Escape and Excuse

Many years ago, I used alcohol to escape from my reality.  I never feigned for a drink.  I really didn't.  I don't like the taste of alcohol.  I barely tolerate it.  Now, I drink only vodka and wine.  I can't handle any dark liquor, even though Captain Morgan and Crown Royal used to leave a mighty dent in my memory.....

From the moment I first got drunk when I was 15 or so, I viewed drinking as a mini vacation.  Alcohol allowed me to say what I couldn't, do what I couldn't, to not have to take responsibility for my actions.  Drinking gave me an escape from my insecurities.  When I was drunk, I felt pretty, I felt sexy, I felt popular.  I could flirt, I could make out, I could tell someone what I really thought about them.  And when I went too far....well, I had a beautiful excuse, "sorry, I was wasted."

As the years went by and high school turned into college, my drinking became a daily occurrence.  I do think I lived my college years right.... I acted wild, I put myself in major danger, I experienced some unbelievably terrifying situations, but, well, I got a lot out of my system.  I dodged many bullets and I had some of the best times of my life.  But, I still have total regrets about my drinking in college.  Because of it, other than the few best friends I made there, I know my drinking and my insecurities, kept me from developing any other long lasting relationships.  Alcohol was the additional company lurking in my shadows, peer pressuring me into situations I couldn't handle, or didn't even know I was stepping into.

After college, I remained pretty soaking wet with the booze, but work made it hard for me to get crazy as often as others my age were.  I have always worked in hospitality and I often work opposite the world.  Drinking alone isn't that fun for me, so I dried up a bit.  Yet, all of the men I dated in my 20s, loved alcohol, too.  I thought in a naive sense, that drinking equaled fun, so I wanted a man that drank because that kind of man was fun!  How young I was!  I actually thought a man that goes out to all hours of the night was a better candidate than a man who has hobbies outside of bar stools and beer taps because a drunk couple is a fun couple?!

Awful drank often.  He also drank a lot.  He never got violent and actually held his liquor quite well, but he made impulsive and idiotic decisions when he drank....he would drive and boat drunk and risk our friends lives, he would say moronic things, many of them total lies, and he would disappear for hours.  Mostly, he would lose track of time because he had a total processing problem and planning fallacy, but he felt that drinking gave him an excuse.  "Get off my back, I was drunk!!!!!!!"  I don't miss laying in bed waiting for him to come home, nervous that something bad happened.....because often something bad DID ACTUALLY happen: scooter accidents, car accidents, boat accidents, lost wallets, lost phones, you name it.

Crush doesn't drink.  Well, he drinks as much as I do, which really is very little.  I hold a glass of wine or a beer when I am out at a social event.  I enjoy a stiff martini with a juicy steak, or a robust red with some hearty pasta.  I toast with champagne and I cool off with a beer (if it is a craft beer), but drinking is not a real part of my life anymore.  It is simply an extra, not an everything.  Crush and I have never gotten drunk together and even though I know he will eventually see me over-served and perhaps have to hold my hair back while I puke as lately I can't handle my booze at all, it will be something that is unplanned, the night will simply and truly get away from me.  I really only love to drink with my best girlfriends without men around, as that reminds me of years ago and some of the silliest memories ever.  When us gals do get away without the significant others, madness can occur, but it is rare.  My hangovers last too long to make any drunk nights really worth it anymore and I see my besties so rarely, I crave their sober company more than anything.

Until Crush and I consummated our relationship, I had never had sex with a boyfriend for the first time sober.  This is not something I am proud of.  I was so self conscious of my body and of my vagina (something I have gotten totally over as WTF, vaginas come in ALL shapes and sizes and this is really too much), so I drank to get faux confidence and then I kept the lights off and acted like my version of a sexy seductress and I gave so very much and I never took a thing.  I wanted to be revered, but I didn't believe in myself enough to do it sober, only in pitch black darkness, I didn't know how to own my curves and all of my gifts.  I was faking it.

Crush makes me feel genuine.  This is simply the best way to describe it.  When I am with him, I am present.  I am really tuned in.  I am sober because I want to remember it all, I don't want to miss a single second.  I want to recall these first meetings in sharp detail and not in fuzzy flashbacks that sneak up on me and make me feel guilty.

Last night, I attended a party for a client of mine.  It was so nice of them to invite me.  Since, I am leaving, I am making an effort to attend most everything I am invited to.  I like to opt out of social events most of the time, but I am going to go places proudly and savor my last months in the city I spent my entire 20s in.  I want to really live the last chapter before I depart.  No regrets.

The client party was at a very trendy club and all the beautiful drunk insecure people were there.  There they were swaying to the music in their club clothes (mini skirts, high heels, breasts and crotches exposed....tight trousers, half buttoned shirts, shiny loafers) drinking overpriced vodka and looking over shoulders for the next best thing.  There I was, just a few years ago....a person that was so empty, a Friday night on the town could temporarily fill me just like the tequila and wine I would consume in excess.

After a few hours, I saw the ladies' eyes glass over, I saw them start to stagger and slur, I saw the followers in the dresses just a size or 2 too small, leave reality for a moment, escape from the madness of bottle service and champagne sparklers and men judging them based on only exteriors.  I saw them all escape.  I saw them kick their shoes off and stumble into strangers.  I saw them lean in for sloppy kisses from men that they wouldn't be able to identify in a police lineup if they ever needed to.  I saw my past. I know these feelings all too well.  The "there must be more than this....., but this will have to do for now......let me just make it until 1:30 am, so I don't look like a party pooper for leaving too early....."

I now own my reality.  Of course, I still screw up (I wanted to say "fuck up", but I am working on my "cussing" as Crush HATES it and thinks it is totally unladylike, which it is!), I am just a person.  I just don't drink because I really don't need to escape anymore.  I own my actions and I don't need Jim Beam excuses....

They are empty anyway.

Soundtrack of My Life

I have always loved music.

I can remember being a very little girl and being excited to take car rides, so I could listen to the radio.

My parents had a record player and my sister, mom, and I would dance to her old records from college: James Taylor, Carly Simon, the Beatles.

Much of the bond I had with my best friends in college was because we all loved music.  Especially live music, we would go to concerts all the time.  These same friends are still my best ones and we still exchange bands, some of my favorite groups became my favorite because of shows I saw with them over the years.

The Crush LOVES music even more than I do.  We do this thing where we send each other bands and songs back and forth via email and I love it.  This is exactly the kind of game that I like to play with someone.  I sent him a few CDs last week and asked him to pick out what songs he thought were my favorite and he totally guessed right.  He even took it a step further and was able to pick out my favorite lyrics from each song, I was beyond impressed.

He will send me songs with the email heading "A Song I Thought You Would Like" and he has been dead on.  If you know me well enough, you know I am a sucker for great guitar, piano, some harmonica, and a soulful voice....so it isn't that hard to send me things that I want to listen to, once you know my taste.

Music for me has always been an emotional connector.  I was a late bloomer.  I have always been a true romantic.  When I was younger, I wanted to feel the things music expressed.  The happiness, the sadness, the yearning, the pain, the love.  I wanted to feel it all and now, finally, in the last few years, I feel like I have.  I have had my heart broken, I have broken someone else's.  I have been disappointed and I have also been triumphant.

I have been sitting on a few things that I don't feel like dealing with, but I feel ready to face things now.

I listened to some of my favorite songs last night and I found the strength to wrap up a few things.  It's only life and I know I can get through this uncomfortableness. It is my goal to send a much needed email to a former client and make right about what I deserve because I did nothing wrong.  Oy.  Good luck to me.

That Girl

Oh lawrdy......the only person you didn't want to be in college was "That Girl."  "That Girl" did a lot of things that most girls didn't: peed in chairs in frat houses, pooped in boys' beds in summer sublets, fell down steep stairs at work while drunk and holding a cocktail tray full of drinks while wearing a mini skirt and no underwear, had a threesome with 2 sexually repressed metrosexuals during a summer long coke binge, showed up places uninvited crying about a broken heart and a seriously itchy and unsightly STD.

Now, surprisingly, none of the above apply to me.  They are just things I was fortunate to witness during college that made me feel better about being this girl and not "That Girl."

That is not to say that this girl didn't: pee her own bed once after drinking 2/3 of a bottle of Jose Cuervo on a very quiet weekend in the dorms when everyone else went on frat and sorority walkouts freshman year, puke on the regular after drinking Long Island Iced Teas that cost 75 cents, yell at innocent strangers for things they NEVER (accusing them of calling me fat was a big one) said, pass out while making out (I think we kissed) with a sociopathic politician which caused him to rob my home afterwards because his blue balls simply made him insane, lose my underwear at a bar regular's house and then see him at happy hour when I was working the next day...MORTIFYING, throw up on a friend's stereo and then accuse her of doing it, wake up nude next to a bottle of rum, a beer can, 2 Dave Matthews CDs, a bong and my alarm going off for 5 hours and then went outside to realize that my car had been stolen by the very man that would leave me in such a horrific condition, make out with a 40 year old bartender who still lived in a college town (and recently hid from me) and 2 of my friends while listening to a Styx record....like a record, I do not think he could afford a CD player, jump in the pool with all of my clothes on after being inspired by my best friend who already had jumped in holding a Louis Vuitton clutch, take topless photos with my friends all on one couch while wearing costumes after being amped up by the song "It's Getting Hot in Herre" by Nelly, pass out when the only boy in college who wanted to be my actual boyfriend, but didn't even go to my college, came into town after we went out on our first date because I drank 6 beers before the date because I was nervous and then drank an entire bottle of wine during it and then a few weeks later, I had the nerve to get so drunk at his sister's wedding (WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!) that I couldn't remember even getting up to the room after the wedding, but I was told I took a nap in a chair during it......and how can we forget when I rubbed baby oil all over a very handsome boy (who sadly got the absolute shit kicked out of him and had to leave college he was so injured) on my living room rug and then slid around with him like 2 well oiled pigs until the sun came up.

I mean how is this better than the "That Girl" actions? It isn't.  Hypocrite city here.  And this, all this, is just the tip of the iceberg.  It is only the fried chicken of Old Country Buffet's spread. A nibble really in the hilarity and utter pathetic nature of my college experience, even though I wouldn't change a thing and I am so glad I am still here to tell you about it....

I was this girl to me, but so "That Girl" to everyone else.....and I didn't even know it.

One day, when this blog gets more than 2 views per day and someone actually comments, I do hope we can discuss some of the "That Girl" or "That Guy" stuff you all might have done.  Please feel free to share even if you don't read this until 2014.

Drunkorexic

Drunkorexia is another "new craze" that has been around forever.... I won't claim to be the founder, but I was definitely in the club for about 9 years (age 20 - 29)....I mean, you can't do the horrible things I did and said without some booze rattling the already messed up mind.

I started college a bit fluffy (word we like to call chubby in my circle) for me.  I was looking sleek senior year, but then I had a very bad accident summer before college which left me in bed isolating myself and drinking milkshakes.

Then, OY, the Freshman 40 happened.  I mean, I started college as a perfectly fluffy size 12 (up from a no-hipped 10) and ballooned to a size 16 by Xmas break.  This was brought to you exclusively by rounds at the dining hall (like 4 plates full at each meal as we later found out, the ring leader of the "eating team" was actually bulimic....R&F in college = TOTAL dumb ass), drinking every night, and pizza breadsticks at 3am (ROCK BOTTOM INVOLVED TEQUILA, BREADSTICKS, PEE, VOMIT, BED, ALONE).

ALSO, if you are going to college, invest $10.00 and buy a full-length mirror from Wal-Mart.  I did not have one in my college dorm room and I remember coming home on break and looking in the mirror and thinking "who is this person?" when I saw that I had eaten my former self.  Also, true story, my friends and I all got fat (I do believe I gained the most weight...WINNING HERE) freshman year and we developed this lie, this notion, that we weren't fat, it was actually the mirror's fault (fuck you, you, you, mirrrrrrooooorrrrrrrrr!).  The term "fat mirror" was coined to help us deal with our excessive fatness and I truly believed most of the time that I looked HOT, it was the fun house mirror at Express lying to me.

Did I digress again?  You know it!!!

Back to Drunkorexia......well, by summer going into junior year, I was done with the excuses.  I wanted to be a girl of the year 2000 and wear backless tops, show my nipples and sideboob, stuff myself into some black pants, and perhaps even a baby-tee that showed my navel.  I wanted to be my own version of She's All That, only my metamorphosis wouldn't be from nerd to hot, it would be from fat to thin.  Also and most importantly, I heard that someone who I considered a friend had nicknamed me something that had to do with a huge zoo animal.

So, I enrolled in WeightWatchers, just like Jessica Simpson.  Only I did it more than a decade before her, so I am cooler (actually, I LOVE her for real, so she is way cooler, always! I wish her weight loss as I know this all must be so hard for her and those daisy dukes are like a size minus zero and I was never ever a size minus zero).  Only my "version" of WeightWatchers involved eating as many zero points foods as I could (sugar free jello, asparagus, broccoli, lettuce, diet soda) and then drinking my points.  So, I would eat 27 points a day made up of this: 2 points for egg whites, 0 points for sugar free jello and lettuce, and 25 points for green apple vodka.  WHOOOOOT! Get it girl, you can count!  I lost 39.5 pounds in just under 4 months and actually maintained that loss give or take about 7 pounds for the rest of college.  I also farted like a machine, reeked of asparagus pee, and got all my energy from Diet Cherry Pepsi and Parliament Lights.  I basically was Tara Reid.

After college, I did begin to eat as there were yummy restaurants to try and paychecks to not save.  Anytime I knew I would be drinking though (which was often), I restricted my calories to less than 500 or so in an attempt to get drunk really fast and have calories to soak up the booze with late night food (pizzas, say what!?).

Even though I am not down too much, I look so much better booze-free.  I am less puffy and bloated and I have eyes now, not just 2 little slits that rest in my face that are red and blood-shot.

I am so surprised that WeightWatchers never asked me to be an official spokesperson.....