So I am now back from my first alcohol free convention weekend. My first convention was way back in 1993, an open can of cider magically appeared in my hand as soon as I passed through the gate at Southport Pontins, and that pretty much set the scene for every year since. After I had to get rid of the car and started travelling by train I sometimes had a can or two on the way.
I have both enjoyed and not enjoyed my first sober convention, which seems a weird thing to say. I enjoyed being around friends whom I really don't get to see enough as they all live much too far away, I enjoyed waking up feeling (and smelling) fresh instead of waking up feeling (and smelling) like an old bar towel and I am enjoying coming home still with money in my purse.
I do feel like I have missed out though, everyone seemed to be having more fun and doing more things than our little group. Things have niggled at me, little things that have probably been happening for years but that I have never noticed in my usual fuzzy state. There have been times when I just wanted to get up and walk away but restrained myself. I had been practising for weeks to take part in a FlashMob on the Friday night, but the look on the face of one of my companions when I explained what was going on made me glad that I had been trapped in my seat by someone else's chair.
I do feel I need to breakaway and assimilate myself into another group but I don't want my current little band of conventioneers to think that I am abandoning them as they have been very good to me over the years, looking after me when I first started going by myself. At least I have 18 months to think about what to do as the next convention is not until September 2014.
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