But be careful when you finally get happy. Because you can become greedy for the one thing you don’t have.
I missed drinking. This new world was grand, but I didn’t feel complete without that foamy abandon. I thought about drinking all the time. If only I could drink again, then I could lose myself to this handsome stranger and not be hobbled by my own nagging insecurities. If only I could slurp down those pisco sours like the other students at the Spanish school, I could let foreign words spill out of my mouth like divine prophecy instead of being so scared to speak in Spanish that I ducked eye contact. I was 27 years old, and I had everything—except the delicious communion of two beers, maybe three. I wanted so badly to dip a toe in that river again. Dip a toe, or maybe fall in.
My fever grew stronger, and I began to itch for the drama of drinking. You know what I miss? A hangover. You know what I want? A night I regret. My shins covered in eggplant bruises, some unshaven backpacker at the book depot, his hands all over me.
Three months into my trip, Ecuador qualified for the World Cup for the first time in history, and I didn’t give a rip about soccer, but I needed to celebrate. A party broke out in the square. I cracked open a 20-ounce beer, took a swig, and felt a loosening that traveled down to my toes. Two hours and two beers later, I was crazy-dancing to Shakira, the Spanish-language version, on the front patio of my lodge alone. Fuck judgment. Fuck discretion. I was back.
When I returned to the States, I struggled to explain to my friends why I had started drinking again. After all, not much time had passed since I explained to them why I quit. But I told them I was healthier now. I would be careful. My friends mostly nodded and tried to figure out which reaction would be supportive and which would be naive. “People come in and out of sobriety all the time,” I said, and as we rambled into our late 20s, these were the bumpy roads we had to navigate: Marriages fail, lesbians start dating men again, dreams turn out to be the wrong dreams.
A few weeks later, I had another blackout. This time in front of 300 people.
I HAD BEEN hanging out with a trio of comedians, and their ability to extemporize dazzled me. Each time they unhinged their subconscious, hilarity fell out. When one of them asked me to perform at an event he was hosting, I wanted to be bold enough to join them. Take a chance. Risk failure. As Elliott Smith sang: “Say yes.”
So I said yes, but to what? I had no improv skills and couldn’t play an instrument. We settled on what we called a “Drunken Q&A.” I would get buzzed, and audience members could ask me anything they wanted. Easy, right? I had no idea hundreds of people would show.
I also didn’t expect the guy I’d been seeing in Dallas to come. Lindsay and I had been dabbling in a relationship for two weeks, long emails and after-hours phone calls, and I was wrestling with how serious we should be. I liked him, but did I like him enough? He surprised me that night—driving three hours to watch me perform in Austin, a grand gesture that made me nervous and spazzy. I was excited he wanted to be there but worried I couldn’t match his enthusiasm, or the adoring way he looked at me, and the answer to this pinwheel of anxiety was to drink. A lot.
By the time the show started, I was stumbling across the open grassy area, stopping people who passed. “Have you met my new boyfriend?” I asked, one hand in his and another around a cup of wine. “He’s cuuuuuute.”
I made it to the stage soon after, and people asked their questions. But the only part I remember is telling a very disjointed story about Winnie-the-Pooh.
When I woke the next morning, I felt shattered. I’d spent the past two years on a path of evolution—but here I was, crawling back under the same old rock. Lindsay and I walked to a coffee shop, where a guy on the patio recognized me. “Hey, you’re the drunk girl from last night,” he said, and my stomach dipped. “You were hilarious!”
I’ve heard stories of pilots who fly planes in a blackout, or people operating complicated machinery. And somehow, in this empty state, I had stood on a stage, opened my subconscious, and hilarity fell out.
I turned to my new boyfriend, to gauge his response. He was beaming. “You’re famous now,” he said, and squeezed my hand.