Champagne Supernova

I'll never forget; I've written about this before, at the beginning - April 2020, I was so drunk at 5pm, that while cooking eggs I missed the edge of the pan repeatedly and the eggs oozed all over the stove top. I held a margarita in my hand, number four. My roommate comes in at some point. "Do you really only have eggs and champagne in the fridge?" At the time, I still had a bottle of champagne from some celebratory event that had, obviously, been meant to be celebrated earlier in the year. Maybe my birthday. Who really knows. Who really cares.

On the back stoop, I cried and my roommate asked me if I was okay. This was a different time in April 2020, and I wanted to air quote "Okay", like Chris Pratt does in Parks and Recreation. 'Am I "okay"?' I wanted to stay calmly, while clearly detonating. I opened the text from my sister, the one where she told me she would never forgive me. I read that long paragraph text over and over again. I was stuck to it like it had talons, and opening it again and again was like self-harm. I started telling myself it was okay to start drinking at 3pm. I went down to the corner store and bought supplies to make fabulous dinners, no more eggs. As it turns out, you can definitely f*ck up a steak dinner. The margaritas sloshed around in my glass, and I held it up to the endless sun. A toast to the endlessness of loneliness and regret.

So why did you start writing, this prompt asks. Maybe I should get to that. I sat down at my little kitchen table, in my little apartment, in April 2020, and responded to the Challenge of the Month for Prose. I wrote about running from who I am, and at the same time, hoping to run right into my own arms. I begged my sister for forgiveness while lamenting her selfishness. I was at a crossroads, and writing started putting the pain in perspective.

I sat in my little room in my little apartment and got drunk and wept. I didn't have a boyfriend, I was alone in my apartment with only my lame roommate for company. We interacted as little as possible. I started writing copiously; finding Prose, I think, honestly saved me. I ordered my sister wedding gifts from her registry with little thanks. Half my problem was being jealous she had found someone, someone who loved her unconditionally. I would never have that. She had picked her new family over me, to boot. I later told a therapist what I had done to make her so upset, and she laughed. "I was expecting bottles being thrown," she said. What you did was not bad. I open what she said in my head often, like a tab I want to keep permanently in my mental browser.

I started writing because I was in so much pain, I had little choice but to pour it out. I can remember getting my first 'like' on Prose in April 2020, and I felt the need to keep producing content, to keep pouring it out, just like the margaritas that went so smoothly down my throat. Here, I could find redemption. Here, I could forgive myself.

Writing is like one of those exercises for children, where they have to put the correct shape into the correct slot. With writing, I can match what I felt to how I currently feel. It's a catharsis of sorts, putting the pieces together, making sense of the many shapes my mind takes.

I usually write something and then think: wow, slow your roll, girl. This is too much. But maybe that's my allure. I pick up my journal when I feel most like screaming and start writing. I want to be authentic, and just maybe, someone will think: me, too.