there's more to life than this

You know how sometimes you're having a hard time with some *thing* you're pursuing? Like, you want to learn how to carve wood or something, so you try, and it's hard but you keep at it? And then you have some moment of reassurance, some progress is made or some breakthrough occurs and you're like, "yeah! this is cool!". Well, lately I've been feeling that way about drumming. Granted, I've only been practicing rudiments but little steps of progress (working my way up the metronome) have been making me feel happy lately.

Some of my friends are seemingly not so happy lately, however. Take for example, a friend of mine who usually calls me when he is drunk. He called me this evening and is in some sort of belligerent stupor -- meanwhile I can hear his girlfriend in the background, whom he tells me is a "fucccken bisssshhh". I usually play along, listening to his ramblings that he will never remember and will repeat to me the next time he calls. I imagine them in some sort of "Days of Wine and Roses" or "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" kind of scene and I am compelled to hang on the line, both worried for them and morbidly fascinated, but more former than latter. Sigh.

Not to sound trite, but in these troubled times I often wish that I could do more for others than I do -- I am by nature a caretaker (and yes, sometimes to my own detriment) and genuinely, sincerely, earnestly wish that my friends and loved ones were more happy, more often. Not happy because they've found some external or ultimately dysfunctional way to soothe their hurts, but comfortable in their own skin and just embracing themselves, others, and their lives.