Well, it's 11:30 p.m. and I AM GOING TO POST TODAY. Yes, I am. To that end, and in keeping with the last entry, I think I'll post something I started writing a few months ago about the difference of my life now compared with three year to four years ago. (The most obvious difference? That it's 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night and look at me, I'm updating my website!)

I've been thinking a lot lately about how different my life is now than it used to be. I think I've been going through a pretty difficult transition period, but without realizing it. It hasn't been one of those rite-of-passage transition, like the graduating-from-high-school transition or the living-alone-for-the-first-time or first-real-job transition. Those are pretty standard and easy to spot. This transition has been more subtle, but equally confusing. I don't have a clever hyphenation for it, either.

You know what it is, honestly? It's a social life transition.

To explain, I think I have to give a little (okay, a lot) of background information.

For many people, I think college is a period of time where it is basically acceptable (if not almost expected) to party. By party, I mean drink copious amounts of alcohol, possibly smoke weed, and maybe even experiment with heavier drugs. That's what TV and movies tell us, right? Hanging out at bars, clubs, parties - that's what you do when you aren't in class. You party. You smoke cigarettes. You do stupid things that you are embarrassed about later. You do stupid things that make your friends laugh at you for years. You make friends that you love so so much and then later realize were never really your "friend", by definition. You do stupid things that you intensely wish you hadn't done, but that you have to live with anyway. You have lots, lots, lots of fun, but you can only remember 15% of it the next day. Thank God.

Everyone has their own story, how they handled the huge responsibility of being of legal age to drink alcohol. Some people don't drink at all, ever. Some drink only occasionally. Some drink so much that it's hard to stop. My story, like yours, is complicated and dependent on many factors that came together in a certain way to make me who I am right now.

I first learned to drink when I was in AmeriCorps. It was just a weekend thing, and it depended on who was in town in Charleston, and who was out of town on various projects. In the beginning of the year, when I first moved out there and the whole AmeriCorps experience began, I went out to a bar (I wish I could remember the name - it was on King Street) with Mark, Adam, and Shajuan, and some other people that must not have been very important. Mark ordered pitchers, and got me a pint glass. An hour and a half later, I couldn't feel my lips, the song "Carolina in My Mind" made me cry, and I was so intensely happy that I can still feel it. God, I had so much fun with them. That year I learned to take multiple shots of tequila, I learned how to drink and drink and drink and not puke, I learned how to dance like no one was watching in a bar full of people who might have been watching (but who should have just been dancing themselves). I learned how to wake up in the morning and brush off the feeling of discomfort and embarrassment, because chances were that everyone else was just worried about what silly thing they had done the night before anyway. That's how it went, pretty much the whole year, at least one night out of the weekend if not two. Fun times.

A few years later, when I moved back to Lubbock after being totally miserable in Austin for a semester, I didn't drink for at least eight months. I lived at home with my parents, trying to figure out what to do next. One night my friends Jennifer and Tonya invited me to Hub City Brewery, and even though I was feeling incredibly anti-social, I decided to go. I had a drink. Then two drinks. Suddenly, I started to feel better. Comfortable. Happy, even. After my third drink, there was no looking back. I went to work hung over the next day. We went back to the bar a few nights later. From then on, I was at Hub City every Thursday, and sometimes Monday and Tuesday, for close to two years.

Pretty soon, for every night of the week in Lubbock, I could name which bar the scene was at, and what the drink specials were. Proof? Sunday was Texas Cafe (known as The Spoon to most), where Sunday Night Jam took place, and we drank buckets of Lone Star on the cheap. Monday nights were John Sprott at Hub City, 99 cent pints and $1.50 shot specials every hour. On Tuesdays, DG Flewellyn played at Hub City, and it was Vodka night - Martinis for $2.00 - and we could walk across the street to Clousseau's (later respelled as Klusoz, to make it easier for the drunks when they signed their checks, I suppose) for jazz open mic night if we felt so inclined. Wednesday were the rare night that not much happened, so we'd go to the Recovery Room at the Lubbock Inn. Thursday nights were always, always, always at Hub City for Whiskey River night - whiskey and coke for $1, Plain Brown Wrapper for a good time. Friday and Saturday nights were generally happy hour at Einstein's, and live music somewhere in the Depot District - Emma's for a while, then it was usually Einstein's, Moose Magoos, or Klusoz, and later Lone Star Oyster Bar (O-Bar for short) on 34th was the place to be.

Exhausting, isn't it? No wonder I was always broke, always hung over, and always behind on my laundry. From a distance, it would almost seem that I had a drinking problem. Hmm. Interesting.

To be honest, for about a year of that time, I was incredibly happy. I had friends that I had fun with. I looked forward to whatever was happening next. I learned that I love live music. I met new and interesting people every week. I kissed new and interesting people every week. I even managed to function in my daily life - I quit the job that I hated and found a job that I loved. I kicked the roommate out that I hated and met the roommate that I still love to death. It took me a while to realize that although I was having an insane amount of fun at night, I was slowly but surely avoiding responsibilities during the day, like paying my phone bill or balancing my checkbook or eating vegetables and drinking water or taking out the trash. When those worries got me down, though, there was nothing left to do but a shot a Jagermeister, you know?

Then came the realities of living that kind of lifestyle. There were friends of ours that died in a drunken car accidents. There were incredibly stupid decisions made that changed peoples' relationships and lives. There were moments that I thought "I promise myself that I won't let myself regret this moment later," and those are the things I regret the most. (I knew I would then, but I didn't want to admit it to myself.)

That's when I became increasingly unhappy. I started making small, incremental changes. I didn't give up drinking altogether, because that would have been impossible, I think. I just slowed down, almost unnoticeably at first. It took a while for things to change. It took months, years, even. It took a while for me to realize that being out of control just wasn't that fun anymore.

I stopped there, because - hey, what happened next was less about the Fun and more about the Growing Up part of life. I met Brad. We moved to Austin. I stay home most weekend nights now, happy to hang out with my BF and my cats and my cute apartment and with my friends, watching movies or hanging out, occasionally drinking a few beers or a bottle of wine (and even more infrequently taking too many shots of Jack, but I forgive myself for that one.) It's weird - sometimes I stop and think, Man - am I not cool anymore? Am I Fun Bobby now?

Tara and I talked a few weeks ago (finally, I know) and I told her how I feel un-Fun sometimes, as if the Fun part of my life is over, as if Fun means Drunk. She broke it down for me real quick. (She's a doctor, the woman does not mince words.) "Look, Lucy," She said, "From my point of view, you are in a way better place than you were a few years ago. You have a cool job. You have a great boyfriend. You got out of Buttock, again. Chill out."

And you know, she's right. I can add a few more things to that list, things that I am super proud of, things that the Born Organized may laugh at - but for an Artiste, these things are an accomplishment: I balance my checkbook now. I pay the bills on time. I have a savings account, insurance, a full-time job, the world's best boyfriend, a purple armchair. I have a website that I designed myself. I write, not as much as I want to or as much as I should, but still, I do. Our house is clean and cute and the laundry is almost always in process. I saw Dolly Parton in concert last week. I'm going to California for Christmas to visit MJ & Bruce. I haven't mastered my email or calling people back yet - but I promise I'm working on it.

So, yeah. It's not as thrilling as that feeling I used to get, standing in shower on a Friday evening, thinking about which outfit I was going to wear, whether or not I would cover myself in glitter, who would be waiting at the bar when we walked in, what song the band would play at my request, what incredibly Fun things were about to transpire that I couldn't predict ahead of time. Someday I'll figure out what's going to replace that anticipation in my chest. For now, I'm happy with Netflix and Shrimp tacos on a Friday night. Rock.

Lucy loves you |