The best part of the bachelor party wasn’t the fact that it was Pat’s first time being drunk¹. Or the fact that he was break dancing next to street musicians downtown (the video of which shall not be shown).

It was the fact that he was completely off his guard, too drunk to remember what happened the next day, but he was the same old Pat: fun, friendly, and considerate².

He also said two affecting things, lucid in his drunken state.

The first, in slurred speech, he advised us bachelors, “Find the right one. Just make sure you find the right one. She might not be the perfect match, but she is the right one. Just remember that. If you look for your perfect match all your life, you might not find it. Just find the right one.”

The second was when he was going around the room, and he came to me: “Jeff, you too. You’re going to live a happy life. Sometimes it’s rough on the edges, but you know what’s good for you. You know what’s good for you, you know people will take care of you. Don’t worry, man. You’re going to live a happy life.”

“Life is rough on the edges”, he said. Not that my life is particularly bad, I just don’t handle things very well, and this is often when I turn to him. It’s nice to hear from someone — whose opinion which I respect greatly — that things are going to be alright for me, that people will take care of me when things get bad.

Because I knew in my heart that when Pat said “people”, that included himself.

1. Not that Pat has anything against drinking, as he sometimes has a beer with dinner, he simply doesn’t see the point to drinking to get drunk [↑]
2. About throwing up on Mike’s “natural-oak, natural-stain laminate floor”, or “wasting money” I spent for his halibut dinner [↑]

Through all this, I’ve come to realize that I cut people out of my life as a defense mechanism.

When someone hurts me, I distance myself from them so they mean nothing to me.

Often it’s an easy choice — just one wrong word or action — but not all the time. Cutting off my mom was by no means a rash decision; it took years of consideration and plenty of chances before she finally went too far.

What surprises me the most is that even though I now know that I have this defense mechanism, I don’t see a problem with it.

I’ve been hurt by enough people, and I don’t want to be hurt any more.

…won me a dollar at the races.

My boss caught me crying in my office. He must have heard me hyperventilating, because my back was turned.

I have to be strong now. For my friends. This day isn’t about me, it’s about them.

And that’ll be enough to get me through.