letter to a friend: Transgression

Dear Screams,

It is eight o'clock and I am still suffering the effects of last night's revelry. Why did I go to a party full of late 20-somethings and drink like I was one of them? Was I trying to be inconspicuous? I think they probably noticed I wasn't a peer. Don't let the label fool you, "The Kraken" is not the sea monster from Icelandic folklore but instead is a onomatopoeiac warning describing how your head will feel the next morning after drinking it. This is what happens when you are a lonely person accepting invitations to parties from strangers.

Though only time will cure the cruda, I have at least removed the psychological component from this familiar experience by adopting a trick that eases my next day anxiety about possible manifestations of my disinhibition as stupidity, obnoxiousness or offensiveness. During the episode I periodically {about every twenty minutes} check in with my brain with the following survey question: "Are you doing or saying anything you'll regret right now?" If I find that I am, then I stop. If not, then I answer with an emphatic "no". The next morning when I think "oh crap, what the hell did I do"? I can refer to my mental checklist and feel comforted.

So why do I feel so bothered today? Guilt, I think, because I live the same way now that I've lived since I was in college. I have grown up in the sense that my thinking has evolved and my emotional maturity has increased, but life-style wise it's the same old thing. Not by choice. I go out into the world to quell my loneliness, and do this significantly less when I get what I need at home. Still, I would never be a homebody. I am a restless spirit drawn to measured iniquity. These characteristics are sealed in my brain's immutable rock, the progeny of the blank slate, an impenetrable foundation, not innate but formed in the first few years, months, weeks, days, hours or even minutes after and during the birth process. I have to listen to it.

I know, Screams, I promised I would embrace my loneliness, accept it as fate. I am trying, but the night falls so early now and my heart starts to beat like a drum, and then the churning in my chest: I call it the gerbil on a treadmill. It is a physical sensation, not a mental one. I cannot rest or concentrate even on tasks I usually enjoy like painting, knitting or baking. Some projects, like reading, writing and cartooning are less difficult because I can do them while being out in the world and through them I can imagine a world of good friends.

I must get back on schedule. Early to bed, early to rise will keep my flying right. I am planning to do some volunteering and regain my political activism soon. This will also make a difference. The party threw everything out of whack since I stayed up until four and slept until eleven. On the couch. My clothes scattered everywhere across the floor. My head Kracken open. My mental checklist at least releasing me from regret. Living as I did in college. It is not by choice, Screams. Not by choice.

Love, Lara