#(the urban dictionary cant answer all my questions)
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can someone explain to me what is a pantster (there is probably a spelling mistake there) is in writing? i've seen 'are you a planner or a pantster?' and i dont know what it means
im kinda new to the writing community online so all these terms are confusing (plus english is not my first language)
are there any more words in the writing community that should i know the meaning of?
#(the urban dictionary cant answer all my questions)#hey i already learn what nanowrimo is at least#writeblr#writer#writing#writers on tumblr#writing is hard#i felt like a fanfiction writer saying “english is not my first language”#which i am#but we are in a different context
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welcome to my blog!
my name is oswald, but u can call me noesse aswell. (spelt no-ess)
things about me
genderfluid
sixteen
im a therian who identifies as a bear/dog/and wolf!
questions and answers (sorta)
"what the heck is a therian???"
A therian is someone who identifies as a non human earthen animal either spiritually or psychologically. (taken from urban dictionary)
kinda like a spirit animal, but you basically inherit traits from the animal you identify with.
im not well versed with therian knowledge, so sorry if i get something about therian culture wrong!
"so, like, do you physically act like a bear/dog/wolf???"
no. i dont do anything physical like that, but i still spiritually identify with such. other therians differ though, like for instance some dog therians might go out and play in mud for example, and thats okay! but i dont do that since i myself am scared of someone finding out i am therian or anything of the sort. but thats just me obviously. /nm
"is it like being a furry?"
not really. although furrys and therians both have animal identities, they are different in many ways.
"i think your weird! you should act like a human! your not any of those things!"
well, if you think im weird, dont interact. simple as that.
and yes, i know im PHYSICALLY human. i know i cant shapeshift into a dog or bear or whatever and i do act like a human in public, but im still therian.
and yes i am all of those things. (ur just mad that i have swag B3 /j)
dont interact.
basic dni, and therian/otherkin/etc haters. and also if u dont support ageres, objectums, etc.
thank you for reading!
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Tag game :D
I was tagged by @somegoodsheith !!!!!
So uh.. yeah lets get into this. (I only read like half the questions... before i started this heh)
Rule: Answer the questions and tag 20 to get to know them better!
Nickname: oh man... some call me kait. My sister calls me cookie.. my brother calls me cake or cakey (he couldnt say my name when he was little so it evolved into this. <33)
Gender: uhh... Female
Star sign: libra
Height: 5'4"
Time: 11:36am
Birthday: September
Favorite bands: The 1975. Bleachers. Dawn golden.. vancouver sleep clinic. probably a lot of others but i cant think of them all.
Favorite solo artist: right now ive been listening to a lot of Troye Sivan... ans Tompabeats chillhop
Song stuck in my head: 3am by finding hope
Last movie watched: king kong.. we only got halfway through it before we had to stop because lets be honest there was wine involved.. and it got kinda late
Last show watched: Voltrooooooonn
When I created this blog: oh fk... honestly.. like 8 years ago??? It constantly evolves into new fanroms and sheit..
What do I post about: sheith. Funny stuff. Fandom hc. Encouraging stuff? My Art.. my writing. (Other peoples art and writing). Song recs...
Last thing I googled: uhm.stuff on urban dictionary lmao
Do you get asks: occasionally
Why did got choose your URL: easy for me to remember... close to my name kinda sorta
Followers: i think like... 108 of u beautiful souls <3
Following: idk... i could check but im too lazy
Favorite colors: black. Hunter grren. Gray. Pink
Average hours of sleep: … i aim for 8.. doesnr always happen. Usually 6
Lucky numbers: 3! And 9
Instruments: i cant play an instrument to save my life...
What I’m wearing: black pants. Black shoes. Black shirt... and my apron for work
How many blankets do I sleep with: i always sleep with 1 atleast and a throw if im cold
Dream job: doing something meaningful and experiencing fulfilment from it
Dream trip: i wanna see japan and some islands.. an actual beach that has blue water and isnt covered in tourists
Favorite food: tofu pho!! And rice
Nationality: american/native american. Choctaw and chickisaw.. but im just pale af
Favorite song right now: 3am by finding hope aaaaaand Hoodie by hey violet. Dont ask me why cuz idj
Tagging!!!!
@safeautistickeith @kicksign @gerkyhen @captshirogane
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does everybody hate my walks down memory lane yet?
This one’s actually a year older than the others. 2009 vs 2017
BASIC INFORMATION Name: chelsea. I mean my last name has changed but my first name hasn’t. Birthday: july 26. -- 274 days till i'm 21!! I guess 274 days till I’m 29? Shoe Size: eight. Nine. My feet got fat along with the rest of me. Hair Colour: dark reddish brown. Several different shades of reddish brown. Plus some grey. Eye Colour: hazel. More like green on the outside, brown on the inside. Hazel would be its own separate color. Relationship Status: taken. Married. Zodiac: leo. Still. School: none. Been done with that shit for a decade now. __________________________________________________ FAVOURITES Colour: green. Green, plaid, black, grey. Male Celebrity: mike lobel. Jensen Ackles. Female Celebrity: sophia bush. Danneel Ackles. Shoes: chucks & flip flops. My grey BareTraps booties. Brand: starting to realllly love old navy. especially when i can get pants, 2 shirts, and a jacket all for 36 bucks lol That’s really broad. Like brand of clothes? I don’t have one. Brand of makeup? Tarte. Brand of shoes? Nike. Brand of food? Great Value idk lol Book: second helpings. The dictionary. JK it’s still and will always be Second Helpings. Sport: football. Football. TV Show: one tree hill. Supernatural. Gum: bubblicious hubba bubba max blue raspberry. I don’t like gum anymore. Hair Colour on Opposite Sex: brown or black. Brown. __________________________________________________ NAME SOMETHING THAT STARTS WITH A: aftershave...no idea why that popped in my head haha Absolut vodka. B: bubbles. Barnacles. C: chicken. Cheerleading. D: dark. Dartboard. E: entertainment. Elliptical. F: fooooood. Frontierland (spn). G: great. Gyration. J: jizz lol Jell-o. K: knife. that was jo's answer but i can't think of anything else. Kiss. L: latino - where the hell are these words coming from lol Laser. M: mother. Megaphone. N: nicotine. Narcolepsy. O: otter. Outback Steakhouse because I just ate there the other day. P: poker. Petticoat. Wow. Q: quailman! Quaker Boy. Man I miss that job.
R: reese's cup. Rage. S: shit. Salmon. T: titties? Tupperware. U: underwear. Uganda. V: van. Ventriloquist. W: walker. Wakeboard. X: xylophone - and no you spelled it right lol X-ray. Y: yorkie. Yosemite. Z: zane (hot guy on H2o). Zillow. I’m in the market for a house. __________________________________________________ LOVE Have a Crush: you could say that. Many, on celebrities. Do they like you back: yep. They don’t even know me. Or are you in a Relationship Now: yeah. Married. If Someone Likes You: doesn't matter. It’s whatevs. __________________________________________________ 5.. 5 FAVOURITE MOVIES 1. bring it on. 2. grind. 3. halloween. 4. dirty dancing. 5. degrassi goes hollywood. not so much for the movie, but for the fact that manny & jay got back together. Mean Girls, Bring it On, Grind, Halloween, and Pocahontas. 5 FAVOURITE CELEBRITIES 1. keith urban. 2. mike lobel. 3. sophia bush. 4. hilarie burton. 5. and yes, james lafferty. Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Jared Padalecki, Randy Owen, and Johnny Rzeznik. 5 THINGS YOU FIND IN YOUR ROOM 1. pandas - everywhere. 2. bed. 3. guitars. 4. tv. 5. clothes all over the floor. Mini fridge, bookshelves, record player, still clothes all over the floor, and Dave because he’s sleeping right now. Or he’s trying to. 5 THINGS YOU CANT LIVE WITHOUT 1. friends. 2. music. 3. chicken. 4. my phone. 5. beer. Money, Netflix, family/friends, Rockstar, and music. And cigarettes. 5 BEST ARTISTS/BANDS 1. goo goo dolls. 2. poison. 3. keith urban. 4. the spill canvas. 5. firehouse. Goo Goo Dolls, Alabama, Matchbox Twenty, All Time Low, and Sara Bareilles. 5 BEST BRANDS/STORES 1. old navy. 2. arizona/penney's. 3. avon. 4. spencer's. 5. thsirthell. Amazon, ULTA, Hot Topic, Sheetz, and Joann Fabrics just because I get a discount and they have all my Halloween decorations. __________________________________________________ QUESTIONS 1. Have an obsession? a few. Many. 2. Where do you plan to go this summer? road trip down south with mah bee eff eff. Well the Foo Fighters are gonna be in Cleveland July 25, which is the day before my birthday. So I wanna go to that. Also you can do tours of Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville. 3. What Month is it? octoberrr. Obviously since I took this quiz eight years ago today, it’s also now October. 4. Anything big coming up? not really. Hopefully buying a house and moving home soon. 5. Why are you doing this? need something else to do while i watch gymnastics & wait for it to be 4 so i can watch the bills beat carolina. The sound on my tv keeps cutting out and it’s really aggravating so I got on my laptop to catch up on youtube videos but I got sidetracked doing this. 6. Like your parents? no. My dad yes. My mom...ehh, things are slowly improving. 7. Do you sleep with a teddy bear? heffalump. Nope. 8. Do you eat when you're nervous? i eat all the time. I didn’t even read my previous answer and “I eat all the time” popped into my head as soon as I saw the question. 9. Own a dress? surprisingly...i have like four or five...yeah, that's a lot for me lol I have a couple but I can’t wear them because of my skin. 10. Are you a fast typer? quite. 80-90 wpm. 11. Do you wanna have kids? no. Yes. 12. Who do you usually have Christmas dinner with? my parents, my sisters, mark, austen, maranda (now that she's here haha), cindy, and emily. and diane & the kids show up at some point during the day. My family but I won’t be home for Christmas this year. 13. Who do you celebrate New Years with? i haven't really celebrated it at all lately...but this year the crew's getting smashed for sure. I don’t celebrate it. 14. Where do you live? here. Ohio. Unfortunately. 15. Have you made a cootie catcher in your younger years? oh god, so many. Yeah a lot. 16. Plans this weekend? it's over. bowling, shopping, out with people, dinner, out again. Well this past weekend we went to Canton on Friday, I worked Saturday and then we got groceries, and we went home Sunday and came back here Monday. Next weekend I have no plans except work. 17. To your left is: wall, window, fan, cabinet, cd tower, atari stuff. Table, Dish remote, lamp, bottle of water, picture of my sister, some random mail, two candles, and Dave’s wallet/keys/deodorant/Axe spray. 18. To your right is: wall, fridge, pandas, guitars, amp, cabinet. My phone, Vizio remote, sound bar remote, another table with a bunch of crap on it, and the couch. 19. In your pocket is: nothing. Cigarettes, lighter, my debit card, and a Sheetz receipt. 20. Nervous about anything? kinda. Not really. 21. Scared of the Dark? nope. Negative. 22. Have any phobias? several. Driving, bridges, weather, specifically tornadoes even though I’ve never seen one, bees, being in public, the possibility of finding out that I can’t have kids, riding in a car with Dave, planes...I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of them all right now. 23.Your Opinion on Turtles? indifferent. Same. 24. Whats a Store near your house? save a lot, tops, arby's, family dollar, dollar general, the liquor store, CVS, the music store, goodwill, country fair, and all the places on main st. The closest one is a hair salon but idk if that counts as a “store”...probably one of the restaurants on 3rd st or Dollar General. 25. What did you do last march break? nothing? I don’t have March break. 26. Like Gum? only one kind. No. 27. Age you’d like to be? 274 days older than i am. Don’t care. 28. Place you would rather be? i'm good. Bradford. 29. Were you ever obsessed with High School Musical? haha yeah, i was for a while. You betcha. I still love it. Not the third one though. 30. Movie You Would like to see? paranormal activity. For the record, Paranormal Activity was shitty AF. I want to see Thank You For Your Service __________________________________________________ THE END Happy you're done? kinda. I have to poop so yeah I guess. What are you gonna do now? watch tv, watch football, then eat dinner. Poop, smoke a cigarette, and watch youtube videos.
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1/5/19 Happy New Year
ok im gonna be honest... I dont remember the past 5 days other than i’m sick and can barely breath and i mad the mistake of going to the movies with some friends. i wanted to see mary poppins again so me and 4 friends were gonna go, well after we already planned that, one made me really uncomfortable when he was drunk messaging me and not accepting that i did not want a relationship with him. even going so far as to say he hates my ex simply cause he got me first. so im gonna call these friends A B C (as well as D and E to explain backstory) and explain who they are with a little key so i can give the story without being revealing of identities and what not.
Me - [fem] myself. I’ve know them for a little over 20 years and they tend to be a complete child and was treated as the child of friends back in high school and cared for as such. highly susceptible to emotional manipulation especially from people they trust
A - [fem] my best friend since 5th grade who i fondly refer to as my mama bear. my amazing protector of both physical and emotional battle grounds. the very person who’s house i ran to when i needed time away from my parents to figure things out before asking for therapy.
B - [male] twat i met my junior year who i started calling dad at some point and has since become completely unstable. very egotistical and leaves arguments if he isn’t winning constantly playing the victim card.
C - [male] guy who i was randomly introduced to through his younger brother adding him to a discord server i run as an attempt to shut down my ex for daring to call the unholy texts that are The Harry Potter Series “mediocre” (i also have his phone number randomly cause i used to know his twin) and has been friends with B for a while even going so far as to have a running joke of them being in a relationship even tho they are both straight.
D - [fem] B’s ex who i refer to as step mama and who tends to be fairly motherly towards me
E - [male] dude i was friends with in highschool and who was good friends with B
My Ex - [male] still on very good terms and he is very caring towards me. he tries to make sure im doing whats best for me and not letting anyone manipulate or harm me
ok that was bigger than i expected but im sick im not thinking straight so this gonna be a bit weird and long... ok heres the story:
so im all like “hey i wanna see Mary Poppins again!” and B and C are like yeah lets go! with B immediately stating how he had planned to see it with B before they broke up, already putting a slight damper on the thing but we got past it. a day or two after i end up with me and B agreeing (timestamp 9:30) to message on discord between 11-12 as well as set up a server for us and his little sis to play on. (the wait was for him watching doctor who with his family) so i shower and puzzle and finally with no word by 11:42 i message him asking for when he thinks he will be on to which i get the message “I don’t know I’m really drunk it’s gonna be a blast “... and now a transcript of what followed next copied word for word (well privacy edits) time stamps (and spelling errors) included:
ME Last Sunday at 11:44 PM
but i guess mary poppins day discusion will wait for tomorow
me and your sister agreed on doing ftb sky adventers
B Last Sunday at 11:45 PM
Ok
Btw
Hehe
I shouldn’t say it
ME Last Sunday at 11:45 PM
say it
cant say btw then not say it
dick
B Last Sunday at 11:46 PM
Well
Uhm
ME Last Sunday at 11:46 PM
yes?
B Last Sunday at 11:46 PM
I’m unhappy with [MY EX]
Because I was maybe going to ask you out
I can say this because I’m drunk
ME Last Sunday at 11:47 PM
omg lol (in the this is a funniy situation way, not laughing at you)
thought you were repulesed by me? yeesh [B] keep your story straight
after all i did like you a bit before i met [MY EX], but hes always nice and youre... drunk nice
so eta for server mister cassanova?
B Last Sunday at 11:51 PM
No I want to be nice to you sober too but for some reason I get scared so I hide behind lies
Idk a while
Tonight
ME Last Sunday at 11:51 PM
you dont have to be scared, im just shocking
B Last Sunday at 11:52 PM
Well if we go to Mary poppins
Even with [C], who I’d like to be there
Maybe a mini date?
ME Last Sunday at 11:52 PM
no.
B Last Sunday at 11:52 PM
Aqwww
ME Last Sunday at 11:52 PM
sorry but i cant date again not yet
B Last Sunday at 11:53 PM
I’m gonna be sad
ME Last Sunday at 11:53 PM
i told you why me and [MY EX] broke up
B Last Sunday at 11:53 PM
But when I’m sober I’m going to regret most of this
ME Last Sunday at 11:53 PM
its not good for me to be in a relationship rn
B Last Sunday at 11:53 PM
I know
Well
Actually
ME Last Sunday at 11:54 PM
look if things dont work out with [MY EX] once my brain is on the path to fixed then we will see, until then dont wait up for me
B Last Sunday at 11:54 PM
I think you do need to be with at least someone because when you are depressed and thrown out of it you need someone to relate to and talk and make you feel comforted and loved
Time alone isn’t the answer
ME Last Sunday at 11:55 PM
except i have friends for that hon
B Last Sunday at 11:55 PM
Yeah
You dooo
ME Last Sunday at 11:55 PM
you dont need a relationship relationship
i have a [A]
B Last Sunday at 11:55 PM
Well
Is she helping
Are you loved
ME Last Sunday at 11:55 PM
i talk to her about everything mental
i talk to [IRRELEVANT MALE FRIEND] about physical questions
creepy right? well this kept going with me getting more and more uncomfortable and refusing to accept that i dont want a relationship (a quote from B in reference to my ex: “ He might be your daddy, but I’m your daddy” tf? and yes he bolded) to the point that i was just sticking around so hed put a server up for the pack. then a bit before 2 o’clock i say that im gonna get off at 2 cause that when i had planned to, to which he (im not sure if intentionally) manipulated me into staying on till 3 o’clock because he would tell me about a personal thing i was curious about. finally 3 o’clock comes around, we call and i hear the story and once the server is up he tells me hes gonna go play league with some people (note random online people not irl people he supposedly likes) and will be back in 20 mins. i figure what the hay ill wait. 40 mins later he says hes not getting back on... obviously im furious. (screen shot of convo i sent to someone day of to explain without having to retype - im red)
next day comes and im uncomfortable and C ends up buying minecraft so he can play with me on the server, we get in call with a now sober B when he gets on and i confront him about the messages even sharing screens for proof (i learned its best not to 1v1 argue him cause im easy to manipulate) and he claims to not remember it but whenever C is away during the call he says things that sound slightly suggestive. at this point id like to note that i have a full recording of me scrolling through the messages as an unlisted video on my youtube channel and have sent it to people who with no prior suggestion have described it as “rapey” and warned me against him. my ex in particular warned me that i am very susceptible to an abusive relationship rn due to my mental state and that he seemed very unstable. at this i decided to invite A to go to mary poppins too since she would be a good protector of me should anything happen and to have a more familiar presence there.
now here is the juicy part. so D was talking to C where C was complaining how clingy B was becoming and how creepy he was being towards me so she quickly messages me on snap warning me that he is a ‘manipulative possessive jerk who will see me as nothing but an object to conquer and get mad when you are unhappy’ after hearing this i rembered B’s story about D cheating on him with E before D and E got together and started to wonder how true that was. me and D had a lovely conversation following that about my singular past relationship and her current one and blah blah blah.
MOVIE DAY: (C canceled the night before so now it is just me B and A going) we get picked up by A and all seems well with everyone being friendly and B seeming kinda cautious. i think hes regretting the convo so i decide to be nice. the movie was great and we decide to hang in the mall after (i made a build a bear). so while we were hanging at one point he scared me when after he provoked me into my light face wacks (cat play pretty much, wouldnt damage the most fragile ice) he grabs my hand to stop me and me thinking “oooo game fun!” i start to dig my nail into his hand to get let go of but instead of him reacting how i expected (letting go so i can escape) he looks at me with the scariest most serious face ive ever seen and (this part still scares me) says “you dont want to go down this path” he finally lets go and i go sit by the hot topic earing displays while A and B look at buttons then when B sits next to me while A waits to pay he basically called my claw abuse. (like what? you grab my hand hard enough that it hurt when i was doing the same playful banter weve done for years and apparently im the abuser cause i do my standard get away strategy of hurting the hand thats holding me? what did you expect me to do? just comply and calmly stand there with my hand held above y head in yours?) after we leave hottopic we are in the car and somehow we get to the topic of the drunk conversation.
so im talking and trying to explain how uncomfortable he made me( and how i was afraid to be alone around him and how i had been scared remembering that he not only knows where i live but where the spare key is!!!!) and i dare use the word “rapey” ... lets see if i can get a definition for yall but first ill say how i use that word - “rapey. an adjective to describe a situation in which one party becomes uncomfortable and afraid to the point that they feel if this continues they could be raped or otherwise hurt/abused in the future” - and now the second definition from urban dictionary: “Rapey A guy who's creepy, and hugs or kisses inappropriately. He has a rapist lure. You don't think he would do it but definitely gives off that vibe. i.e. creepy hugger at the office.” - now i apparently made a huge error in daring to use that word to describe the conversation where he would not accept me saying no to a relationship (and at one point asked me my ex’s dick size - which i did not give) and continously stated how using words liek that could end up getting him in jail. A and i look at eachother incredulously and try to argue with him a bit but ultimately decide to just get back to the point and bring it back to how uncomfortable i was and how he needs to change his attitude and appologize but he keeps bringing it back to that word. fianlly im close to tears and mutely hugging my yoshi in the front seat and the whole car goes silent. A offers that i sleep over tonight which i decline knowing im sick and need my bed and we talk a bit about my ex and goign out for ramen with him sometime. once i was home i removed B from discord snap and steam and will remove him next time im on league as well. he was removed from my server and i left any i had in common with him. i am done trying to forgive him.
on a brighter note i got sims 4 cause C bought it for me since i couldn't refund his ticket i prepaid for and im learning how to get better from this stupid dry throat. hopefully ill be better by Tuesday so i can go back to work at the library!
thanks for reading! <3
i know this was a long one and probably makes half sense cause of the code letters and the fact that i am writing this while very light headed <3
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another tag meme im sorry pt 2
Snatch'd tag meme → name: Jodie → will you answer all questions truthfully: sureee → are you happy: not really → are you bored: ehh → are you sad: unbearably → are you italian: nop → are you german: no → are you asian: no → are you irish: no → are you latino: my dad is part → are your parents still married: no,, ● ten facts ● → birth place: Hospital → hair colour: brunette → eye color: brown → birthday: October 22nd → mood: depression → gender: non binary → lefty or righty: righty → summer or winter: winterr → morning or afternoon: afternoon ● ten things about your love life ● → are you in love: ;) → do you believe in love at first sight: not really → who ended your last relationship: she did → have you ever been hurt: many times → have you ever broken someone's heart: for their own good → are you friends with your ex: i try to avoid them → are you afraid of commitment: idk → have you hugged someone within the last week: no → have you ever had a secret admirer: no IF YALL LOVE ME YOU'D BETTER ADMIT IT NOW → have you ever broken your own heart: always ● ten choices ● → love or lust: bothhh?? → lemonade or iced tea: lemonade by Beyonce → cats or dogs: dogs → a few best friends or many regular friends: none i clearly cant trust none of yous → television or internet: internet → coke or pepsi: coke → wild night out or romantic night in: night in → day or night: Night → im or phone: phone ● ten have you ever ● → been caught sneaking out: No → been caught running away from home: lmaO → fallen off the stairs: hell ya → white water rafted: i dont think so → finished an entire jawbreaker: yes! → wanted something/someone so badly it hurt: this sounds kinky but yes i want food BAD → prank called a store: nah → skipped school: yes → wanted to disappear: everyday ● last... ● → phone call: my motha → phone call you received: mothaa → person you hung out with: Ashy Knees → thing you ate: Ramen → site you went to: urban dictionary → place you were: i dont remember ● family ● → do you and your family get along: NO → would you say you have a "messed up life": idk others have had it worse → have you ever run away from home: idk → have you ever gotten kicked out: yes → if so, how long: too fucking long ● friends ● → do you secretly hate one of your friends: hahaha YES → do you consider all of your friends good friends: no?? some of them are but not all of them → would you die for them: no tf i look like → who knows everything about you: Journey tags: UHH idk @nonnez and @violette-the-blue you should do this
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10-9-2018
waking up. tired. rain. rain on the boots. the boots are torn. shoes. are wet. leather shoes. uncomfortable shoes. comfortable shoes. the daily walk. walking in uncomfortable shoes. ears clogged. not sick. ears jammed up. sticking fingers into ears with toilet paper when in the bathroom. library. salvation army. need to take a piss. need to take a shit. bathrooms. looking for bathrooms. embarassed. look like shit. haven’t showered in a bit. lighters are dead. no flame for cigarettes. the rain. it ruins the cigarette shorts i collect off the ground. talking to myself. not really. lots of people doing real life following. they want me to participate in interactive games with the audience. im not a star. im not taylor swift. she shouldn’t do politics yet. she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. democrats. republicans. green party. lame . parties. people. birthdays. rain. dogs. leashes. masters. slaves. negative conditioning. positive associations. flashbacks. larissa. lory. jessica. ashkhen. hasmig. who and what happened and where am i. did the babies really get aborted. are people messing with my mind. the information. is it true. not true. ears clogged. i can barely hear sarcastic remarks. god is watching over it all. proverbs. Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife. peacock in the desert. seattle. pike street. pike market. prospect park. GAR cemetary. ducks. weird tattoo store. weird tattoo aesthetic. cornish college. security guards. smoking cigarettes. asking for cigarettes. not comfortable. SEATAC. orcas. the oceans. pier 70. pier 66. starbucks. starbucks reserve. st james church. gospel mission. millinair club. tweakers. not that many. many or not. not known. know nobody. alone. thoughts. suicide. Virginia Mason hospital. lutheran church. food. food under the bridge. housing help. library on 4th street. newspapers. news. 90 minutes of internet time. homeless resource guide. backpack stolen. all work gone. no more work to look over. wanted a house on frontenac. didn’t get it. went to ferrari dealership - you say you’re a gangsta but you never popped nothing. you’re a real wanksta. songs. curses. nirvana. cause i’ve found god - rethinking what i said about kurt cobain. he is dangerously not well in Lithium. sounds llike the psychiatrists put pills in him and he blew his brains out or heroine or the pain of his wife... she breaks mirrors. weird flashbacks. lorys brother was administerered lithium wh en i was administered seroquel. psychopharma DEATH TOLL. bodies keep stacking. kurt cobain. lithium. lake washington blvd - curt cobains house. i didn’t know. i did a free navigation of the city. i felt things, bro. now i regret what i said about kurt cobain. lady was wearing a nirvana song list tshirt. bruce lee and brandon lee’s graves. crows. bible... scarecrows. 3-6 mafia lord infamous used to call me scaRECROW what is this... where am i. same motifs. same symbols. used by different people at different times. 1 big symbolic soup. trying to make sense of it. untangle it. which came first the word crow or pigeon. beautiful pigeons. appearance of pigeons in ones timeline over time. typing in the library. ‘the kind of kind guy that won’t take no for an answer’ - wanting to buy a house on frontenanc and give it to brent and tim ... tim gave me an umbrella. brent hooked it up with cigarettes - lighter. they were good guys. lyft people circling around. feel guilt and shame resentment everywhere. saved by the dell poster. PRIVATE PROPERTY everywhere - including the seattle sports stadium ... safeco field? seahawks lose to larams - kendrick lamar. lemurians of mt shasta. greyhound... buses. the animals. a great dane takes a fat piss on 700 7th ave... the courthouse night, doing a speech. finding weed on ground smoking it. speaking at the school ... getting more weed. fed a larabar. ara. ara gets funding again in march. rosenstein is out? cohen is out? melania is in africa - visits a former slave in ghana. beautiful work. thank you mr and mrs trump. kushner? scooby dooby doo. airbnb ... valuations. memories. pains. people. upgrades and promotions. growth. new ideas. scholarships. college. essays. schools. making sure the kids are going to be safe. at least putting a line on the older ones and going to go back and ensure the road is well paved for the younger ones. newspaper room 6th floor. bathrooms on floor 7 of library also on floor 1... and maybe on 3 and 4.. .but not sure. haven’t been higher than floor 7 as far as i recall. lady in front of library - obese with lighter and cigarette - i ask her for a light she says “why are you chasing me?” - not a question. it is a question. it is something inside of a question. an accusation. a false accusation. a controversial, extremely controversial false accusation. it implies more. profile equivalent of a stalker. im not a stalker. a chaser. but i will become one if she wants me to. if the shoe fits ill wear it. or ill just wear it once and throw it away anyway. copy and paste this text and put it into a text to speech application and just listen to it ... let me know if it sounds good. borrow phrases from it. let it brainwash you. because it’s all real. really really really really real. kim and kanye. blessings. armenians. what the heck. little children in library walking around... happy looking. global warming. will it kill all the little children that look so innocent to my eye. and to my eye the world looks ok. but to the instruments... they’re reading something else. that’s how gas kills doesn’t it... it didn’t smell. it just killed. mount olympia. sculpture garden at the pier has a lot of gardners but a lot more dog shit. its impossible to sit in the grass. there was SO MUCH dog shit there. mcdonalds sued for a million dollars. dont do it. all these ridiculous articles on Medium. i joined medium but i cant even press a button to write. ridiculous. double daniels. daniel lives here. so does erin treg. ill try to not mention too many names i guess. maybe they can comment on posts and take them out. fuck ilya golub. fuck olga. fuck all those people. nikolai and m8s and ara and etc etc. let them live their lives but these are weenie people. someone should keep a permanent weenie hat on their heads. stop stuffing dicks into everyones head aram. stop it. note to self. exercise more discipline in the language that i use. lockwood... he was an author who blew his braINS OUT. but he was typing like an animal in the family garage. he released a book. i wish one day i can get back to literature reading again. i miss pynchon. i miss delillo. did they write any new books. are they still alive? im going to check google right now and trust the answer. dellilo alive. i heard roth died. 5-22-2018. wow . the number 22. number of hebrew characters in the alphabet. the number of arab league countries. 22 is a heptagonal number. which means 7 sided polygon number. who knows what that means. its just important. who knows. philip roth died on 5 - 22 - 2018. wow. i miss his work. american paradise or something or portnoy’s complaint. who was that guy. i remember being in oregon 4 years ago and digging deep into literature. is my brother dead? did shant eat a heroine shot? people on the bus were saying weird things. is my father dead? i don’t even know. i remember jolie writing things on the wall. like prophecy that turned into reality. maybe the whole thing was a joke. the name. keith. she used names. she said things. JR JR JR> what is JR.. it’s on the inside of larissa lip . who knows. maybe real or not. nick. wtf. heroine. fresno. people talking to me. gangs this that. greatful dead family. where are we. what is this. acid. meth. heroine. crack brillo pads. what is all this. what happened. where is everyone. dope shooters. not a lot of people left around - “ Cage The Elephant - Shake Me Down - YouTube “ urban dictionary. JR> some caring guy. larissa’s boyfriend. hope they’re still together. been talking out loud to her. sometimes i feel her. saw a lookalike of Lory. or i actually saw lory. maybe when larissa and i were in santa cruz.. we were being watched and played for fools. she kept saying she saw nicole. the aramark logo. the mark from seattle. the people out there. here. chris while. erin triggie. daniel ex of jessica. who knows what people do. say. where am i. what has happened to me. how am i homeless. what is this. what happened to me. i used to be an OG. lol. what am i now. can i even handle it. unlikely candidate. why do people even half respect me. what is going on. scholarships. colleges. high school kids applying for colleges. stanford early application this year is november 1... and the regular is january 2. i remember 2004 applying for fafsa and all that. scholarships. this that. getting accepted. man. SAT scores are still going. its insane how out of touch you get despite trying hardest to stay in touch. eventually the kids evict you themselves. couple library rats tried to trade me bluetooth headset for some molly in front of library and for some crystal. i said no to both. i saw mad guy tweaking dancing fuckin hard at millionair club today - i looked at him and said “brother i love you so i dont want to see you here, like this, ok?” - where is HOMIE RESCUE TEAM - what are we going to do? should we just laugh at this guy. should we just let him die off. should we kill him? what do you think? i have to read news... china and america. usa. and china. and korea. and russia. and some games and calm down and 110 billion dollar pump into USA. turkey and saudi arabia ... and pushing and shoving and ghana and america visits and angola 500 million president running to london who knows... where are we.. like flies buzzing around on The Blue Marble. what happened to sitting at home and enjoying one another in peace. where is my wife. why do i call her my wife. im forgiving people. im rescuing people. im saying im going to quit cigarettes. people look so shady. they look so protective over their assets. ive lost more than i think or know or can count or i dont know whats going on.
i wanted a ferrari 812 a portofino i saw was pretty i like the color rosso and i wanted a 488 spider and a home on frontenac and i wanted a powerboat like 70 footer or 77′ and i wanted to go to bahamas or caribbean and have sex with my wife and procreate and have children and relax and sleep and rest and have a home on 18 acres in snoquamish and all that stuff and have a Dodge ram 2500
just read about Satyrs for the first time. rams and satyrs and greece and dionysus and debauchery and Pan and apollo and challenging gods and losing and winning and secretive & lustful and wanting to fuck and permanent erection (piss boner) - very interesting.
also very interesting is the PT Barnum effect ... basically .. .have you ever had a boner? have you ever wanted to have sex with many women? have you ever flirted with a woman? h ave you ever challenged someone bigger than your own size (like David?) - who knows. Ram. Aram. Random Access Memory. bighorn ram. it was in a shooting game i played on hunting game on computer a long time ago.
gods .. shoot downs. being destroyed. FLAYED Alive. the Flaying of Tarsus. hubris. arrogance. humility. cold. hot.
there is this fucking idiot laughing in the library. this fucking tool idiot. he is in the library and he laughs like a clown. i wish joe pesci were here so he can jam and smash on the guy. but he’s not so if i do it. in front of the cameras. it will pr;obably get me into some sort of toruble. who knows. anyway.
iris murdoch. philip roth. thomas pynchon. all these people. time passes. pynchon delillo still alive still kicking.
birth days were the worst days. slowly getting over the doldrums. what is it called. weighing yourself down . idioms. expressions. the power of idioms. lists of idioms. lists of ethnic slurs. lists of sociological terms. lists of profiling terms. lists of lists. endless lists of words and referrents and objects and feelings.
Jimmy hendrix park seattle. the numbered avenues. Ballard. the draw bridges. the seaplanes. the boeing. the SAM . art museum. the fountains. the trees and parks. the lake washington. the lake union. the puget sound. the alaskan viaduct project. 4 months. all the little pieces of seattle. the 4 seasons. the goldfinch bar. the bars. the loyal inn. mark matthews park. he was a presbyterian minister. here we are. some guy still laughing so i told him to shut up bro that hes fucking annoying. then another guy joins in... he does a little goat laugh. so i fucken do a sheep laugh too. fuck these guys. play whack a mole all day.
seattle is amazing. minus these idiots in it. can someone genocide them. or get rid of their bodies tonight and feed them to the orcas k25 and k13 ? .. k13 is dead. k25 is getting skinny.
The latest official count is 77 orcas among the three pods. That reflects the death of K-13, a 45-year old female named Skagit.
the count of orcas is 77 orcas. i wanted a 77 or 70 foot yacht. i wanted to call it Septuagint. there are al ot of 7s in the bible.
oh Gosh. oh man. david reigned for 7 years 6 months. 76. 67. 6s and 7s. 42s. wow. and 7 male descendants of Saul hung before the lord. 7s. the 7 times 77 forgiveness.. yesterday the sevenfold punishments in leviticus. i like stuff like this alot.
7 for all mankind - i remember such days. the time is 12:12 Pm on 10/9/2018.
who knows these things ... the Lord is playing on all tracks concurrently. im less annoyed. i see all these defective personas in one day. i dont know why. but its getting better. people getting chin checked. a lot of people getting tagged.
the rats are getting smashed on worldwide. Meng. etc etc. interpol. this that. internationally. locally, domestically. the Great Awakenings. when we enter into slumbers and turn into zombies turn into psychic vampires. we need to clean the algae every once in a while or else there’s just bodies and piles of bodies of humans. we dont really care about the dead of the past. we really dont’ give a shit or dedicate any time to remembering or researching the dead of the past. a list of wars by death toll. largest natural disasters by death toll.
to have faith. to try to pray to God. to say im not here to destroy the catholic church. people say and come up with the worst and weirdest things. if you can only see this writing post you will see i hop around so many places.
a poison dart frog, a dog, a porcupine, a snake, a cow - i’ve been compared to such animals. after a while all the terms of endearment eventually get to me.. its annoying its not cute. people speak they did the worst things to me and im pretty done for trying to recover. maybe i will maybe i wont maybe someone will kill me or ill magically die.. it wont matter - i see that kurt cobain and bruce and brandon and jimmi hendrix theryre all dead and the stars are all dead the “stars” ... revelation says
Revelation 6:13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, like unripe figs
and the woman and the dragon and the red dragon ... and ir ead revelation and imagined myself as satan last year but i dont think so. i think the others are satan becasue they twisted my brains in and out.. and i cant wait for the rest of revelation to be carried out so that i can witness the end of the world. im very tired of how twisted and disgusting things have become.. im not just angry or wrathful.. i would like to actually see the end of the world... i would like to see Jesus im going to try and be ok until that happens. .. and its so sad that people are just.. .its so sad.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+12&version=NKJV
love,
aram krikorian
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Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship
Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.
There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.
Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.
Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.
For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.
So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.
By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.
It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.
Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.
It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.
Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.
I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.
When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.
Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.
The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.
Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.
It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.
My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?
During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.
I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.
Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?
I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.
I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.
I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.
Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.
I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.
By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.
Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.
If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.
Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.
Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.
I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.
So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?
Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.
Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.
I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.
Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?
Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.
Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.
Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.
The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.
Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/
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Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship
Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.
There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.
Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.
Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.
For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.
So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.
By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.
It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.
Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.
It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.
Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.
I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.
When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.
Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.
The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.
Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.
It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.
My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?
During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.
I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.
Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?
I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.
I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.
I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.
Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.
I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.
By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.
Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.
If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.
Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.
Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.
I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.
So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?
Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.
Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.
I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.
Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?
Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.
Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.
Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.
The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/167431371812
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Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship
Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.
There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.
Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.
Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.
For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.
So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.
By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.
It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.
Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.
It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.
Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.
I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.
When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.
Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.
The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.
Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.
It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.
My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?
During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.
I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.
Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?
I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.
I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.
I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.
Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.
I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.
By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.
Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.
If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.
Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.
Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.
I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.
So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?
Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.
Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.
I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.
Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?
Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.
Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.
Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.
The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/
0 notes
Text
Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship
Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.
There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.
Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.
Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.
For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.
So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.
By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.
It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.
Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.
It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.
Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.
I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.
When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.
Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.
The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.
Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.
It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.
My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?
During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.
I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.
Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?
I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.
I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.
I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.
Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.
I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.
By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.
Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.
If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.
Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.
Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.
I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.
So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?
Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.
Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.
I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.
Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?
Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.
Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.
Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.
The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.
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from Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship
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