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I toilet trained myself as a two year old child because my parents were too hungover one day to take me to the bathroom. This was by no means a common occurrence in my childhood (until I became a teenager and really gave them a reason to drink). It was also, possibly, the last time I was the only sober person in a room full of drunkards.

 

As I grew up, instilled with liberal philosophies, a sense of accountability and an ever-growing taste for scotch, I found ages that I liked to stay at. I was thirteen for five years and eighteen for six. Any age that has symbolized pure and adulterated fun to me has become ingrained on my birth certificate and liver.

“Why won’t you grow up?” is a phrase said to me many times. Almost as frequently as “She does not play well with other girls” and “Would you like to make it a double?”

Rather than conjure a witty remark or actually think about Why I Don’t, I have simply thought of Why I Should and had another sip. It has worked well, so far. My sense of fun has always adjusted well with my curiosity to learn.

 

Aren’t aging and fine wine comparable? I am sure that is no coincidence.

 

At around twelve hours, thirty-seven minutes and about eleven seconds into Detox Day One, I decided to go to a bar.

“HA!” My sensible friend mocked me. “Let’s have a drink to celebrate that I am right.”

“No,” I corrected. “I am going to go and not drink.”

There was a sea of empty faces and a wave of questions along the line of “So, what will you actually do there?”

I decided that I was wrong. Staying sober cannot last if I stay at home and act like a child. It will drive me to drink out of sheer boredom. And who wants to be the girl drinking alone in her bedroom? I don’t. Again.

 

(Aside: If you ever want to watch comedy, watch drunk people while you are Stone Cold Sober. Old episodes of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” will no longer be my go-to entertainment.)

 

Apparently alcohol dilutes caffeine. I felt the bar, after drinking eight Diet Cokes, more buzzed than if I had drunk Rosie O’Donnel’s body weight in vodka. It was either excitement from caffeine, excitement of knowing that I would not have a hangover, excitement that I had successfully completed Day One of my goal or someone had spiked my drink and I was to obsessed with my hot pink heels to notice.

I sat on Facebook at midnight, a rarity for me as I am usually doing very different things to either faces or books at that hour, and talked to friends. I thought that everyone must have decided to detox also, but alas, they were all drunk.

 

“I want to have sex with you right now,” a onceupona2006 chatted to me. And they say romance is dead. Damn alcohol.

Onceuponaprobablyyeserday, I would have jumped at such an easy offer. Not because I am easy, no, no – no one will ever understand the attributes necessary to make me say “Yes” quickly. And it isn’t alcohol – it is because I have always been an opportunist. I always figure that I will regret the things that I don’t do, not the things that I do. The things we do are lessons. The things we don’t do are mistakes. But while I declined his offer without hesitation, I did take time to recall that he was actually worth a revisit. Damn alcohol.

 

When having random sex becomes boring, you try to remember why it was ever enticing. The thrill? Yes. The chase? Yes. The story? Yes and many more positives. But then there are also the things that are not visible to the naked eye. Like The Void.

It is a hard thing to acknowledge that beyond the fun, beyond the excitement, there is a curiosity that may have a sinister reason. Like that the thing you avoided was actually your motivation.

 

Random sex is the antithesis to love. And I have approached both extremes with equal gusto. I don’t know how many twenty nothings have been so in love that it hurts, to actually love someone equal to how much you [should] love yourself. But I have. And I have also lost it and never been told Why. I have had to do that research on my on, feeling like a child in an adults world. The curiosity has led me to some weird places [and beds] and always to a lesson, never a mistake. But every lesson, no matter how significant, has ever mirrored the lesson of love. They are merely stepping stones, or puzzle pieces, to appreciating it.

 

My drunk conversations with Mr L.A made me realize how much I wanted to do things to him. But my sober conversations made me realize how much he has allowed me to teach myself. He was a puzzle piece during my time in L.A and a stepping stone to me realizing that being a child and acting like a child are two very different things.

 

It shocks me that I went to L.A, a place obsessed with youth, and was inspired to grow up. It is one of the brilliant paradoxes within the city that fascinates me and I need to understand more about that cities alluring power.

RG has been one-more-drunken-night away from kicking me into Mature Land for the past six years. Of course, when I actually get There, it will still be on my terms: adulthood via more education, ice-cream for breakfast and spending rent money on cigarettes/shoes/stuffed Disney animals I am convinced I need. But they are just the outside things aren’t they? The things that people see. The superficial aspects visible to the naked eye that we feel comfortable with.

 

It is the rest that is hidden. Private. Taboo. Hungover.

 

While I was reclining on the plane, with one hand holding champagne and the other ready to reach for more (it as The Last Hurrah before Detox), I reminisced about the notable and visible changes I felt within myself in just seven weeks. I didn’t get to stay long enough to notice more. But I would be a fool to think that they have stopped. Once you acknowledge a transition, only an idiot would resist it. It would be like reading a book and then burning it mid-chapter. Which, I am also anticipating, could become an occupational hazard for me.

 

Not hungover, I started my day with a [near deadly] seven kilometre run. I then dropped off dry-cleaning, went grocery shopping, handed in shoes to get reheeled. I felt like a real life grown-up.

I returned home to find my adult [and aging] parents sitting on the balcony, drunk, drinking a bottle of wine.

 

Some things never change.  And aren’t a coincidence.

 

Post By Salium.