, one is A LOT easier to listen to than the other.
You can’t walk away from a war, even if it’s a war you never wanted to be in. Life on life’s terms. In A Farewell to Arms Hemingway wrote his fantasy of ditching the war and running off to Switzerland, but there were consequences. There are always consequences. You can do what’s easy in the moment—ditch the battle, ditch the war, but wars end. There is no statute of limitation on being a deserter. You’ll live as a fugitive. You’ll live in fear. Impulse says “run.” Your gut says, “just get through the next battle. Just climb the next mountain. Then you can rest for a bit. Just get through one fight at a time.” That’s the kind of dedication that being sober teaches you. In the process, you learn to fight harder and you learn to rest easier.
Accepting life on life’s terms is never going to be a happy story. That factor is where literature splits from the movies that are based on it. Crowds don’t come running to pay $30 in tickets and another $30 for popcorn to watch a limping man’s wife and child die. When you’ve been as low as an addict has, “happiness” changes its definition. It becomes less about what gives you butterflies and more about what you can continue to tolerate and push through. It sounds awful, but its really ok. Its better than drinking for butterflies and forcing everyone around you to tolerate things that they don’t want to. Its also nice to wake up everyday ready to fight, than it is to wake up everyday wondering what the Hell you are fighting for. There is also a great comfort in surviving the things that should have killed you, and having the guts to walk down the street thinking, “the sky is still up, the mountains are still across, I’m still standing, and it’s all going to be ok in the end.”
