Drunk

It is only noon and I know I have drunk too much already but it is summer in Madrid and what else is there to do? I spy an abandoned sofa in the middle of the plaza. I use the strength left in my body to push it to the edge of the square. The Españoles don’t like a drunk being the centre of attention but they don’t mind so much a quiet drunk  in the corner.

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it is the ability to deal with them.
~ Steve Maraboli

You see I’m not a bad alcoholic.   Some days I get work and I don’t touch the vodka till sunset but I’ll admit those days are now few and far between and in actual fact  they are verging towards non-existent. ‘Man should work’ they say and you can’t really do a proper day’s work with alcohol, but as I lie here sitting in the sun I realise I am at my happiest when I am intoxicated. Not to the extent where I make a fool of myself, like falling down and starting fights; just high enough to feel warm, alive and happy.

My mother doesn’t give up on me, she calls me every Sunday urging me to go to church with her.  And sometimes I go, just to see her smile. Elena  gave up on me a year ago. I didn’t expect her to stick around, I was lucky she married me in the first place.

“You should stop drinking,” everyone says to me and perhaps one day I will. But for now I am happy, lying on this sofa in the heat of the midday sun, drunk!

About the photo: I took this photo in Madrid on a warm February afternoon, with this man obviously making most of the unexpected sunshine.