Chapter One: The Note on the Fridge

Every memoir starts with a tragedy. Some start with war, some with famine, some with fathers who were too drunk to remember their children’s birthdays. Mine started with a Post-it note stuck on the fridge.

“I’m leaving.”

That’s all it said. Two words. My wife, partner of twenty years, the woman who knew how I liked my eggs and how I hated her mother, erased half a lifetime with one lazy pen stroke.

I stared at it for what must have been an hour, though it could’ve been three minutes. Time does strange things when your marriage detonates in front of your eyes. Then I did what any self-respecting man would do: I cracked open a beer and considered whether the note was a joke. But she wasn’t the joking type. In fact, in twenty years, the only time she laughed was when the dog farted during Easter brunch.

So no, she was gone.


What a Man is Supposed to Feel

You’re supposed to feel grief, I think. That’s what they say in those glossy lifestyle magazines she used to buy. Grief, loss, mourning. All that Greek tragedy stuff.

Instead, I felt… confused. And then something else. Something that crept up on me slowly, like a cat. The word whispered in my brain, louder and louder until it was practically screaming:

Freedom.

It was like being released from prison, except the prison had decent cooking.


The Bucket List of the Newly Liberated

Suddenly, a whole universe opened up. The things I’d never done because she said no:

  • Climb a mountain. She said I’d die. She was probably right, but dying on a mountain sounds heroic. Dying in IKEA while arguing over curtain rods? That’s just embarrassing.
  • Run a marathon. She said my knees weren’t built for it. Maybe not, but my legs still work, and now they don’t have to walk behind her in a mall for six hours.
  • Fine wines and expensive cigarettes. She said they’d kill me. Joke’s on her—life kills you, anyway. At least I’ll taste like a Bordeaux vintage when I go.
  • Women. Oh, the women. For two decades I was faithful, a saint among sinners. I turned down temptations. I ignored possibilities. Now? Now I could live like a pirate, chasing skirts in every port, fucking everything that has a skirt and breathes, even if most of them were smart enough to avoid a middle-aged man with back pain.

Of Course, Reality Bites

But before all that, before the grand adventures, before I could live like Bukowski with a gym membership, there was reality. Reality said: you’re tired. You’re forty-five. You had two beers at lunch. You need a nap.

So I lay down on the couch, the note still stuck to the fridge, the beer sweating in my hand, and I whispered to myself, “This is it. The beginning.”

And then I fell asleep, snoring like the free man I had just become.


Epilogue of a Beginning

When I woke up, nothing had changed. The note was still there. The fridge was still buzzing like an old man clearing his throat. But I knew—deep down—that my life had.

From that day on, I was no longer a husband, no longer a domesticated beast, no longer the man who asked permission before buying another pack of cigarettes. I was reborn.

Reborn as what? That part I didn’t know yet. Dirty old man, poet, mountain climber, lover of women, chain-smoker of fine cigars?

Time would tell. But at least time was mine now.


This is the epilogue from my upcoming book How I Became a Dirty Old Man (like Bukowski).

If you’re hungry for more, sign up for the mailing list and I’ll throw a fresh chapter or two into your inbox every week—gratis, no strings attached. Or you can sit on your hands, wait until Christmas, and pay through the nose for it at some overpriced bookstore. Your call, sweetheart.

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