This time of year always sits a little heavier on me.
No matter what else is going on, when this day comes around, I end up in the same place. I pour a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue, put on some music, let the room get quiet, and sit with my best friend.
Rob has been gone since 2019, and every year since, I’ve done this same small ritual. I set out the little mini bottle of Blue Label I bought the year he died and place it beside my glass. I never open it. I just sit there and talk to it like I’m talking to him, the same way we used to talk over whiskey and whatever life had thrown at us that week.
Maybe that sounds strange to some people. I don’t know. I just know grief has a way of making its own rituals, and this one became mine.
That little bottle means more to me now than what’s in it. It isn’t just whiskey anymore. It’s memory. It’s ache. It’s love with nowhere left to go except into a quiet room, an empty chair, and the kind of silence that only shows up when somebody who mattered is no longer here to break it. Every year I sit with it, and every year it reminds me of the same thing: some moments feel ordinary while you’re living them, and then one day you realize they were never ordinary at all.
Those were the moments. A drink between friends. Music in the background. Stories you thought you’d get to tell again. A laugh you never knew you were hearing for the last time.
That’s the part life doesn’t warn you about.
We spend so much of it saving things for later. The good bottle. The nice clothes. The special plans. The words we mean to say when the time feels better, calmer, more right. We act like life is going to send us an invitation. Like one day everything will line up, the light will hit just right, and we’ll suddenly know this is the moment we were supposed to stop waiting and start living.
But that day rarely shows up the way we think it will.
Most of the time, it slips right past us dressed up like an ordinary Tuesday.
I think grief teaches that lesson harder than anything else ever could. It teaches you that tomorrow is not a promise. Someday is not guaranteed. Later is a word we lean on because it feels safer than now. Safer than being present. Safer than admitting that the life we keep postponing is already happening while we’re busy putting it off.
The future of yesterday is today. The day you kept saying would come eventually is here, and it does not usually arrive polished or perfect. It is not the version where everything finally settles down enough for you to enjoy your own life without guilt or hesitation. It is just this one—this flawed day, this beautiful day, this ordinary, breathing, fragile day that so many of us keep treating like it has another copy waiting in the drawer.
And maybe that’s why this ritual means what it means to me. Yes, it’s about Rob. It’ll always be about Rob. But it’s also about the truth that losing him carved into me. He wasn’t just my friend. He was one of the people who pulled me through some of the worst parts of my life. I would give damn near anything for one more drink with my friend. One more story. One more laugh. One more night neither of us knew would matter this much one day. But life doesn’t give those back. It just leaves you holding the weight of them after they’re gone.
That changes a person. It changed me.
It makes you look at all the things people keep saving and start asking why. Why are we waiting to wear the dress? Why are we waiting to pour the good whiskey? Why are we saving the suit, the dishes, the candle, the words, the effort, the softness, the affection? What exactly are we waiting for? What day are we so sure is coming that today is not enough?
Because one day somebody is gone. Or you are. And all the things you kept meaning to do are still sitting there untouched.
That’s the gut punch in all of this. Not just that we lose people. Not just that time moves fast. It’s that we so often do not understand the value of a moment until it has already crossed over into memory. We don’t realize that some of the holiest parts of our lives won’t look holy at all while they’re happening. They’ll look simple. Familiar. Easy to repeat.
So yeah, I believe in pouring the drink, wearing the thing, and saying the words while the people you love can still hear them. Not because every day has to be turned into some grand event, but because life does not need to be extraordinary to be worthy of your full heart.
That’s what this day reminds me of every year: not just to miss my friend or honor his memory, but to stop living like meaning only shows up on special occasions.
Sometimes meaning is nothing more than sitting at a table with someone you love, with a song playing low in the background and laughter somewhere in the room. Sometimes it is a moment so regular you barely notice it while it’s happening, and then later realize you would give anything to step back into it for even five more minutes.
The future of yesterday is today. So pour it, wear it, say it, make the call, take the picture, and sit with the people who matter while they can still answer back. Stop waiting for life to announce itself as special before you let yourself fully live it. Because one day all of this will be memory, and when that day comes, I hope the people I love can say I was here for it—not halfway, not later, not when things finally settled down, but now, while it was still mine to hold.
Until next time,
Stay safe. Make good choices. And as always, stay kinky My friends.
~Dray Orion