tell her i said the love was real

I threw up all over the floor of my biggest crush’s living room when I was nineteen. His parents’, actually, on the first night we hung out alone.

It was probably the six shots of vodka I did immediately prior. And the food I refused to eat the entire day because I was “saving my calories.” And the nerves, and the fact the only way I had learned to calm them was with some sort of drug. Maybe, too, the manic state I was in but didn’t understand at the time. No one did. Not even my psychiatrist.

I only saw her when I was depressed.

Now I’m older and less wise and I don’t “believe in labels” because I’m so grown up and over them but if I had to stick one on myself, it would say, “trying.”

I was trying then, too. Just differently.

I ended up dating that boy, by the way. Very seriously. For years. First impressions are laser quests.

Social media didn’t have the chokehold on us then like it does now, and our brains weren’t quite full rot at that time. At least… not from a screen (see above: six shots of vodka back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-you get it). Phones were for love notes from one boy or maybe a few who didn’t know about each other but it wasn’t DM request hotline dick pic central.

Simpler times for twenties then.

Except for the Adderal and the alcohol and the blackouts.

So simple.

Less lonely, even if parties were thrown because there was nothing else to do after Shakespeare; university is a small town in itself but small towns have small scales.

Less lonely, even if every other week a family friend was snatched into jail for possession of something or another.

Less lonely but all a binge blur.

There is nothing I miss about it, but I would hug that girl I was tight when she flounced onto the lap of another boy she could manipulate and wrapped her arms around his neck and asked where his Malibu was and wondered aloud if he’d invite anyone else over.

I would tell her she’d spent more than enough time buzzing in the tanning bed, and that boy who claimed to know Jesus Christ during the day and drove nails into His hands with unwanted fingers around her neck would one day become famous and she’d feel nothing and laugh.

Of course, she’d say. Of course.

Everything happens for a reason is obnoxious and stale but unfortunately it doesn’t make it a lie.

That girl will one day look at her kids and know what not to do. Mistakes are a promise, but experience is a mother’s shield.

I saw that first boy in the supermarket on another continent and his eyes lit up. There was nothing to say, but the understanding was there: Simpler times, still stupid love, forgiveness without words is a welcome flood.