Am I going on Friday night?
A simple question, to which I gave a simple answer. My answer wasn't the whole story by any means. I did, however, tell the truth. Not the whole truth because it's a long story, but I no longer lie about myself, my situation, my feelings. Because what's the point? Life's too short.
I said that I might go. But no I won't be giving you a lift, because I need my freedom to just go whenever I need. And I don't need to be reminded of myself from that other time.
Is it because you're worried that you might want to drink again?
God no. I never want to drink again, even though I know that old daemon will be waiting at my shoulder all my life for the time when troubles come, with a full bottle open ready in his claws. It's not about being afraid of temptation in those kinds of social situations, it's more about the difference in the experience of them now that I'm not drunk. At best, I'll have a great time. At worst, I'll look around and wonder why I'm there, I'll feel like I'm on the outside again, I'll be reminded of school, of how I didn't fit, how I didn't know the right things to say, the right way to be. I might be able to give space to those feelings, to recognise that they're only feelings as they move through me, or I might not. They might get me in their stranglehold and dysregulate my nervous system for the next few hours, and I might aid and abet them by telling myself the old, unhelpful stories. And if that happens, I might decide that I could have taken better care of myself by not going.
And in between the best and the worst scenarios? How do I feel on a night out with my drinking friends in places where previously I would have joined them in the sparkly slide into laughing oblivion?
The short answer is exactly that, unlike when drunk, I feel.
I feel all the feels. I feel the joy of being well, and out and in company. I feel my usual self-conscious awkwardness at my lack of social skill, my slight difficulty with processing spoken language when there are multiple conversations happening around me. I feel the beauty of being a part of a group of friends, the shared laughs, the smell of cigarettes in the garden under the starlight, old, impervious, witness to all that went before. I feel the memories of all that went before. I feel hiraeth, saudade, emotions for which in English, we have no language...no wonder we have to drink them away. I question whether I made the best of the time before these things were memories, when I inhabited a different body, with other drives and feelings. I realise that I probably did not, and that George Bernard Shaw was onto something when he said words to the effect of youth being wasted on the young.
And I feel my old bad back. What a great anaesthetic alcohol was. And boredom. Quite often at some point in the evening, especially as everyone else becomes intoxicated, I feel bored. I feel like i could be in my softly-lit room, comfortable in bed with my hot water bottle and book. Alcohol gave me staying power. It altered my time perception and an afternoon of drinking could slide into an evening of dancing and I would still be sad and cross and ready for more when the lights went up.
Of course the following morning would bring it's own rewards...the raging thirst, the aching head, the need for coffee, for food, and the realisation that none of those things is going to sort this feeling out, only time can do that. Hangovers never bothered me much; like most women I'm used to carrying on daily life whilst feeling less than great, but drinking dulls not only physical and mental anguish and the experience of the appreciation of strong feelings, but for me it dulls my creative light. It used to take me days to relight that fire, and that feels like theft, like the most outrageous waste of life on earth.
So am I going on Friday night?
I'll know that on Friday I expect. I'll sniff the air outside, and read the old bones, is it an expansive, extroverted, outside kind of evening out there? Or is it a quiet, introverted, contracted indoors one? It's simple, really.
