Note: this post belongs is free because I’m just so sweet. But like every post that belongs to the journal, it is personal and I am plotting with myself to paywall them in the future (like the next journal and hunter). Here’s a discount for you, my dear dear reader <3
Escapism (noun): a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc. about more exciting but impossible activities.1
I’m walking the dangerous line of daydreaming. Always a step away from a soured dream, falling into a bitter reality. I was in a bad place, life a bit too dull and bland, alcohol diluted to manage the identical days coming at me. But now it’s better. The bitterness, the sourness of it, is back to being interesting. Like a nice amaretto sour, a perfectly poured kriek, a badly kept secret.
I’m like that, oscillating between highs and lows- too high, too low. When I don’t rollercoast, when I stagnate, I must escape.2 A world of fantasy and dangerous what ifs. What if I left everything and start again, then again and again. What if I disappeared from my life. What if I quit it all to avoid today and tomorrow… What if I drank my boredom away?
The rumour is true, I love drinking. I love drinking responsibly, a classy glass of Syrah while I cook or read, a couple of abbey beers on a sunny terrace with friends, one inventive and tasty cocktail while writing in my favourite bar. I love drinking to escape, drinking dangerously and obliterating any sense of my reality. Sometimes I loose touch with reality for the night, I wake up craving more. I want to go for brunch, I want a splash of bailey’s in my coffee. It never last because, overall, I love being in control of my escapist state.
One escapade to Copenhagen in April reminded me how much I appreciate a good beer, a perfectly balanced sour and its acid fruitiness. We ran away from our dull dull dull life, our bland neighbourhood and its facsimile houses lined up and down bland bland bland streets, I flew my burnout induced by my boring boring job. There was no need to escape our reality once there, at the bar we drank slowly. Enjoying a flying couch raspberry at ørsted øldbar, an åben stolen citrus and a game of UNO at himmeriget and a moscow mule with a side of peanuts at tjili pop. We discovered the town walking from bar to bar, admiring the architecture in between.
Walking the thin line of reality falling into a daydream. Collecting pins of what could be, imagining how it could all fall into place, gathering pieces of an inaccessible ideal on a board, and souring at the impossibility of that life. The bittersweet taste of escapism.
It didn’t take long to get dragged down by boredom again. Falling harder, symptoms showing again. I can feel my heart racing, palpitating. I’m breathless lying in bed. I have a rash, an irrational fear, a long-waited appointment at the cardiologist. Overthinking, wide awake at night, waking up in a startle.
Back again and again in the same inescapable cycle, despite my attempts.
I went to Brussels for three weeks, I came back on Sunday with a skinned knee and resolutions. I drank my weight equivalent in white wine and beers with friends, I took notes of what was missing in my routine. I read and ran, a bit. I found an hybrid version of me. One that’s not quite Belgian, not quite British, not yet adult, not still student frolicking from terrace to terrace beer in hand. Initially planned as a test to myself and what was that acrid taste at the back of my mouth. Three weeks to escape, find the sweet spot and a way to bring it back with me. Three weeks to get a better perspective, a perspective from a nostalgic daydream - from a past life I hold on to. I needed to know, what turns me sour and bitter and how do I keep it interesting instead. You know, sour but good, sour but sweet?
Acidulous (adj.): sour or sharp in taste.
There is something about sourness, when it’s good it’s all about its notes of sweetness, like a lemon tart or rhubarb. But when it turns bad, all that is left is the bitter and acrid taste that lands at the back of the mouth and fills it all. It is inescapable. There’s this sweet I loved as a kid, a napoleon. It’s a hard sphere filled with a sour lemon powder that makes you wince as soon as it explodes. It’s sweet and it’s sour and it makes you regret it a little bit, a bit like an escapist daydream.
All definitions are from the Cambridge dictionary.
Rollercoast (verb): being on a rollercoaster, indeed. I do love making up my own words.