Feb. 5 - Sonder in Posso's Prompts

Sonder (n, neologism:) The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.

When I stand there, tending bar at 9pm on a Thursday night, I can’t help but wonder sometimes what truly brings people out to a dinky little bar on the outskirts of an area filled with drinking holes. The struggles I’ve been having in my own personal life, in terms of finding escapes from reality turning into whiskey fueled benders, are even more abundant when you look at the crowd that gathers to wash away their dealings in strangers and booze. Look, I understand my job is to get these people all drugged up on their dime, which they could easily do cheaper in the comfort and confines of their own living space, but at what extent does altering your mood/feelings/emotions in front of someone that knows absolutely nothing about you help one’s life? Is it really an escape for you? At what cost? There are nights I work where there is one person in that bar, alone, and they are looking for someone to just listen. Usually, I can do that easily (especially if you’re making it worth it to me in monetary form) but there are just nights, times, people sometimes that make the life I choose to live agonizingly painful.

My mothers voice always rings in my head with this saying, “You don’t know what some people are going through, sometimes you have to give them a chance.” This proves true in the profession I’ve chosen to perform in. As someone who on many an occasion has made the worst possible choice full of Tullamore or Jameson, I usually cut a lot of people slack on their drunken shenanigans. The concept of a bar for some people is a reason to get away from family, friends, or life. I’ve heard it all from ‘I told my wife I needed to get gas and milk so I could sneak away for a few beers’ to ‘No bar on the north side of town wants me there anymore because I get angry when I drink’ and I still usually serve them (within reason unless I’m already pissy.) Life sucks. Life isn’t fair. People are garbage. I hate working life away supporting a family I regret. And the thing is, they don’t even have to say that out loud. You can read it in their faces with every sip, hear it when they order that shot they know they don’t need. As the years have gone by and experiences have piled up, I can’t say I understand every position anyone is ever in, but I do get that feeling when I understand what people are going through in terms of struggling to find that expression, explanation to tell people why they just want to sit at a bar and stare into their half empty Bud Light, or tell the same story for the fourth time to a new customer just sitting down. I know that when I was in my first serious relationship post college, after she told me to get my shit together and that I could do better things with my life and that she didn’t deserve to wait around for me, the very first thing I did was walk to a now extinct Madhatters, find my favorite cute bartender and have a beer and just sit there and stare into oblivion. I didn’t need to vent, I didn’t want to listen to other sobs and cries of pity, I wanted to be surrounded by other people living their lives and be completely impervious to their problems. As time has moved on, I see that fat, broken hearted young adult in almost any customer I serve now.

It isn’t easy sometimes for me to be the underpaid, under qualified, overworked therapist that I didn’t ask to be when I signed up to open beers and pour shots. You tell yourself, well at least I did, that you won’t be that guy that everyone can’t stand because he’s there; ranting about his ex hating him and how she took everything (even the couch!), so he’ll just drink until he’s more miserable and will bring the mood in the whole room down to a collective shitpile. Don’t get me wrong, believe it or not even from the whole rant here, I love working in a bar. Cash is great, yes? I can’t even begin to tell you how many customers have turned into amazing friends and people I’ve adored. It’s being able to distinguish that feeling that a strangers life is happening and you know nothing about their path and compare it to someone that you end up befriending or even dating and becoming a relevant object in their journey that makes my job one to enjoy as much as complain about.