Newly Divorced and that Infamous Barstool

I can always tell at the bar by how stiffly they sit, the ones who are very uncomfortable with, well, sitting alone at a bar. Slowly, piece - by - piece, they begin to crumble, slump into their drink of choice, often attempting to flush their awkwardness away in one gulp. I am sitting on the side - of - my - bar - stool, willing to let most of them in, to conversation. Curling my legs around the arm legs of my bar - stool, directly talking to the olives in my drink, " I can do this." I take in a deep breath, with it, the spice of the calamari goes deeply further down, and then deeper still, until the nuances of it warms my internal cavity, dropping the cold of the air conditioning down to the floor. There's my wallet, my cell phone, and my car keys, sitting placidly on the bar, nothing holds much connotation about my life to other bar suitors. One can surmise from what I display, that, I have some cash, drive a car, and have a phone number, nothing that would make vodka needing to fill a missing limb, or a void hole. My olives sway like weeping willows on the toothpick; I wipe the condensation from my glass, and politely ask for a second napkin. The uncomfortable ones sit more erect now, with their napkins crumbled tight between their fingertips. Their drinks do not hold four olives, the olive branch that gives to mine, the much - needed salt of life. The branch I fiddle with, and stir about the glass. The others are timid, awkward, caving into themselves the moment eye contact is made, and the sound of the music pauses long enough to let in the conversations around them. Laminating the fabric of emotion in thick sheets of plastic is the lack of confidence presented when at a bar, and sitting alone. This is the night I have set aside, to get past all of that. To allow my confidence to rise with the air temperature, to be newly divorced and single. This is the night I have set aside to rise above, to let confidence finally breach holes in the awkwardness of being alone, newly divorced, and immensely straighforwardly once again, single...as all things shall pass, this night did also, and I moved on.