You know how sometimes you just need to do things to prove to yourself that you actually can? That’s kind of how day six was. I’d been cruising through the days, spending quality time with some of the key people in my life, but in very intimate settings. I’d not yet ventured to a bar and I was curious how I’d handle the challenge. My best friend and I headed over to our usual watering hole, which was insanely suitable for this situation, as all I would be consuming was, well, water. We stepped up to the bar and instead of inquiring about the new beers on tap, I asked for a glass of tap water. It was handed to me in a blue plastic cup that felt like a glass of shame served with a side of “are you feeling okay?”
And I was. I was feeling great. Revived. Present and ready to discover if my laying off the beer made me any better at billiards. If my complete unaltered attention would make me better at the angles and lines and intentions. I felt more in control and was ready for my big break (oh, the puns).
There’s something about girls playing pool that seems to always cause some sort of commotion. Some kind of sexist statement that usually we can just brush off. But that night, in that moment, a man, a boy, a disgusting excuse for a human being, said something that put my stomach in knots. That left me clenching my fingers so hard around the cue that I watched my knuckles turn white. That night a boy sat staring at the side of my face for a solid three minutes that felt like an eternity of discomfort. That night I remembered a night where a boy at that bar gave me his number on a napkin and when I unfolded it in the morning I saw that the ten digits were also followed by four words… “show me your tits.” Mostly I try to brush these things off, avoid confrontation, laugh in the face of the lack of human decency. But tonight I wasn’t laughing. Tonight I started thinking. Tonight I got to epiphany five.
scratched.
You can still have a sense of humor when you’re sober, but chances are you’ll certainly realize the things that aren’t funny at all. The things that make you squint your eyes. The things that make you wonder how someone has gotten so far in life wearing that cloak of crude. This is not the epiphany. This night, here, in the place that provides the most people with the most amount of booze, is actually the place I had an epiphany about another kind of intoxication I have. The intoxication of independence.
You see, on any other night, I may have humored that boy who’s eyes continuously lingered, the boy who kissed me across the bar because it made me feel special, the guy who makes a comment that is trying to catch it’s balance on the spectrum of flirt and fucked up. But tonight I don’t have it in me. Tonight I contemplate how much I have romanticized these things, among many others, for far too long. I have confused common courtesy for affection. Others infidelities as endearing. Crude comments as compliments. This isn’t love. This is lousy.
The issue with me is that I have an incredible group of people that surround me, friends and family alike (though seemingly they are one and the same). Sounds terrible, right? Hear me out. I have more friends than I probably deserve, who treat me better than I could have ever dreamt. They care about my day, my life, my accomplishments, my failures. They are there to celebrate the pieces all coming together and they’re there to help pick them up when they fall apart. Because of this, my independence is easy and ideal. My life is my own. There is never a moment where I feel unsupported. Mom said it once, and it’ll forever ring true, I will never know what it’s like to be lonely.
but I feel it in pieces.
At least now, here, taking a sober look at how drunk me may have reacted in these situations. I used to believe that I would only sleep with people I was in love with; that that was a prequalifier for intimacy. Not in love? Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Now? Now things are different. I think I once even slept with someone I hated. Scratch that, I know I did. It has been a long time since I have touched someone who has touched me emotionally. Since I have felt love in lovemaking. It’s all just making and it’s making me sad. My heart is heavy here; these things are hard for a love lover to admit.
I am realizing now that there is more than just the fondness I feel from my friends that has caused this, there’s also a component of my resenting myself. By devaluing the closest two bodies can get to each other, I was subsequently devaluing my own. I stopped giving myself credit. I said yes to things because it was easier than saying no. Because I was independent, I was invincible. My roots were so wild that they were easily entangled with others. This is not the person I want to be.
The same way that we hide behind alcohol to protect ourselves, to escape, to build excuse, I have done with my autonomy. I have spent so much time defending my heart, that I have become disillusioned in what love is. The disenchantment is real and I don’t know how to stop it. Am I asking for too much? Am I not deserving? Have I done this to myself? Do I need to stand up to more boys in bars and brains in the heads that share my pillows? Have we forgotten how to compliment instead of criticize? To be vulnerable instead of vulgar? Have we lost forevers to instants of gratification?
Everyday I am taking down bricks from the walls I’ve built to rebuild the castle I once created. I am reestablishing self worth, investing in that value, claiming interest in my love for human connection. I am remembering what that felt like. I am looking forward to it again. I am here. I am ready. I am starting from scratch.
the length of waves 