volume one hundred and seven
why i left the party
📍Written on the notes app of my phone in an Uber and edited after a good few nights’ sleep.
I know I am at the right house because someone is pitching a tent in the front yard when I arrive. This has to be his party. He doesn’t party often, but when he does, he does it right and people want to stay for the whole thing.
I fear he and his partner will be the only people I know. Well, them and his Mum. Two old roommates and one Mum. I know they don’t have a dog, but I hope someone brings one because then I can find myself making conversation with a furball in times of awkwardness.
The walk up the hill is far steeper than I expected. In his true fashion, the invitation to this party was a two-line email with the address and time and reference to “Nothing says turning 40 like throwing a party at your Mum’s house!”
I pause beside the tents, after passing someone in a floral shirt eating salad from a large glass serving bowl, looking like they are waiting to greet another latecomer. I hear the voices inside — a lot more than I expect to hear — laughter and sounds coming from throats that can only be described as “It is so good to see you”. I pull out my compact mirror to see if the steep hill that has produced sweat under both of my breasts and under both of my armpits has made my makeup run. It has not, and feeling like I might feel less self-conscious inside rather than like I am spying on tent-setting and salad-eating, I step inside.
I see the birthday boy right away and right away I know he is overwhelmed by how many people are there. He is very loved. To my right, his partner comes to me with his arms wide and cheek kisses fit for someone you used to share morning coffee with every day while others were already out to work or still slept. Back when five people in a three-bedroom house felt fine, normal even.
I get to catch up with his Mum, exchanging g’days as two people who left Australia at the same age, just decades apart. Then I spy him. One of the five. Another roommate from back in the day, who I thought was in another country and not going to be at this party. Perfect.
The hosts are now not obligated to entertain me and I might not have to spend the night helping clean and serve food just to not let the “Why am I here?” thoughts creep in.
I make my way through the crowded living room — past the band setting up, wow, he really undersold this party in his email — and onto the deck overlooking where I have just travelled from. The view of the park I intend to walk through this weekend is minuscule from up here and I cannot wait to get lost in the trees.
Taking the wine glass I am offered, I grab ice from the esky and pour my root beer into it. I look around as I do so, trying not to be too obvious or appear as out of place as I am main-charactering myself to be. I know I’ve met most of these people before because I never forget faces. But I don’t know their names, what they do, how long I’ve known them, what one of the very few events the birthday friend planned that I would have met them. There weren’t many. He was the sensible one, two whiskeys and good conversation by the fire pit was his sense of a party. All the while I tried to slow myself down and immerse myself into chatter more sophisticated than I felt whenever this happened. But my alcoholism would never let me. “You can try and drink slow,” it would tell me. “But once you get a taste for me, I am going to change your mind and you know it”.
That was then and this is now and now I have a warm root beer trying to cool me with two ice cubes in a wine glass as I sit with the third roommate and his two friends, who I learn were the roommates before me that I have heard so much about.
I impress myself with the conversation flowing freely, asking questions more than talking, and following up with wanting to know more. When someone says “That’s a good question,” I think “I never would have asked it if you met before I got sober”. Then I listen for the answer and comment accordingly and love that I can remember what we are talking about as the chatter swerves and journeys.
This happens again and again. With some people, I pause and say “I think we have met, were you at the 2017 Christmas Party?” and then we can laugh and both feel like we forgot. But I never forget faces, even when I was drinking, I just forget everything else.
It is the best party I think I have ever been to. Certainly in my sobriety, maybe ever. Here we all are, dancing to a live band who are covering everything from Daft Punk to Justin Timberlake to Pink Floyd to Robyn. I am barefoot on the soft, golden living room carpet, my toes dig in as we sing-yell along to all the words in a packed room of people all dressed in fur and sequins found in the tub of fun clothes one guest brought with them. All I can think over and over is “I’m so glad I’m here. I’m so glad I’m here. Life doesn’t get any better than this. I never want this night to end.”
Each time a party guest asks for a sip of my drink (now water) I oblige, hand it to them happy to help them stay hydrated, and slip away to get another fresh glass. The fear that a trace of booze on their lips or other party fun things on their tongues might make its way to me perhaps a tad overboard, slightly irrational, totally ridiculous — especially given my many years of expert experience telling me otherwise — but I cannot risk anything making its way to me because I cannot risk liking it.
The band take a break and most of us step back onto the patio for air, while others rummage the clothing bin for a new costume for the next set.
It doesn’t happen right away, but it happens. I share a kiss on the patio. Right before we lock lips, I see the night skyline beyond the park I admired earlier, now lost in the dark and the city behind it, reflecting off the water. The boats and the bridge are lit up right before my eyes, right before I close them.
As soon as I pull away I realise… that kiss may as well be the water glass. I excuse myself and rush to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out with soap in fear and panic. Like that will do anything. It acts as more of a punishment than anything, just like when I was a child.
How could I be so irresponsible? I call an Uber home and slip out while everyone begins to dance again. As my car pulls up and I open the door to reveal a ceiling covered in strobe lights, I hear the band lead the guests in the happy birthday song.
Lovely reader, tell me about a song you danced to recently.
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here are three things I struggled with this week:
🕰️ There… is… not… enough… time.
📖 I got a book from the neighbourhood library exchange and it is a bunch of short stories and essays and it goes like this: cute story (so I keep reading) then truly fucked up story (so I think what the heck, but that other one was cute so let’s see what is next…), then another cute story (yay!) then some stuff that makes me realise why it was donated… so let’s just say I am unsure if I will finish it but also I will.
🎤 The live recording of my podcast didn’t work. The show was great, but for reasons beyond my control, the recording had issues. I have made peace with the fact, and am not letting this struggle take away that it was one of the happiest days of my life and also one of the proudest.
here are three blessings from this week:
👗 We held a clothing sale over the weekend and I had a story for every item of clothing I sold and I love that. I think it was my way to say goodbye.
💋 Drag bingo.
🐶 Neighbourhood dogs.
here are three goals for the coming week:
🆓 I am off travelling for a wedding by the time you read this. So the goal is to be pausing on as much structure as possible and enjoying spontaneity.
💌 Sort my last stack of old letters and cards. This past weekend was “Oh yes, I will keep this handmade birthday card from my boyfriend when I was 6 years old. Oh no, I will not keep this birthday card from my boyfriend when I was 27 years old”. It might surprise you which one of these had googly eyes attached.
🧳Just one thing off my moving-overseas-becoming-a-digital-nomad to-do list at a time.
pics or it didn’t happen: there are no new photos on my phone this week so swipe on this post that was published this week, for a surprise
I love you. Now I am off to dance all night at the wedding reception, to a band I used to see every single Thursday night with the groom and our friends.
LD
xoxo
Wonderful writing as always Lauren ✨