This year was the crazy one. THAT year.
The one that you want to tuck into a box, put in your closet, and forget. And then miraculously only that part of your closet catches on fire and only that box gets burned. But then I would have to forget that I have never cried, laughed, or loved more.
That I stand a completely different person exiting this year, than I did entering it.
That I stood in front of a boy and willed him to love me. Then I had to will myself to let him go. That I stayed on every dance floor until the music stopped. That I memorized the way this city shines at night and the soundtrack my car speakers provided. That I let myself feel. That I let myself feel vulnerable. That I learned that we have to love certain people from a distance because we love ourselves more. That I bought a new vehicle. That I explored forgotten areas of Texas and fell in love with the hues of blue and green that can only be found here. That I learned the magic of privacy. That I finally learned the song the Texas breeze sings. That I stood in a ghost town completely alone. That I discovered my love for adventure. That I had to rely totally on myself. That I embarrassed myself and lived to tell it. That I made mistakes and people loved me through them. That I was able to find the little silver linings of humor in the dark days. That I cussed too much. That I perfected my just rolled out of bed look. That I was pushed completely out of my comfort zone and each instance turned out to be nothing that I could have imagined. That I ate way too many crab rangoons. That I made people laugh when I didn’t feel like laughing. That I gave a few chances too many and it showed that I still dared to hope. That I wanted to believe the best of certain people and it taught me to believe the best of my self. That the love I share with my parents took these losses, wins, lessons, experiences, and observations – duct taped and gorilla glued them back together and sent me right back out into the world.
This life is like nothing that I ever imagined at 7 with my glasses, which I didn’t need and made me look like Harry Potter. Or at 13, with awful awful awful bangs that I thought made me look like Hilary Duff. Or at 17, with aqua rubber bands in my braces.
It’s never what you think it will be. Because all we are able to really do is steer the wheel. Choose a street blindly and hope for the best. There are no lights to shine the way. Only yourself. The flickering light in the driver’s seat. And then the street dead ends on you. Anyway, it’s always a hell of a ride.
I wrote this when I was twenty-five.
I was fired from a Texas-based grocery store for attendance at 24. I was on my last strike and I spent the entire night fighting and crying with my now ex-boyfriend. I missed my alarm. Last strike and I was out.
Several days later I turned 25. Three days after my birthday, I’d spent the day celebrating my birthday with my then boyfriend, and drunkenly told him to fuck off causing him to actually fuck off and leave the bar. I don’t really remember what caused me to get pulled over. I know I didn’t hit anything with my car. I might have been on the wrong side of the road. My memories of this night are in bits and pieces. One piece flashes and looks like I was in some type of alley way with my car, but I do remember my heart dropping into my stomach and the red and blue lights. I remember my then boyfriend was still texting me to continue arguing over the phone. And I wrote back, I have to go, I just got pulled over.
This was me fucking off.
I was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated. I bombed the Field Sobriety Test, I never watched it when my lawyer received a copy for the recording. I blew double the legal limit. I spent the night in jail drunk and crying. Calling the wrong people to bail me out. Dehydrated and with the worst hangover/headache of my life, my boyfriend picks me up. He hands me water as soon as I get into the car. It was like coming up for air. I scarf down my Wendy’s meal like I haven’t eaten in days. I spend the night in my boyfriend’s arms unable to recognize myself. I face my parents in the light of day.
I go with my boyfriend to get my car out of the tow yard and to hire a lawyer. The lawyer tells me, “you’ve made your defense for me very difficult.” All I felt was guilt and loss and like a major fuck-up. And I was guilty. All the evidence pointed to it because I was guilty. I had been driving drunkenly. So, although my whole life was about to change in a major way, in a way it felt like not being able to to get out of this, was the proper penance for myself. It felt heartbreaking and RIGHT.
Several days after this, the man I could’ve spent my whole life loving, breaks up with me because I’ve changed too much.
I loved him through his lowest, and at the time it just felt like he couldn’t reciprocate the same for me. I lost something in myself that night. Although, DWIs are so common whether personal or someone you know, it took something human out of me. The last blow in a series of unfortunate events.
I spent that summer following all of the court ordered classes, fees, victim panels, and community service. I spent that summer trying to get my ex back. Jobless and legally not being able to drive, focusing on the wrong things. I spent that summer laying in bed at night wonder, hoping, wishing, praying. I spent that summer watching entire seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and the Walking Dead in one day.
My mother told me I was unrecognizable. Like I said, all of it, took something human out of me. Not just the DWI – all of it. Loss after loss after loss. I took so many L’s and it felt like there were no W’s/Wins on the horizon.
I was convicted 8 months after the arrest.
It was like the ending of the saddest chapter in a heart-wrenching book.
I tell people to stand in their truth.
So –
That’s my truth.
I stood in it.
I am standing in it.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 