Intro: Sorrow – Box Car Racer

My girlfriend of over two years broke up with me on day one of our two week trip to Alaska. She got on a plane and left, and I spent the next 5 days falling down in Anchorage. These are the things I thought about, and a few things I did, between poising my body and crying like a man.

I. Fall Back Down – Rancid

There is a type of hug that is always followed by something you don’t want to hear. It is a long and very tight hug, one in which you hold each other so close that you can’t see the other person’s face. It is the physical action that reflects the mental challenge being attempted and failed. The vain struggle to hold onto to something that very clearly is slipping or has slipped away in the hope against hope that if you just squeeze hard enough, if you just hold on long enough, you can push out the void that has replaced that something. It usually starts out one sided, but eventually the other party senses what is happening and lends their strength, now hoping that together you are strong enough to mend what is broken, and to hold onto what is lost. It is never enough.

II. Trusty Chords – Hot Water Music

I wander down to the hotel bar because that is what I do. I have no intention of telling anyone any of the things that have happened to me that day. I’m in town visiting family and that is my business. No one wants to hear my sob story, especially not a complete stranger at a hotel bar. The bartender comes over, tells me his name is Anthony and that it is his first day and asks what he can do for me. I tell him my girlfriend of over two years broke up with me on day one of our two week trip to Alaska. I ask him for an Alaskan Amber and a shot of Jack. With fear in his eyes and a quivering voice he asks if I would like to make it a double. You’ll make a fine bartender Anthony.

III. Beer – Reel Big Fish

There is a sociological/psychological theory that one of the reasons for the friction that develops between teenagers and parents is that it eases the pain of the coming separation when a child moves out of the house for the first time (though increasingly not last time). The fighting helps numb the loss by adding a level of relief to the proceedings. I have ended many relationships, I have been the dumped and dumper. This is the first time I felt myself the victim. Fights are nice, fights help you clear the air and expend a lot of emotion in a healthy, or at least healthier than my chosen alternative, way. There was no fight when my relationship ended, just the realization that nothing I could say or do can make another person love me. I really wish there had been a fight.

IV. How Does it Feel – Sugarcult

I have a hangover and an entire day to kill by myself. All I want to do is sleep but I endeavor to not squander this opportunity to explore one of the most remote cities in America. I make my way outside, across the street and into a place called the Brewhouse for lunch. I have mediocre pizza and three decent beers and am on my way back to hotel to sleep and cry like a man.

V. Never Let You Go – Third Eye Blind

I decide to attempt to go out again. Also Alaska is three hours behind Oklahoma so what feels like 6PM is only 3PM and dear god this day will never end will it? I go to the Anchorage museum because exploring a museum alone won’t be depressing and she probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it and see being alone has benefits. They tell me it’s best to start at the top and then work my way down, and I eschew the elevator because I’ve have almost nothing to eat and a dangerous amount to drink the last two days so what I need is definitely exercise. This is a horrible mistake and when I get the fourth floor I collapse on a bench and am breathing so hard a stranger asks if I am okay. No ma’am not in the slightest.

VI. Perfect Situation – Weezer

There were no benefits to starting on the top floor but at least I am now drenched in alcohol smelling sweat for the pleasure of the other patrons. This museum is about Alaska and Captain Cook and Native Alaskans and other things that would normally interest me but I am not in the mood to learn. Then I find out the other half of the museum is about science and has lots of cool things to play with and that was her favorite kind of museum and she would have loved it. Being alone has no benefits.

VII. Indestructible – Rancid

What do you do when another person; a person you still love very deeply, a person you love completely; what do you do when that person tells you they don’t love you anymore? That the feeling is gone. That the emotion, the attraction, that it is all gone. I handled it with as much grace and dignity and compassion as I could muster, which is to say very little. I attempted to be understanding. “It’s not fair to you to have to lie and be unhappy.” Then I would alternate and beg for her to keep trying. Then I would almost cry. Then I would ask what went wrong. Then I would ask what I could I do. Then I would actually cry. Then I would repeat the whole process. I never raised my voice, never yelled, tried to avoid blaming her. I am proud of this. I regret this.

VII. Down – Blink 182

It hits exactly 5:00PM and fuck it I am going to drink. I go to Darwin’s theory, a local dive bar with a reputation for being an alright place to be. It is definitely a dive bar, which is good. They have no place to sit at the bar and it is nearly impossibly to order a drink, which is bad. There also is no smoking, which is good but also in my current state I want to bum a cigarette and smoke it and like 10 more because I don’t do drugs and the alcohol isn’t working fast enough. I may or may not get my wish.

My next stop is the gaslight, a really awesome bar with a bad reputation that I do not understand. There is a mechanical bull and pool table and free darts and a ping pong table and dancing pole and approximately 10 people. Maybe I am early? A man sits down beside me and is friendly. He does not realize his error until it is too late, and now knows that my girlfriend of over two years broke up with me on day one of our two week trip to Alaska. But this man is a hero, and he says he will drink with me tonight, and also give me cigarettes. We do shots and drink beers and visit other bars and I have an approximation of fun. But I still miss her, so I occasionally cry like a man.

IX. Poison June – Maxeen

It is an odd sensation to be suddenly single at 28. It is also likely odd to be suddenly single at any age but I am 28 so that is the age that is odd for me. I don’t want to be single, I have done that and I did it well thank you. There were many women and bars and drinks and I was very good at being single. But it is not what I want. I was looking forward to the other stuff. The game nights and movie nights and cooking and sitting on the couch next each other without talking because it is no longer necessary to fill that emptiness with noise. Perhaps the lesson is I am not good at that stuff. Perhaps the magic man in the sky’s plan was for me to realize that I need to stick to what I know. I do not believe this, but just because you do not believe something does not mean it isn’t true.

X. The Longest Time – Billy Joel

My hero has to return home for the night, so he hands me off to a new hero. This new hero wants to get me laid. I explain to him that I do not want to sleep with anyone other than her ever. He ignores my wishes and buys a shot for me and an extremely drunk woman next to me that I think he knows. I tell the bartender that I don’t think this lady should be drinking anymore and he agrees. She is accompanied to a car by friends and my new hero does not understand how I let her get away.

My new hero has a new plan to get me laid. My name is McCutchin from Cork, Ireland and I am traveling the world. This he assures me will make me irresistible to the women he still does not understand I do not want. He does not specify whether McCutchin is my first or last name but he keeps introducing me as Ronny so I guess it is my last name. He sits us at a table with an older gentleman who is far more fascinated by my new found Irish roots than any woman has been so far. He asks me to recommend a pub for his next trip to Cork, I tell him O’hanley’s, which is almost certainly not a real place a probably not even a real name. He thanks me and gives me two sets of earrings that he apparently makes and sells. I depart for the night.

XI. I Remember a Rooftop – Alkaline Trio

Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes there is only pain and emptiness and a crushing desire to be anywhere in the world having any other conversation from any other time. But you can’t. You have to sit there in that room and have that conversation at that moment and it is the only thing that you can do. You are helpless to change the present. We are always helpless to change the present.

XII. Drinking for 11 – Mad Caddies

It is the next day and I wake up feeling much worse than I have maybe ever felt. I became so pained from the break up that I threw up on the bed the previous night and then covered it with a pillow. That is definitely why I threw up and not because I drink my weight in alcohol and smoked multiple packs of cigarettes. I have cash, which I did not have when the night started. I cannot find an ATM receipt so I do not know how much I withdrew and therefore how much I spent. I also have no proof that this came from an ATM. Perhaps I earned it. I turn my attention to the fact that it is now 12:30PM and check out is 12:00PM and there is a schedule conflict there. I put the pillow back over the puke, leave $50 for the poor housekeeper and exit the room. It is 1:00PM and my sister will not arrive for 6-7 hours. This day may be long.

XIII. The Ghosts of Me and You – Less than Jake

While aimlessly walking the streets of Anchorage I spot a Mexican restaurant and decide that is what my body needs. I order a quesadilla and a beer and discover that neither of those things are what my body needed. I call my friend Chris and tell him that my girlfriend of over two years broke up with me on day one of our two week trip to Alaska. I vent and yell and cry like a man, he listens like a champ. I ask a pair of homeless guys in a park where they got their beer. We decide that I should take one last lesson from her and go to Europe. The two homeless guys get kicked out of the park for drinking. I ask him what makes someone suddenly stop loving another person. I ask him what to do when someone tells you they don’t love you anymore. He doesn’t know. Sometimes there are no answers.

XIV. All that I’ve Got – The Used

A lot of people with tell you two things. Neither are helpful and both will make you more angry and people will say them anyways. First is that “it will get better.” this is possibly true but also entirely pointless and not at all helpful. Of course things will get better. They will also get worse. I will have some good days and some bad days over the course of my entire life. None of that helps me now. Stop saying dumb things. Or if you insist on saying dumb things, at least say original dumb things.

The other thing people say is the worst thing people say. Because it implies that your pain is necessary. It implies that you had to go through this because a magic man in the sky has a shitty road map of your life that requires that you go through a certain amount of pain in order to satisfy his wishes. People believe this and I think it must be very depressing. To believe that you have no effect on the course of your life. To believe that no matter what you do, the events of your life have been predetermined. It doesn’t matter if I loved her more than anything else or if I treated her like shit and never cared about her. We were gonna break up on Sept 2^nd in Alaska because that was the plan. I do not believe this. I believe that every decision I made changed the course of the future and that thus in ways I will never understand I am responsible for ending up in that room having that conversation in that moment. “Everything happens for a reason” they say to you, over and over until you become convinced that it must be branded onto your forehead. We are the reason things happen. What I did mattered. This is also depressing.

XV. You Won’t Make a Fool Out of Me – Flogging Molly

Two homeless men offered me half of beer and I said yes and drink it. I put this by itself because this will be everyone’s favorite part of my journey. But there are caveats. For starters they are fairly well put together for homeless men, all teeth present and shirts on. Second I suspect they are more vagabonds than homeless, though I cannot confirm this. Third they are the same two homeless men who were kicked out of the park for drinking earlier, so we have a prior relationship.

Nevertheless I was offered half a beer and I said yes. I wanted a story. I wanted to interact with a human. I wanted to do something dumb. I wanted to say fuck it, look where being careful my whole life has got me? But most of all I wanted a beer, and here was one for free.

XVI. Motorcycle Drive By – Third Eye Blind

I was not prepared for this break up. I had sensed something was wrong for two weeks. But when I asked if everything was okay I was expecting to have a conversation about stress and figuring out the next step in our lives now that she was back from Europe. And in many ways we did. We talked about the stress of pretending to be in love and talked about figuring out what to do now that she was back from Europe and no longer in love with me. But I was not prepared to be so suddenly alone. To have everything that I thought was in store for the foreseeable future shaken up and smashed on the ground in front of me. I have no job, no home, no relationship. My three best friends live in three different states. I have nothing tying me anywhere. Some people would find this liberating. It is, but also and currently more so it is terrifying.

XVII. Indestructible – Rancid

When my sister finally arrives I am at my 5^th bar of the afternoon. I get in the car and it is awkward at first. My brother in law is there, they both know what happened and have correctly guessed my mental state is not solid and my level of drunkenness is at an equally unstable juncture. I pierce through the awkwardness like a hawk souring through the sky to attack a mouse. Only I do it by crying and balling and sobbing like a man. We agree to go eat, and I calm down. Family is good. Family is what I need. Well, she is what I need. But family will work, family will do nicely.

XVIII. The Place Where I Feel Most Like Me – Meg and Dia

I think that I will travel with my new found freedom. See places in the world. Once, when she was in place of uncertainty, she traveled the world. She found something, something that changed her enough to want to change us. Maybe I can found something out there too. My sister has a sign above her sink that says “all because two people fell in love.” I will get a sticker for my backpack that says “all because one person fell out of love.”

XIX. More than a Memory – Garth Brooks (note this song was actually played at the concert)

We go to a country music concert at the Alaska state fair which is not nearly as large or as interesting as your state fair. The concert has two entrances, one for under 21 and one for over. The under 21 side is called the dry entrance, our side is called the wet entrance. I keep chuckling at wet entrance. I am not an adult. But it is good to laugh. The laughing will end soon, a country music concert is no place for a broken heart.

XX. There is – Box Car Racer

I am not bitter or angry with her. I am upset. I am in pain beyond belief. Sometimes I want to call her just to let her know how much pain I am in. But I don’t, because she did the right thing. If you don’t love someone, if you don’t have feelings for them, you break up with them. I would have done the same thing. I hope she finds someone that makes her happy. I also hope I have no knowledge of this when it happens because the thought of her with someone else is so painful I get sick thinking about it and maybe this is my possessive male ugly side but that is how I feel. I also secretly hope she changes her mind about us. But you’re not supposed to say that, because it means you’re not moving on, as if there is one specific way to move on and you can just erase all the love and emotion by accepting the relationship is over. Or maybe I’m just knew to this. I had never been in love before. At least not like this.

XXI. This is Getting Over You – Alkaline Trio

We do other things while in Anchorage before I return with my sister and brother in law to Fairbanks. We will eat food and shop at malls and drink at someplace called Bernie’s Bungalow where they have Hookah that doesn’t work. Then we will go back to Fairbanks. And throughout that time I will have fun sometimes, and sometimes I will think about what I lost and how much I loved her and I will cry like a man. Because there is no cure for a broken heart, you just wait for enough time to pass to dull the pain. But I have my family. And my friends. And a whole world to see. I’ll be fine. It will get better.

XXII. Good Riddance – Green Day

Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes you just have to crawl inside yourself and find your darkest part and sit there and stare at it and beg it to stare back. Sometimes you have to give a bartender a hell of a first day. Sometimes you have to let a stranger lead you on journey that ends with you having to giving bar recommends in your home city that is somehow in a country you’ve never visited. Sometimes you have to drink a beer given to you by a homeless man because where has being safe gotten you so far? Sometimes you have to fall down in Alaska. That’s the easy part. Getting up comes next, and that is the hard part.