The Weight of Stillness

Boredom is heavier than people admit. It is not just a lazy Sunday with nothing planned. It is the drag of hours that will not move. It is the sound of the clock that feels louder than your own heartbeat. It is the restless shuffle from room to room, picking up your phone, putting it down, checking the fridge even though you are not hungry.
Those of us who drink know this weight in our bones. It sneaks in when you least expect it. The work is done, the chores are finished, the people you thought might call have not. You tell yourself to relax, but instead you pace. You open apps, you close them. You look out the window as if the street itself might offer you something new. The ache is not that there is nothing to do. It is that nothing feels worth doing.
Sometimes boredom is waiting for a text that does not come. You refresh, you check again, you start to wonder if you said the wrong thing. The silence between notifications grows unbearable. That is when the drink feels like a companion. The pour says you are not just waiting in the dark. The sip says you are not powerless in the face of time stretching too far.
Sometimes boredom is a Sunday that yawns too wide. You scroll, you nap, you stand in the kitchen trying to think of what to cook. The day feels endless. The bottle becomes a plan, something that shapes the hours when nothing else does. You tell yourself, I'll pour a little now, and later will feel lighter. You are not trying to escape. You are trying to survive the stretch of too much time with too little meaning.
Sometimes boredom is sitting in a bar you did not even want to go to. You hoped the room would distract you, but the music is flat and the conversations around you feel shallow. Being there is not exciting, but it feels less lonely than staying home with the same walls closing in. The glass on the counter makes the moment feel justified, as if you came there for this sip, not for anyone else.