It’s been a while since we’ve spent time together.
Actually, it’s been almost a year. And I have to be honest: I don’t really miss you at all.
Sorry, not sorry.
I met you when I was a teenager, during the age of independence and freedom of expression. The age of excitement and of fear. The age of lust and of loneliness.
I was incredibly shy as a child—to the extreme. I remember refusing to talk at primary school, and I remember the other kids gathering around me, asking me repeatedly to say something.
Say something…
Say something…
Say something…
But I didn’t. My mouth was glued shut and I was stuck inside my head, alone with my thoughts.
I believe they now call it “selectively mute,” but at the time, I guess I was just the weird kid who didn’t talk. I was shy at secondary school too, but I made friends and I spoke, quietly though and only when spoken to.
When I first met you, I was still in school, and I was a bit intimidated by you. Some of my friends started to spend a bit of time with you, but I didn’t want to join in.
It wasn’t until I was at college that I met you for real. I went into town with some friends and you tagged along. Spending time with you made me feel so much more confident and outgoing. I felt like I could show my true self when I was with you, like you gave me validation to be my real, weird self.
So, we started hanging out.
Our friendship lasted years. You took me to parties I never would have gone to alone. You encouraged me to speak up in situations where I would have been afraid to in the past. You came with me to meet boys, and you gave me strength when I broke up with them.
However, you had a dark side. Sometimes you brought out the worst in me. And if I was with you for too long, I would come away exhausted in body and mind, as well as anxious or depressed.
I made some questionable decisions when I was with you. And our friendship was full of conditions, for example, I could only be friends with people who also got on well with you, who also enjoyed your company.
But to be honest, as I got older, I realized that being with you wasn’t good for my mental or physical health. You sucked so much energy out of me, like a vampire.
Then I got pregnant.
My unborn child became my priority, and I decided not to see you during my pregnancy. My baby was born, and as we drifted apart and I had my second baby, I ended up hardly seeing you at all for years.
That confidence and strength you once gave me? Well, my children gave me that too, without any of the conditions and without any of the darkness.
I continued to spend time with you now and then. I wonder now if it was because I wanted to, or because I felt like I had to. We had some nights out with friends, but those eventually faded away and then I just saw you on special occasions, in small doses, and never for too long.
I last spent time with you last New Year’s Eve. We had one moment together, and it was nice, but I didn’t feel connected to you anymore.
This year I did a lot of things without you.
I started a vintage clothing project, and took part in a number of markets. I even helped to organize one. I started writing my book. I made new friends and started to really believe in myself.
However, the real test was when I attended a poetry reading one night. I went on my own and read three of my own poems, out loud, in front of people. And I did it without you.
So, after nearly a year, I have decided that’s it:
Goodbye alcohol. It’s been wild.
But I want to look after myself now. And I don’t need you anymore.
~
“When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me” ~ Mary Karr
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