Sorry, Paris

I woke late yesterday, my skull feeling much like someone had been dancing a violent jig upon it for the better part of the night.  As is tradition after an evening with the bottle, my mouth was feeling dry as a rat's arse and about as tasty as one too.  Hauling myself out of bed, I staggered downstairs to retrieve a glass of water, and switched on the radio for company.

You can always tell something serious has happened when the news is on at the wrong time.  It was about twenty past the hour, but there it was, something I last recall from when I woke up similarly hungover on the afternoon of 11th September, 2001.  For the next ten minutes I stood still, glass in hand, listening to new reports coming in on the Paris attacks, the gunfire and the explosions, the 129 dead.  And what I was struck by was an overwhelming sense of guilt, and disgust at myself.

Here I am bemoaning my self-induced nausea that is almost entirely due to a lack of self-control and a cowardly inability to face an evening alone without getting absolutely wankered.  I intentionally drank far too much to avoid the reality of an inexplicable unhappiness that follows me around as closely as my own shadow, for reasons that I fail to understand.  My life is fine, and I should be fine too, and I fear it can only be due to weakness and to selfishness that I am not.  And as I drink myself to oblivion because of problems that live entirely within my own head, 129 people have been killed and hundreds injured and I don't have a clue.

I am sorry for my selfishness, and my cowardice.  I am sorry that even now I focus more on my own guilt than the people who have been affected.  I am sorry for those who have suffered.  I am sorry that I am sorry for myself when I don't deserve it, and that I don't know what to do about it.

Sorry, Paris.