Dear beloved readers,
I counted the seconds for this day to come so I could finally, finally sit down and talk to you guys. Now that I am actually here, I have to say that a lot of things went down this week that got me thinking a lot things – from the most depressing shit to the most exciting ideas I’ve ever head. It’s that same ol’ beginning of the new semester craziness. You love it, you hate it, you want it to end, you want it to last forever…
The whole way back to my apartment, I had my heart tight in my chest. It was a bittersweet feeling, the same I always have when something is about to end, from birthdays to college vacations. Even though I was crazy excited to go back to my normal life, I missed my crazy New York life terribly. That first night back, I sat on my apartment’s balcony, watched the craziness on the streets and lit up what felt like countless cigarettes, wondering if that was it of my teenage years and New York was my last crazy episode allowed, and that now my life would only allow boring seasons, kinda like the season 5 of every show that they dragged it so much it should’ve never happened – cof cof, Glee, cof cof, Gossip Girl.
Also, I hated the fact that I was on full on teen rebel mode but would still have to wake up on the following morning at 6am, put on my makeup, make myself look as perfect as I possibly could and then go to college and be the great student I aim to be. And no, I don’t have to do those things, those are a mere choices I make everyday. But unfortunately, as much as I love being on full on teen rebel mode, I grew up out of it ages ago. Now I let that reckless persona come back every once in a blue moon when I’ve had at least one Martini and am feeling risky. But more often then not, I am my OCD crazy self that is too worried about being late and missing a single second of my classes and feeling as if I am not doing the best I can do. Because the thing people don’t tell you about college is that no matter how great you were in high school – and I was absolute rubbish in high school –, in college there will be a full class with people just as good as you. No, this is not a general rule, there are those who couldn’t give less of a damn and are there just for the parties, but still, I work weirdly and feel weirdly under the pressure of competition, even though I am very competitive myself.
So that first night felt terrifying and to top that I forgot how awful my water pressure is in my apartment, I procrastinated to unpack my things and realized I didn’t even drink water that day. At some point, when my head hit the pillow and anxiety took over the new beginnings of tomorrow, I worried for a second if I was feeling depressed again. I told myself to hold that thought and wait until I was actually happy to be back. It doesn’t matter how many times I was beyond glad to leave my hometown and go back to my apartment, there are days and days, and somedays I just can’t stand being alone. That is normal, I told myself reassuring.
The days rise brightly and early around here, even though the sun is up in the sky at 6am is not hot enough to warm up the heart of the city during this winter-ish weather. I woke up calmly, got ready and went off to my first day. I saw my friends, I had a great time, my first class straight away was about my final thesis and that freaked me out a little bit, but I was counting each and every second until lunch so I could catch my friends up on my New York adventures. I felt better, less freaked out when I got back home.
But no matter how early the days come, the nights have been coming much earlier around here. It’s not even 5pm and the excruciating darkness is already taking over every inch of the sky, and I live in a busy street which means you can hear people laughing from college bars and random beginning-of-the-semester cheers from my apartment on the 8th floor, even though sometimes I feel like I am isolated in a tower. College students filled with life and joy and excitement – those are usually freshmans or something –, never let me forget that I am not alone in this world. But anxiety did take over, so I did the best thing I could do that cold night, I got on my underwear, I lit up a cigarette in the middle of my living room that is also the middle of my kitchen and danced to “It’s All Right” by Sam Cooke. I swirled and twerked and even did my own moves – I am a shitty dancer, none of them were good. But by the time I was out of breathe, maybe because of the cigarette, likely because of the dance, I was feeling relaxed and happy. And then an idea.
My friends and I were supposed to this get together/happy hour this week to celebrate the semester and start it right, as we always do, and for the occasion I was the one who bought two perfect bottles of rosé. The shitty part of grown up life is that work gets in the way more often then not, so our plans got delayed into the unknown and that made me feel even worse. Listen beloved readers, as much as I loathed my old job, I feel like at times I am going absolutely crazy not doing anything during my afternoons. I am fully aware it’s because I don’t have college assignments to do just yet and that I am going to be so filled with stuff to do so soon that I will die laughing reading this in the near future, but right now, it feels like I am failing in my useless life. So a little frustrated with the situation and with no one at all to be frustrated at, I decided to do the only thing that can calm me down nowadays, as alarming as this may sound now that I am actually writing it, and wanted to pour myself a glass of rosé.
Okay, here is some good advice to all of you who want to live all by yourselves someday. In case you do: Make sure you buy everything you need. Google’s DIYs are tricky and inaccurate most of the time, your neighbor may be a bitch and you may find yourself 100% alone, naked with no motivation of putting clothes on to go out and buy a damn corkscrew. Google will tell you a lot of things, keep in mind that all men are liars and that we are not supposed to trust any “5 minutes hacks/crafts”, Jenna Marbles taught us better. I am a tiny 20 years old with so little body strength I get tired after walking for two minutes, my lungs are bad, my balance is questionable and I am very clumsy, will hit every wall, drop everything – and be out of breath by the time I pick it up – and to top all of that, I am extra lazy sometimes. But I grabbed that bottle, opened Google and even if there was no way, I would make one.
I am a Gryffindor – you can search if you don’t know nothing about my incredibly brave yet so dumb Hogwarts house –, and sometimes, sometimes I just need a challenge with a bunch of dumb, possibly dangerous ideas to fix it – What’s the worse thing that can happen? I always ask myself, later cleaning my whole wood floor because I broke my washing machine or getting electroshocked trying to fix something I claimed I knew how. And with that bottle, it was no different. I tried using a knife and all my body strength – it was useless, broke the cork in half and made a whole mess with it’s little bits that fell apart –, I tried placing it between my legs upside-down and slapping it out with a rubber sole shoe – this one I am pretty sure Google just told me to do so I’d look stupid –, and then I found something about lighting up a lighter under the cork and in one minute, yes one minute – God, Google is good with tricking us with bad advertisement –, it would just pop up. I know nothing about life or chemistry or physics, but I know my way with a lighter and I know they’ve never failed me before. I set there, twisting the damn bottle with that damn lighter on for 20 minutes, burnt myself in the process, nearly burnt my house in the process, and when I started to see the cork rising to the surface, I noticed it’s bottom was falling apart, right into my wine.
I sat back and laughed at myself, thinking of the many metaphors I could do with this story about my adult life that pretty much consists on me being too lazy to just buy a corkscrew, am currently on Cold War mode with my bitchy neighbor so can not borrow hers and how I will take any giving opportunity to do something questionable and dangerous. I could compare it to my failure of a love life, that no matter how many ways I try to open up myself, I ended up drowned in my own past trauma every time. Or some deep shit like how depression works, how it’s one inch in the surface and your whole body falling deep, deep in the wild waters – this case, wine. But beloved readers, the moral here is simple: The minute I noticed the cork was literally melting and that it was already in my wine, I took the back of my eyeshadow brush and I just pushed it in. No, I was not able to remove the cork, which was my goals for many hours that night, but I did get my wine in the end. Yes, it did taste a little bit funny but I was incredibly happy that regardless how long I wasted in every single one of the hacks I found online, just so in the end I had to drink wine mixed with cork leftovers, I felt amazing because I achieved something. As stupid as this whole thing sounds.
Beloved readers, somedays my metaphors suck, even when based on 100% real facts. The truth is I often don’t know what I am doing with my life, even though I have this crazy plans for my future and am so eager to get to them. Also, I’ve never missed New York so much, so soon after just being there. And I also am struggling with the fact that I have been missing every man I’ve ever dated, as stupid and problematic as some of them were. Charlotte has been calming me down though, she sits with me, gives a frown upon look at my cigarettes but doesn’t argue too much on them, she listens to me and she makes me feel better and understood and less alone. God bless all of my friends hearts but Charlotte and I share too many things in common, we are both fashion icons, way too mature for college bullshit and have dreams and aspirations bigger than us. And when I am with her and we are talking and almost planning everything, I have this comforting feeling in my chest, that no matter how many corks I am unable to unscrew in my life, I will always get to drink the wine in the end.
This was a long one, I know I took a while to get to the point and at times you were thinking “why the hell is she on and on about a cork?!”, but sometimes my life gets just like this post, hazy, confusing, frustrating and kinda all over the place. Hopefully next week will be better and smoother. Until then, counting on you guys and my friends to keep me sane during this next crazy semester that I am pretty sure will have me either bald or dead by the end of it, and I quite honestly don’t know which one is worse. In any case, stay out of trouble, but if you don’t – oh my god tell me all about it.
– Your Girl on the Go