Went to Monterey for the weekend. On our way home today.
Monterey is like our Las Vegas–we don’t really eat or sleep and drink too much and stay up late doing wild things that we almost can’t believe or explain to ourselves the next day. It’s just the thing that happens when we are here together. And it’s fun as hell.
Except this time we are also talking long-term, professing powerful feelings, and studying Japanese. And that is a different kind of fun.
Lately I’ve been going out, having dates with my friends. A private party with wine and jazz here, a world-class quartet with a meet-and-greet there. Lunches. Movie nights.
Hanging out is an art, as essential in its beauty, simplicity and fulfillment as air or water. For a time I needed a break. I was over-saturated. But now the climate has changed, and I need to feel quenched, to fill myself as full of friendship and memories as possible.
Like I am preparing for a drought.
~OR~
“The thing about Twilite is you never know how long you’re going to be there.”
-Espy
True. Because sometimes you just stop in for a few post-work beers before heading on to other plans, and sometimes Twilite becomes the plan.
And the thing about my friends right now is: they don’t know that every time we are together, I am fighting back tears.
Because they are just that amazing.
Because I’m going to miss them that much.
~OR~
Do I drink too much? Very well then, I drink too much. I am large, I contain multitudes of reasons for drinking.
Tuesday. I love that the liquor store is still open when I get off work. (All the way ’til 7pm! Way to be, Utah!). I like feeling grown-up for buying Bulleit instead of Jack Daniel’s. I like cradling my brown paper wrapped bourbon in the crook of my arm like a baby on the walk home walk home. I like putting on my PJs as soon as I get home and drinking bourbon with water. I love a long bath with a stiff drink to keep me company and Tibetan take-out. I love closing the blinds, pushing back all the furniture and turning up my sweet new speakers for maximum danceability.
I don’t like working from 6am to 6pm with an hour-and-a-half lunch break that I use to run errands and bike home, where I arrive sweating and immediately begin to dread returning to work.
I don’t like puking in my mouth a little bit on the way to Second Job, because I have stress-induced acid reflux and spit up like a damned baby. Because I ate too fast and then drank water (breaking all the reflux rules!), and because I have developed a Pavlovian response to Second Job that causes stomach cramping and increased bile.
I don’t like feeling that my boss could not be happier to see me go, or rid of me soon enough.
I don’t like crying on desk, having to dry my eyes with tissues and pretend it’s allergies (in November? Really?). Because I’m never sure that I’ve made the right decision. Because breaking up is hard to do, after 5 long years of service. Because I just want a familiar face, a friend, a warm tight hug…but instead there are children screaming and crying, and it pierces my thin skin, and it grates my nerves, and it doesn’t stop.
I don’t like that at all, Friends.
But I do like drinking. And the liquor store is still open.
After The Big Cut I went straight to a party in Sugar House, where some of my most favorite people were dressed up and drinking. I was so excited to surprise them and show them my new hair that I literally could not contain my grin on the bike ride over.
And then they were so excited to see me and there were hugs and kisses and giggles and just basically the best of everything.
Also glowy bracelets:
Anyways, what I mean to say is that I’m always excited to see my friends, even when I am so busy and crazy-anxious and unbalanced that I fall off the friendship wagon and go spinning out into space. That goes for you too, e-Friends. Reads of this blog. I am always delighted to know that you are reading, but I can’t always be a-posting daily.
I guess what I really mean to say is: I’m working on it. Finding balance. And you are important to me.
Just another Sunday, running errands, visiting family. Coping with life the best I know how.
Some days you just have a mood, you know? Like anxiety, or restlessness…anger. Some days you have a black heart, and some days it’s grey, and some days you go to the grocery store and buy milk and toilet paper, everything white and clean.
I work every Saturday and complain almost as often about the fact that I only have three days off per month. Friends will comment covetously of my Tuesday and Thursday mornings spent baking, running errands, cleaning house, listening to music…and I’ll just as quickly ask them what it’s like to have TWO DAYS OFF IN A ROW EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
(Perry Says it’s like having a mini vacation. Huh.)
Sometimes a thing is so funny to me that once it starts being funny it doesn’t stop being funny. For life.
Like when Robby described his AA meetings as “a bunch of people sitting around smoking like animals.”
Or that New Year’s in Spain where I took a hanger out of the hall closet and hung my coat up in the bathroom.
Or there was this one time, with a bowl of cereal…actually I have never successfully told the cereal story without laughing myself to tears. It is just that funny to me, and usually not at all funny to anyone else.
I remember:
-Giant fake sequoias and a rising sense of panic, an urgent text–“I feel supremely un-okay”–and then reassurance, caring
-A long drive that turned out to be so much more perfect than a short one
-Your hand on my leg
-Almost crashing, over and over, but not really feeling scared
-Drinking bourbon straight from the bottle
-Holding each other, frantically, because this was finally real. It was touchable.
-Crying in the bathroom; missing my friends
-3 hours of sleep
-Watching you drink a mug of coffee, black
-A drive that I never wanted to end
-Waiting for you outside the bathroom
-Your hand on my back
-A long lazy lunch
-“Where does he think I’m from?”
-Stealing kisses in the car
-2 hours behind a budget truck (high centered), and absolutely not caring. Being content, just to be there. Just to be near you.
-Skipping a nap and dinner in favor of tall glasses of whiskey
-Being unable to get up off the couch
-A ridiculous party, never-ending laughs, running home, pretending to be asleep
-Piecing together the night before
-Popcorn for breakfast
-Coming home sweaty after a run to your smiling face
-Changing with the door wide open
-Screaming Turkish music, and meeting new people
-Feeling like I ought to live up to expectations; feeling unable to do so
-Being so, so cold all of the time
-Long walks
-A secret spot
-Saving the end of the story for later
-The Giggles
-A night in with mota, wine, and The Tip of the Iceberg
-Waking up earlier
-Talking for hours in bed, and an internal sigh of relief
-Teaching each other
-A complete meal (bet you anything those pancakes weren’t vegan)
-A walk on the beach
-Watching you watch me watch you smoke
-Hanging out, looking at pictures, smoking, talking
-Meeting my twin!
-SLAYING IT at karaoke
-After being so nervous and anxious that I was about to ask to leave
-Because karaoke is infinitely scarier to me than any other performance
-Because you were drunk and instantly so comfortable with me, while I felt uneasy. And guilty.
-Out of my element
-A failed dance party of two
-Your eyes
-A quick drive to the airport, and goodbye for now
* * *
I don’t remember perfection, but I remember everything. The amazing parts, the scary parts, the anxious parts, the hunger, the hangovers. It wasn’t perfect, and I am not perfect. I am real, and so are you, and so is this.
As real as the pain of its absence.
As real as the relief of its return.
little sarah Big World 