#fucking scary google for three years so i dont want to keep being that for you unless you can end my all consuming suffering'

[anyatomy]

Deso gerry is still really bad btw. I would hope everyone has grown past surface level character analysis but i dont think im that lucky

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Persephone hasn’t finished a semester of school-wants to apply to law school. Makes sense right? Haha. 

2. WHY is cerberus so generic?? and he's not even a greek breed (or any of the other dogs)?? like was it really that hard to google some greek breeds? they have some big intimidating dogs too, but i guess thats asking too much in her GREEK MYTH comic. also he doesn't even have three heads most of the time? that's his one defining trait besides being scary and still rachel fucked that up. it's so annoying she can't even be bothered to keep basic things correct while still claiming to be an expert.

3. ngl im happy rachel cut out the erotes. just off her depiction of eros she still has very bad ideas about LGBT+ representation (seriously the gay best friend trope post 2013? with eros being obsessed with a woman and the only hint he's bi being a cut scene? wow) so her trying to cover the god of homosexual love, the god who was made via the love of two men, or the deity of intersex/being non gender conforming would be more than awful. they deserve to not be in this heterosexual mess.

4. webtoons promote anyone other than LO and give them the massive marketing campaigns, financial backing, and extra resources and deals RS gets challenge (Impossible)

5. tbh i dont think the height difference is particularly bad (ive shipped couples with even more of a difference) i think it's more the combination of how young she is (and how the comic keeps bringing up its weird but then being like ok now forget about it??), her childish personality ,and the overemphasis on hades' power and experience over her that it becomes an issue. if she was a confident, sexually liberated 700 year old goddess who knew her worth the height difference wouldnt matter, IMHO.

6. see the romance in LO is off because rachel cannot help but make HxP the most powerful, desired, amazing etc characters in the whole story, yet at the same time wants us to pity them and feel like he "deserves" they each other to be happy because she insists they're the "real underdogs" like??? neither LO H or P have any disadvantages, flaws, or conflicts to make them not be together so rachel insisting they're this tragic romance is just like no?? they're just not acting like normal people??

7. All this talk about Hera entering a relationship with Echo really shows how blind Rachel must be to problems in the ships she sets up. As some one mentioned earlier, it’s a rehash of a boss lusting over a worker. But like, Hera also pretty often talks about how lowly she think of nymphs. So not only would she be with a worker, but a worker from a race she actively believes is below her. If this was like a commentary on how Hera isn’t actually that different from Zeus then that’d actually be really interesting, but if she did this, it would only be to girlboss Hera. What a mess

8. i've seen some defenders say "oh there's only critique of LO now that it's popular" like?? no there were people calling it out when it was on discover and rachel was just some tumblr nobody. critique has only picked up more and more over the years because its just that more known and the issues are only getting worse and piling up, not some hate over popularity? im sure there is some critique over that but most of the critiques has been here for /years/, not only in the last few months.

9. ive actually seen some lo stans defend the age gap AS the modern aspect because "age gap relationships are more common now" which 1) no theyre not, and 2) what 19 year old is hooking up with a 2000+ year old man?? like MAYBE if he was actually 45 like he's "mentally" supposed to be then ok MAYBE they have a point, but he's not?? hes literally supposed to be thousands of years older than her in every regard? like literally the argument makes no sense??

10. I feel like Persephone being older would actually be a much stronger point to the story than her being 19/20, and not just bc of the weird age gap. She could still have the same characterization and plot, but it would be better to aide in her frustration of being sheltered/desire to be taken seriously as a goddess and want her freedom, and to actually hammer home demeter's controlling ways, because as it stands now she just looks like an overdramatic, spoiled child with no perspective.

[coolnerdyandalone]

on FIMQ deleting her content and COVID-19 (and a gratuitous larry fic rec)

@freddiesmyqueen first of all queen i hope you’re doing ok although i know some shit must have gone down for you to delete/private list all your videos and i hope you know that the larry community supports you always. Also your talent is TRULY unmatched in the world of video editing - no one makes edits quite like you and that’s why your loss impacts the community so profoundly. 

secondly, i know at least i was hoping to turn to rewatching all of FIMQ’s videos while i’m being quarantined due to the coronavirus. and i’m willing to bet that i’m not the only one. this is a scary time and for people like me who feel profoundly alone right now, the only way for me to calm my nerves and fears is by reverting to the content and community that helped me feel not so alone when i was in middle and high school. For me, that looks like watching FIMQ videos and reading my favorite larry fanfics (which i will also link below).  because of this i thought it might be helpful to repost some links that were posted by @bluemoonlarryandkaylor for a signal boost (if my teeny-tiny account can be called a signal boost). 

link to a google drive with FIMQ videos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ONwfLOd_IYvAL5OUDqDb_LLgQsDpd9il

link to an acct with some FIMQ re-uploads: https://www.youtube.com/user/Joana3961/videos

link to FIMQ vids with spanish subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIouodFhArMkQhOHxv2t2NgxTwl6KvXAT

and now if you want to look at some good old fashioned larry fics that are my ABSOLUTE faves and could 100% be actual novels/movies, keep reading:

And Then A Bit** by @infinitelymint aka the best fanfic ever written (basically larry fakes a relationship for publicity with each other and it could be cannon if you really wanted to hope upon hopes): https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415272/chapters/2972746 (159k)

“We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”

Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts.

(aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

Escapade** by @haydolce aka the Jack McQueen fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034197/chapters/9071932 (146k)

In the grand scheme of things, finding a date for a wedding should be no problem for Louis Tomlinson. He's rich. He's handsome. He's reasonably well behaved. But when the wedding is for his lifelong best friend (and former boyfriend), and is happening in under a month, finding a date for the ceremony and accompanying festivities becomes more of an adventure than he ever could have planned for.

California Sold** by @isthatyoularry​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157680/chapters/11877494 (123k)

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

Bring Your Body Baby (I Could Bring You Fame) by @theboyfriendstagram : https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263903/chapters/9652944 (84k)

Eighteen year old Harry Styles just graduated high school and landed a summer job as a waterboy for his favorite football team. His job description is simple: be ready to hand water and towels to players if needed. That didn’t seem to include Louis Tomlinson though, a twenty-three year old, recently transferred Paris Saint-German player, who seems to like making Harry’s job much more difficult than it has to be.

OR  

A self-indulgent AU that takes place over the summer of 2015. 18 year old Harry hates pining after people he can't have, and 23 year old footballer Louis loves flirting with people even though it never means anything.

Pull Me Under** by @zarah5 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/870766/chapters/1672104 (140k)

AU. As the first British footballer to come out at the prime of his career, it helps that Louis Tomlinson is in a long-term, committed relationship. Even if that relationship is fake. (Featuring Niall as Louis' favourite teammate, Liam as Louis' agent, and Zayn as Liam's boyfriend, who just happens to be good friends with one Harry Styles.) 

You You You** by @isthatyoularry : https://archiveofourown.org/works/846690/chapters/1617212 (137k)

“Infamous boybander leaves club together with unknown,” read the headline. Underneath were pictures of a boy with dark curls, green eyes and very tight pants. They both studied the article for a moment, reading it through quickly. “Is that…?” Louis frowned. That guy almost looked exactly like... "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" "Louis," Niall said, looking absolutely fucked over. "You just fucked the most wanted guy on earth. You just fucked Harry Styles of One Direction."

Or, the one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

Like an Endless Summer by @horsegirlharry : https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365494/chapters/25442085 (87k)

“You just wanna go fawn over Styles as soon as possible,” Zayn grumbles.

“I do not. Plus, he probably got ugly this year. Eighteen is an awkward time...I bet he’s got acne and one of those terrible fuckboy haircuts all the hipsters are getting these days, with the shaved sides? Just watch, the first year we’re gonna get any time together is gonna be the first year I don’t have a stupid crush on him.”

---

Or, Louis is a riding instructor at a summer camp, and Harry is a fellow counselor who he’s been successfully managing his crush on for the last two summers. That is, until Harry shows up this year leveled up and lethal, and all Louis’s formerly perfected veneer of nonchalance melts like a popsicle in the sun.

Three French Hems by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/3064493 (20k)

In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

The Dead of July aka the Marvel Fic by @whimsicule  : https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594570/chapters/7928520 (117k)

Being an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

Gods & Monsters by  @mizzwilde : https://archiveofourown.org/works/2090982/chapters/4550871 (201k)

The instructions were simple: seduce and destroy Harry Styles. Not once did they discuss the option of Louis actually falling in love. So, naturally, that's exactly what he did.

Love is a Rebellious Bird aka LIARB aka the orchestra fic aka dont hum bolero by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162438/chapters/2362331 (135k)

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Don't hum Bolero.

My English Love Affair** by @isthatyoularry​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873962 (19k)

The thing about sleeping with a member of a famous indie band is that the inevitability of having a song written about you is most likely a hundred percent. The second thing is that in the end, nobody's supposed to find out it's about you.

The one where Harry writes a song about his English love affair and Louis sleeps with someone in White Eskimo and all he gets is a stupid song written about him.

Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can’t Lose by @haydolce : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799241/chapters/13366498 (113k)

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

Wild and Unruly aka the Cowboy fic by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723093/chapters/6099611 (124k)

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

For As Long As I Can Remember (It’s Been December)** by @greenfeelings​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051122/chapters/34892210 (128k)

After recovering from a severe accident that causes Harry to lose his memory of three years, he moves to London to start his life over as a star chef. Little does he know that when he falls in love with Louis at first sight, it’s not the first time they meet.

Featuring an unintentional game of hot and cold, Harry chasing memories that won’t come back, Louis burying himself in work to try and forget what he can’t forget, Liam being torn between two of his best friends, Zayn as a moral compass and Niall saving the day with good music and brutal honesty.

the boys of fall** aka the american football fic by @godgavemelou​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443037 (21k)

“And everyone, this is Harry Styles. He’s going to be our starting quarterback this year.”

Louis looks at him, the tall and lanky Harry Styles, and takes it all in. He’s got hair to his shoulders that curls at the ends, tattoos all down his arms, and a bright smile on his face as the team cheers him on. He’s lean and fit, and absolutely beautiful, and Louis hates him to the core.

OR an american football au where the boys play for the university of tennessee, and harry and louis quite hate each other.

** indicates that the fic is a log-in required fic, but if you want the pdf i can send it to you

[bansheeoftheforest]

Well, my wifi is not back, and wont be anytime soon. The very earliest luckiest would be getting it back by Tuesday (unlikely). The very worst my house burns down so theres that /lh /hj

This sucks so much because I really cannot read asks I dont see in real time, I have the same amount of reading comprehension for them as I do Frankenstein XD

Dm me links to any important syndicate asks I miss while I'm gone 👍

-

Bannnnnn I tried to draw the Jekyll brothers but Kent? Is inconsistent? The database (what I use) showd him as a clean shaven guy with a bit messy hair but google is showing Kent as a completely different model? Neat hair, Brokenshire beard. Like it's the ingame "identify" zoom in and I cant check whats right before I already killed himmmm

Anyway here art <3. I know I said I'd draw the DTIYS first but art inspiration is stored in the Syndicate au <3

-

Also I've been thimking about Henry wearing a mask +plus ponytail to hide his identity like for the past two days. Yknow those theater masks? The weeping and laughing? He wears the sad one while in the Blighters and Templars and the happy one while in the Rooks because hes a dramatic theater nerd. Also! I like to think that if Jekyll has to be a templar he'd still wear the Blighter uniform when he could and pretend hes not high ranking. He gets away with it because Crawford doesn't care about him and Roth lives for chaos

I also drew Henry in a mask and ponytail but it's not done yet 😔

-

Also I did the math the the twins are 3 years older than Jekyll. Like thank goodness first of all because I fully went into ship entirely unaware on if there were canon ages or a scary difference. But also Jacob being 3 years older than Henry is kinda funny to me

-

All of Evie's outfits (besides her default) are bad and I'm gonna fist fight the designers because the secrets of london (where I only searched the locations of 3) is so bad, especially with the effort needed. How did they do Jacob so good, but utterly fail with Evie /lh

NOOOOOOO D: Man, I really hope you will get it back asap, and also that your house don't burn down!!

Man, if I don't know your struggle rn. However I shall do my best to link you to every syndicate ask that I will get from here on out bc I don't tend to get small asks for that au so <3

--

Huh-- oh wow you're right. I wonder if it is a set design or just a bit on random depending on the save file... I killed him a long ass time ago so I have absolutely no idea how he looked like <3

EITHER WAY OH MY GOD IT LOOKS AAMZING. I love??? How you gave all three individual personalities in just a single picture??? Kent looks like he is seconds away from murder and I LOVE Henry in the templar outfit, it fits him so well??? Man I really want to start thinking more of this branch. Would the entire Jekyll family be Templars so the trio got that role inherited? Are Raphael and Kent unidentical twins and Henry is the odd-one-out because he is the youngest? Were the three of them really close in Scotland, but left as soon as possible bc their family was abusive, only for Kent and Raphael to find refuge in the Templar Order while Henry goes to university? Would they still have that brotherly love if they were close as kids even when they are in the Order, or would they have a falling out and start despising each other (or Jekyll @ the older brothers at least)? Would Raphael and Kent secretly be protective of Henry and manage to keep him out of Starrick's line-of-sight so that Henry won't get in trouble for defying orders/ignoring them? Would they force Henry to join the Templars with threats or would Henry mostly feel obligated to join them? Since the Templar Order isn't illegal in London, would other people know that Jekyll is a Templar, or would he keep it hidden from the public? Would his brothers help hide his identity?? SO many questions and I'm so sad I won't be able to discuss them with you :'c

(also can I just say I love the poetic differences between their clothing. Raphael is just wearing a waistcoat/basic clothes and he is a brute and more open, Kent is wearing more clothes/layering up and he is the "brains" out of the two of them, Jekyll is wearing the most layers and is almost trying to hide himself and I just... *chief's kiss*)

--

Henry being a dramatic theater nerd and stealing Roth's costume supplies to hide his identity bc he is so ashamed of it and doesn't want people he knows to know about it my beloved <3 Plus the blighter uniforms doesn't look too far off of what he normally wears so he could probably use that as an excuse whenever some other Templar gets up his ass about not wearing the right clothes, yet it still doesn't make Henry feel any better knowing he has to bear the knowledge that he is actively wearing discreet blighter clothes to keep the Order happy and the public oblivious, knowing what cause he is reluctantly supporting. (him joining the rooks and suddenly coming into the Society all dressed in green lol)

Anyways I have now also decided that Maxwell and Henry are friends bc they both hate the Templars and Crawford and Henry gets to star in many of the plays he sets up. Plus they are both slightly insane so they match each other good.

YKNOW WHAT I WAS DAYDREAMING ABOUT WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH RIGHT AFTER THIS ASK? Jekyll being forced to be the one to murder his brothers and the twins trying to track the murderer down just to know who tf are killing their targets, conveniently at the same time Maxwell starts meeting Jacob. Henry watching Jacob from afar getting smitten by him but keeping a distance bc he knows Maxwell is possessive, Jacob being the first to befriend Henry after Maxwell explains that both of them are against the Templars and Crawford, Jacob saving Henry during the fire of the theater? Yes pls <3

--

Thank god bc here I was imagining an age gap of like idk 15 years bc of the differences in the timeline but! I'm just going to keep the canonical age difference while also shoot the timeline up a lil so that the events of Syndicate and TGS takes place at the same time but they are the right age and stuff, just bc I do not like Evie's and Jacob's older designs and I do not want to imagine them meeting during the Ripper dlc <3 Also the thought of Jacob being older than Henry is funny. I think Henry has a type /j

-

They are so fucking bad and I'm going to scourage the Nexus to see if I can find any good redesign mods because they are so fucking bad. But to be fair, all female main characters' outfits are bad. Pearl? Lucy Thorne? Mfs looks like vampires. Even more reasons for why I only play Jacob, bc all other outfits on Evie are bad <3

[dxmagedrose]

GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER!

Tagged by: my lover @hammurabicomplex​ I’m tagging: anyone and everyone who wants to pick this one up! share with the class if you feel like it! tag me in it!!

PRESENTING. RANDOM DEEP DIVE WITH INDIGO-MUN AT 2AM ;

FIRST NAME Good fucking question… It’s (sort-of) currently Dylann! I was Kieran before that, though; it’s still used as one of my first names and I’m not used to Dylann quite yet bc I’ve just started using it. 

Indigo is one of my middle names though, and I’ve used it as an online handle elsewhere forever so I use it here now!  [ Fun etymology facts: Dylan(n) is a mythology name generally meaning “born of the wave” (aspiring diver & a water witch at heart). Kieran means “little dark one” bc of my love for horror, && I chose Indigo bc as a kid to be it was neither boy (blue) or purple (girl) and was both and neither as well as my absolute favorite color as this vibrant ass mystical color. ]

STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF hmmmmm…. I’m a horror lover at heart, so as a child (I wanna say 12), I was walking through an antique store (I have a few cool finds, I considered putting my other one as the fact tbh) and I turned the corner and I saw these two dolls staring back at me at the foot of the stairs of this antique building. my blood froze, and i felt my stomach drop. i got actual, physical goosebumps stumbling across these two creepy dolls staring back at me in the corner, and i couldn’t leave the store without them. perhaps the little painted porcelain boy would be somewhat spooky by himself if it wasn’t for the terrifying lidded gaze of the porcelain girl with the hairline fractures and slightly open lips. i cant look at her. i dont really find dolls scary, I like to find the spookier ones ones, and she makes me paranoid as hell. i keep her face covered and her up in my closet except for when i bring her out to show her off proudly as the spookiest thing I have but……. i dont really collect dolls anymore.  even thinking about her brings a fearful tear to my eye.  i don’t like to think about her for very long, but that’s why I’m so fucking proud to own her. ( YES — I’m THAT white person in the horror film )

TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON hhhhh a beardy jawline, high cheekbones, crooked canine teeth >:3c

A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF b.l.t.’s with avocado. ahhhh. my mouth is watering just thinking about it, oh my god. just a bit of salt and pepper???

A FOOD YOU HATE barbecue anything, i hate the taste of bbq sauce, you keep your nasty black goo to yourselves at the grill. twice in my life i have presented with barbecue pizza and both times i cried literal tears. why would you do such a horrible thing to a person? what kind of a monster are you? how do you sleep at night?!

GUILTY PLEASURE the sims. constantly. always. i’ve sunk thousands of hours into my households. oh also uhhhhhh i run two 80s horror blogs, one being a shitpost blog with occasional art of mine and one gremlin fanfic ship blog for horrible, terrible self indulgent fanfics i’ll get the courage to finish writing & post so i can be cancelled on tumblr for at some point. NO, i won’t link them. as i pretend they’re even all that hard to find, within a day i was found on both by someone i admire here a lot :’) ilu bby thnk u eternally for supporting ur local horrifying dumbass wtf

WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN the same clothes i’ve been wearing all day usually, my sweats & long sleeve raglans or my hoodies. i like being cozy day & and out. and ugh. efoort. just throw me in a blanket in a cool room and im out.

SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS serious relationships with some openness or poly. i wish i could fling! just not exactly easy for demisexual autistics lmao.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE I think I would be adopted by my grandma as a kid. It would save me some trauma but mostly I think it would get my autism diagnosed way earlier and save me angsting all these years of wondering why & thinking it’s my fault I’m struggling so much and so loud and affectionate and different in a world that i didnt fit in the same way. 

ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON when i get drunk i text people how much they mean to me in my life. does that answer your question? ahhh. i’m sometimes a cuddle monster with friends, i message people with long texts about how much they mean to me, but I sometimes really don’t like to be touched at all. 

A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN FLYPAPER.  F L Y P A P E R.  FLYPAPER.  FLY, and, I can’t stress this enough, fucking PAPER. ( Though also Whole Nine Yards and both Re-Animator & Bride ). I have watched Flypaper already like, 5 times this week and I’m still not done, and the other movies have been on repeat for days in this household within the last year. In the past it has also been Donnie Darko & the new Nightmare on Elm Street.  roast me.

FAVORITE BOOK White Fang by Jack London. Have I actually ever finished it? No. Do I still own a copy I’ve had since childhood thru multiple dogs eating it, taking it to and from school, and highlighting and circling all the best parts of chapter one ever since I was a kid and it was too hard of a book for me to read? You bet your ass. If I ever need inspiration I just reread chapter 1. Although one of my other favorites was Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes. But White Fang is like, a weirdly personal text. We stan London’s writing in this household.

YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE FENNEC FOX!! I used to daydream about having my own named Shiloh when I was a lil kid. they’re adorable little things and i am obsessed. i mean, gimme any fox and im happy, marble foxes, red foxes… but I was obsessed with fennec foxes. Also tbh ferrets. I want a ferret.

TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS [IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG, YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL] Rosa & @ninetyscnds‘s Luke, Rosa & @iimpulsivity is already screaming my name, Rosa & Constantine, Jesse & Andrea from Breaking Bad, and the joker and harley of 80s sci-fi Dan & Herbert from Re-Ani.  I am but a simple opossum. 

PIE OR CAKE Pie! I’ll take both pumpkin & melty apple over cake. also, cheesecake is more pie than cake soooo, pie wins.

FAVORITE SCENT my dogs / my blanket. :’)  It’s the most grounding smell in the world. 

CELEBRITY CRUSH oliver jackson-cohen, i’m fucking GAY and im angry about it. there i was, minding my own business, and i saw that asshole in a certain SHIRTLESS GIF and it AWOKE SOMETHING IN ME. dont talk to me about it, holy shit im obsessed with beardy men now god fuckkdafjaask i hate him why did he make me this gay i was perfectly fine being into girls but NOOOOOO him and his dumb hairy chest and sweet rugged face and I——  I also am obsessed with the archaeologist & television personality Josh Gates and may or may not be considering making a fan blog for him bc idk if my anthropology docuseries host is Dad or Daddy but i love him lots

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO I would go on a dive with anthropologists and archaeologists doing fieldwork research in the ancient cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula. My actual dream job, catch me crying & fantasizing about being underwater documenting Mayan skulls given as offerings. Fuckkkk, I love anthropology so much!!  take me anywhere in the world to immerse myself into culture & archaeology.

INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT Introvert. I have a real life friend I see roughly once a month, and that’s it. Plenty of online relationships, I’m chatty, message me all day every day. but i dont do people well.

DO YOU SCARE EASILY I used to! Really bad. I don’t as much anymore. I do get paranoia a lot still. Having therapists telling you that the FBI could be outside your house watching you through your windows will kind of nervous. ( no google results for: yes hello fbi i am a writer please dont put me on watchlists i just have research i need to do for this idea im working on, would you like to try again? ) I have nightmares nightly but not they never make me afraid, they just make me feel like crap. jumpscares and loud noises and seeing people reaching into their pockets dont set off as many brain alarms anymore tho!! progress haha.

IPHONE OR ANDROID I like my android better bc of capabilities but meh

DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES My mom, her husband & I play COD for family game night, and Silent Hill is my life’s blood. I’ve sunken hours into Sims & Skyrim, and Norman Jayden from Heavy Rain is my #1 fictional character in existence, why do i love the druggie babies

DREAM JOB Oh… You’re asking me to pick? I’d love to be an anthropologist doing work out in the field. Underwater archaeology is peak, but I’m also heavily considering being a body recovery diver or police diver. I’d love to see myself in uniform someday, if possible. Just the thought makes me teary eyed & proud.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS fund my person creative & educational endeavors. get myself a spooky ass abandoned house to make my own home to create in, and travel to the world’s best dive sites. just live a mild life of education, creation & exploration. that’s the dream TM.

FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE dr. hill is a gross and whiny lil bitch this post brought to u by the miskatonic crew, how is everyone here an even worse bad guy than herbert west precious dan excluded talk shit get hit tho john winchester from spn and both walter white & todd from breaking bad are all in my crew of hated characters. i jusT…   the reani novel is difficult to read because i have to deal with this old sack of shit.

FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER Supernatural :-)

… AND THIS CONCLUDES A DEEP DIVE WITH INDIGO!! //

[fipindustries]

my experience with my gender and my sexuality

because i think it is about fucking time i talk about this somewhere. this is a cheerful post, intimate sure, way too oversharing, certainly, but i like to think of it as joyous sharing because i feel like i can finally talk about this stuff freely and gosh ive been keeping so many things on the inside and now i just want to shout them to the world, consequences be damned

for years i have fantasized about becoming a woman. i will say it here now: i want to be a woman, i want to try it, i want to know what is like to look like one, to dress like one, to be called one, to be treated as one. if after a while i get bored of it, or tired or figure out its not my true self, or it just doesnt fit me for whatever reason then i reserve the right to back off and try something else. but for now this is my state of being and im going to share the story of how i got here.

my earliest memories of dealing with this confusion are about me reading a magazine talking about trans issues and me watching the movie “ma vie en rose” and “boys dont cry”. i was too young perhaps to be exposed to these ideas in such a candid and direct way. perhaps not mature enough to fully process or understand what i had seen, to the point that for most of my childhood i had this irrational fear that i would become a woman when i hit puberty. that my dick would just shrink into a vagina, that i would start growing tits, that i would get pregnant, etc.

i was a very unmasculine child, i didnt like sports, in fact i didnt like most typically boyish stuff. i thought muscles where gross, i thought violence and fighting was scary. i thought most boys played too rough for my taste. i was meek, shy, and a huge nerd. but i also had a strange rejection for most girly stuff. it was too soft and frilly and silly and pink and yucky. on top of all that, my understanding of trans people was mostly shaped then by drag queens and outrageous transvestites whose aesthetic, to this day, i find garish, over the top and unpleasant to look at. sorry, is just not something i identify with.

during this time i started to engage in all sorts of strange games as a child. i would start trying on my sister’s panties or my mom’s panties in the shower. i would created these elaborate scenarios where i would have all the stuffed toys in my room “kidnap” me, force me to give birth to them and then breast feed them.

cartoon shows that dealt with themes of gender bending held a powerful fascination to me, i particularly remember the fairly odd parents episode “the boy who would be queen”. i had this strange sense of love-hate relationship with it and anything on that topic where i just couldnt help to be obssessed with it but at the same time feel like it was illicit or transgressive for me to watch it.

then i hit puberty and a light switch went off. where instead of being scared or unnerved by those ideas i just kept obssessing more and more over them. i started googling everything i could about gender bending, about gynecomastia, about how to grow breasts with certain herbs or supplements. it was specifically on the breasts that i was fixated, i kept promissing myself that i would get them no matter what.

at the same time on the outside i was more than comfortable presenting myself as a boy, a geeky boy sure, but a boy all the same. i liked wearing high waisted pants, tucked in shirt and tie. i liked having short hair. i fantasized about growing a mustache. what’s more i definetly identified as a boy. i went to an all boy’s high school where we were taught stereotipicaly male things like working with heavy machinery, welding, general workshop engeneering stuff and i enjoyed all of it. i was still a huge outcast and not the manliest person but back then i figured it was because i was just a huge nerd.

i had no rejection of my body or the changes it was going through, i grew hair, limbs, genitals, etc and didnt thought much of it that i can recall, beyond a vague sense of not wanting to look too adult because it made me look too much like my dad, with whom i never had the best of relationships. beyond that socially i was a boy and had no issues fitting there.

i masturbated a lot, and a lot of those fantasies involved gender bending. usually boys growing breasts, boys being subjected to forced feminization, etc. there were other fantasies but those dont have a lot of bearing on the subject at hand. one of the things that excited me the most back then was to call myself a woman. to insist over and over that i was a girl. like the feeling that i was brainwashing myself into femminity was a huge turn on (this is why for the longest time i was convinced i was an autogynephile, and honestly, jury’s still out on that account). then, as soon as i finished i would quickly tell myself “im not a woman” as a strange way of “no homo” myself from my fantasies. i was still doing ocassional crossdressing whenever i was alone at home with my mom’s clothes, again, usually for the purposes of masturbation

i have been attracted to girls for the large majority of my life, it wouldnt be until college that i would experiment with boys too and found that i could enjoy that as well, but my main interest has always been consistently girls. yet a lot of the time my attraction towards girls would come from a place of envy. of apreciating how pretty they looked and wishing i could look that pretty myself. once i started college most of these fantasies came with me, i kept researching about gender bending and about ways i could try to gender bend myself. some times it was because of fetishistic reasons but a lot of the time was because i just found the subject inherently fascinating. it was like this that i came across a lot of information about trans people, back in like 2011 and when i first started to really understand them as a community and grapple with concepts such a gender dysphoria and such. back then i reached the conclussion that while i understood and sympathized with trans women, i was just a crossdresser because i didnt experience gender dysphoria and because i had never experienced anything even close to the feeling of “being a woman on the inside”.

what was more, it was around this time that identity politics really started to get traction, things like “die cis scum”, “yes all men”, “white men tears” etc started to be thrown around and, as someone who had been identifying as male for his entire life, i felt personally attacked by most of it. an immature reaction on hindsight, but a reaction that cemented in my mind the idea that i was a man and there were no buts or ifs about it.

i kept crossdressing, i kept fantasizing, i kept fetishizing. i even experiemented with auto hypnosis because i was realizing more and more that i was never going to be able to truly make my fantasy about becoming a woman real so was was willing to try anything that would get me even close to it. i cross dressed because i liked the way i looked, i liked the way the clothes felt against my skin, i liked the feeling of trying on a different role, one that was forbidden to me. as time went on i stated doing it less and less because of the sexual gratification and more for its own sake.

then the crisis came.

i wrote about this before, i saw a bunch of people i knew coming out of the closet at an advanced age, people like jacob chapman, the wachowsky sisters, even reading about the story of how allison bechdel. the idea of someone figuring out their identity way into their adulthood shattered my world view and it introduced me the possibility that i might be in the same situation, which led me to panic. all the crossdressing, the fascination with gender bending and with trans issues were strongly suggestive if nothing else, but back then i was just not ready at all to confront those possibilities so i supressed like a mad man.

three years later, here i am. during those three years i slowly and gradually came to grips the possibility, slowly losing my fear of what i might lose if i came out of the closet, slowly examining my self and comparing my story with the story of others in the community. finding differences but also finding a lot of similarities. for the longest time my trans ex girlfriend would insist that i was very much not trans because a lot of my experiences were very different from hers, such as the fact that i never had issues inhabiting the rol of a boy whereas her dysphoria had been strong enough to the point of suicidal tendencies for most of her life.

one of my biggest concerns had always been the fact that i had heard from many trans people that their dysphoria hadnt really kicked in until after they started transitioning. as in, once they started trying to look like women then they realized how far away they were from truly being one, making what until then had been a vague feeling of discomfort into a true rejection of their own body. but then on the other hand there was also the real possibility that i would end up having a mental breakdown once i hit my fifties after years of repression and by that point i would look like just an old man in a wig

i think what finally made me tip over the edge were the contra points videos and the reddit community egg_irl. i just identified too much with what i saw there, and breaking up with my gf had left me free to explore those feelings without fear of ruining my relationship. so where does that leave me?

still confused, but no longer scared of the answers. willing to give this and honest go and see where it takes me. im still not ready to call myself a trans girl with all the letters. i understand that gender is complicated but i would really appreciate a unified theory of gender to help me make heads or tails of what i am and what i am feeling beyond vague notions about “the spectrum” and “social roles”. i guess i could be considered gender fluid as of right now but honestly that label doesnt mean that much to me on a practical sense considering i am still presenting my self as a boy in my every day life with one or two exceptions

i have a lot of work ahead of me and for once i am excited about doing it right.

[grasslandgirl]

tag game! 15 questions 15 mututals

i was tagged in the wonderful @theonewherelaurynhasablog tysm and HERE WE GO

1. are you named after anyone?

uhh nah my parents wanted my name to be “feminine but strong” and to be like unique but not fucking bizarre, so here we are

that being said, they are big jimmy buffet fans and his daughter’s name is Savannah Jane so like....... suspicious

2. when was the last time you cried?

the last time i teared up was last night when i was watching the good doctor (shawn was finishing reading a story to a little boy with terminal cancer bc the boy looked like his brother who died when he was young... and he never finished reading this book that shawn had gifted him.... twas really fucking sad) but i like didn’t Actually Cry so idk if that counts

the last time i think i full on cried was a couple weeks ago after like a fight w my mom or smth and i was pissed and frustrated but its like whatever we’re cool

3. do you have kids?

lmao not technically

but when i was in highschool i was dubbed the unofficial den mother of my theatre department and lots of my friends even now semi-jokingly call me mom so idk if that counts but im a proud pseudo-mother

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

yes literally all the time im kind of a bitch

5. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

uhh face hair clothes i guess???? maybe their attitude towards me if applicable

6. what’s your eye colour?

oh! they’re brown/green/hazel

technically i think i have heterochromia- which is when there’s like a starburst of different color within the main color of the iris (look it up, there are some beautiful pics on google images, I have the one w two different colors in both eyes, not when your eyes are different colors)- so my eyes are greenish grey on the outside with a golden brown starburst on the inside!

the tones are fairly similar and so you can’t really tell unless you’re looking close up so really my eyes just look more/less brown or green depending on the light or surrounding colors

lmao sorry for going off i just really like my eyes......

7. scary movie or happy ending?

happy! ending! happy!! ending!! honestly im SUCH a scaredy cat and an anxious bitch and i Hate scary movies and also like cheesy rom coms and happy endings make me so happy theyre so pure..... wholesome

8. any special talents?

uhhhh i have a good memory (its not like photographic or anything though) so like i remember songs and lyrics really well and was really strong at getting memorized for my lines (and sometimes other peoples’ lines) when i do theatre

i think I’m fairly musically talented although i don’t have a lot of training but i think i have a good ear for where music/notes/harmonies fit in a piece of music, especially one i’ve heard before or know well

I’ve been acting for like three or four years now, so i don’t know if i would call it a Talent necessarily more of training and practice lmao

uhhhh im a fast reader, i’m a decent chef for my age and experience, uhhh yeah

9. where were you born?

north carolina, usa which is like..... yikes.... but in like a liberal/democrat hot spot in nc so like.... slightly less yikes?

10. what are your hobbies?

oh shit ok here we go: reading, writing, singing, i play ukulele very badly, i cook esp baking desserts, acting, i watch so much netflix/hulu its Ridiculous, i doodle occasionally and poorly, uhhh yeah

11. do you have any pets?

yes!! i have a dog, Waylon, that I got almost 8 years ago for christmas <3 he’s a mutt that has the body of like a lab or a bigger dog, but the legs of a corgi, he’s got long back hair w a few white spots and i Love Him, and we have two cats; lilo and stitch! we got them from a local rescue center a few years ago, lilo is a girl and she’s a chubby grey tabby and stitch is a boy and he’s my beautiful boy and he’s a white flame tips siamese with blue eyes please google them they’re beautiful

12. what sports do you play/have you played?

uh gross no

i did do a martial art for like 6 years in middle/early high school but it was more focused on practical self defense maneuvers as opposed to drills or competitions, and i did a lot of theatre in high school which tends to include more physical exertion than people realize

13. how tall are you?

like 5′6 or 5′7 i think. tallish but not a giant

14. favorite subject in school?

english/art! i love reading and writing in my free time and enjoyed and was good at it in school, and i took like four different arts classes in high school (theater, ceramics, chorus, photography!) and enjoyed them to a more or lesser extent!! 

15. dream job?

uhh probably stage acting or anything artistic that I can maintain a love for, ideally with a good salary that i can afford to do the things i love and be with the people i love

tags!!

@thotdagas @jace-lightwood @heliophobicsoul @lewissimon @iconictowerprep @umusings @formosusiniquis @punkrock-gay @blue-finch @actualbabe @keeping-tabs @petermaldonadoh @wlwshehulk @phonecallfromgod @rxxkjina and anyone else who wants to do this!! please dont feel obligated to do this if you don’t want to but this was surprisingly fun!! 

[quietborderlineinfo]

Realizing I'm not alone.

Hey, I just discovered this blog, and after looking through like 15 pages I realized I needed to write to you. I’m not sure if you will post this, or if its just directly to those of you who mod this. I dont really do tumblr so I’m a bit unsure of how things work here, but I’d like to be anonymous if you could would be so nice to share this. All of you do an amazing job, I know I really appreciate it. I’ve had mental problems for a long time, some periods its been better, sometimes really fucking bad. I’ve been diagnosed with depression and anxiety before, yet I’ve always felt like theres something more than “regular depression and anxiety”. Like there is something wrong with me, yet I feel like I must be faking it. Especially on my good days. I’ve just started going to a psychiatrist, however its through the job insurance - so i only got ten appointments. For the last year I’ve tried to figure out whats wrong with me, trying to google my way to figure out where “I belong”. After taking LSD, I suddenly got a lot of “a-ha” moments, and I continue to learn a lot about myself, remembering things my brain has forgotten a long time ago. This has been both traumatizing, but also a relief. The fact that I’ve realized that a lot of things during my life, first and foremost isn’t my fault, that I deserved better. That I am worth of love, and that I’m not OK no matter how much I lie to everyone around me. How are you? GREAT! I saw one of the posts here, and I’ve never felt like a gif described my life better. 

I’ve been sexually assaulted by my father once when I was 4-6 years old, I cant really remember how old i was. He didn’t rape me, but he did push the limits and did things he never should have done. (In addition, he was never around, never kept his promises and I’ve heard so many fucked up things from him.) This has resulted in me not knowing where to draw the line, that being either sexually or socially. Not defending myself, or daring to stand up for myself when I know deep down I should’ve. I always fought so fucking hard for his love and acceptance. I never got it though, and it still hurts so bad. He left me, abandoned me, and it hurts. It was painful crying to sleep as a little girl because he wasn’t coming home after all. I hated him with all my heart, yet I loved him. All I ever wanted was for him to care, and I know you can relate to this. Just please, fucking care. But then again, they don’t. I know this day that he doesn’t. Perhaps he cares of me like a distant niece or something, but there is no real love there. Just a polite hug as we see each other once a year.

The classical getting bullied in school is also a part of my story, it has been so fucking hard to both get and keep friends. When I find someone I like, I cling on to them as if they were my lifeline. And as I’ve seen here, I’m not the only one that grabs so tight to the relationship that I end up suffocating it. I’ve suffocated A LOT of relationships, either friends of boyfriends. I have issues with trusting people, believing that they will keep their word. Its so hard to deal with, and I wish it wasn’t. It frustrates me that these issues are such a big part of my life, and that it has effected me to the degree it has. Obviously I cant do much about the past, but I feel like all of this could have been avoided somehow. It feels unnecessary. It makes me angry. It makes me rage inside. All. The. Time. I’ve always dealt good with people, and I realize it must be because I adapt to them way to much. Agreeing on things I dont really agree with, but I dislike when people get mad at me, so therefore I adjust to keep everyone happy and end up forgetting who I am. Asking questions like: Are these really my opinions? Is this something I would say? Isn’t this mean? Perhaps thats why everybody likes me at first sight, I adjust tho who they are and always meet them in the middle, if not all the way through. Saying yes to things I dont really want to do, or lacking the courage to say no when I need to. For instance, after taking LSD, I realized how much and with how many I’ve had sex with, that I’ve had just because I adapted, didn’t know how to say no - because I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable. Even if it meant I had to go somewhere else in my head and pretend I “was there with them”. It makes me sick to my gut, really. How self-destructive I’ve been without realizing it. How many stupid impuls-decisions I’ve done throughout my life. Many of them still affect me and the relationship that I’m in. I totally recognize this “Now I’m gonna do what ever the FUCK I WANT, let’s see if you really care!” feeling/actions, I never understood that this was what I was doing, but it was. I see that now. And that is really hard to deal with, its hard to accept, and even forgiving myself for all these idiotic things I’ve done on impuls. It was a idiotic way for me to get attention. I’ve had affairs, lied and manipulated to the ones I love the most in life. It’s so frustrating, I have, and still do spend a lot of time hating myself for all the things I’ve done. I know it’s not helping, but it’s hard to stop.  The point is, I’ve always felt alone with how my head works. Questioning my sanity, thinking that nobody could feel this way: But looking into this tumblr blog, I felt like I read through my own mind, and life. It’s kinda scary, yet it feels so good that I’m not the only one feeling this way. Yeah, it’s just nice to know that Im not alone. And I appreciate all of you out there, who shared all of you small individual points of life. Even as small as a gif. It meant more to me then I could ever describe, so thanks to all of you out there. Thanks for making me realize that Im not alone. After doing research for three days, reading all this stuff about quite borderline, I’ve never felt more understood. I have no diagnose of this, but bet your ass I will talk to my psychiatrist about it next week. I think I need to fight for this. It’s not like I want to have quiet borderline, I see it all over here how hard it is for you guys, and I feel the exact same way. But I’d rather get a diagnose and get help than go through this on my own, I want to be better. For those around me, for myself. Even if this never goes away, I will know that there is a reason behind it. I will kind off know why, if that makes sense. And I wont be alone, and that feels fucking amazing. I’m not the only one raging like a rollercoaster on the inside. I don’t know what this post is supposed to be. It’s a bit unorganized, not all things are in here that probably should, but I guess you might know that it’s hard to put feelings and experiences into words. I just wanted to share a piece of me I never felt I could share with anyone, and all of you made me want to write this down. If you read through all this, thank you for taking your time to listen to my words. It means a lot to me, it really does. I love you, strangers.

[depressionconsumes]

answer all of the questions (:

1. Are you good at apologizing?: well.. I think I am. If I know I’m in the wrong I’ll be the first to say I am sorry.

2. Do you prefer your looks or personality?: uhh.. I struggle with liking either to be honest.

3. Are you confident?: sometimes I can be.

4. What are you most confident about yourself?: I’m confident about my eyes I guess ^^

5. Name a few songs that remind you of someone, and who they remind you of: I like it like that by cardi b, the other popular song by cardi b, country roads… they all remind me of my best friend!

6. What is your favorite color combination?: oh this is easy. My three fav colors ofc, blue green and purple xD

7. Define your “aesthetic”: do faeries, elves, mermaids and aliens count as an aesthetic?

8. What is sex to you?: to me it’s something I will only have again if I completely love and trust a person. I wont give that part of myself away to someone I dont love.

9. Do you have any kinks? What are they?: shittt this is a loaded question Haha.. uhh. Well. I’m into BDSM to a degree, I’m a switch but I’m usually more submissive. I could go more into what I’m into with BDSM but I dont want too LOL. most my kinks relate too it as well.

10. What are your biggest pet peeves?: I have so many. Lying, rude customers at work, people making my bestfriend sad, people who have kids but dont care about them enough. The list is long my dudes.

11. What’s something that automatically turns you off of other people?: hmm.. uhh.. getting caught in a lie and trying to make me feel bad about catching the lie they told? That’s something I guess LOL

12. What song always makes you sad and emotional?: right now, what if and we belong make me sad. Theres alot of songs that get me emotional tbh.

13. How many people have you dated? How many of them do you still have feelings for?: 3 serious relationships. I’ve dated 7 total people though. I’m not answering the second part but I will say if you truly love someone you will always have a place in your heart for them.

14. How are you with moving on?: I’m okay with it. At first it’s hard for me. But give it a little bit and I get back up and keep trekking on. You have to be willing to move on to actually do so.

15. What’s a philosophy you agree with but fail to live by?: uhh.. anarchism maybe.

16. What’s something you dont like about yourself?: I don’t like much about myself but I guess I’ll go with the biggest one and say my body.

17. What’s something positive happening in your life right now?Well I think I finally found the path in life that I’m supposed to be on with work if that makes sense. I finally have a job I love to go too.

18. Are you truly able to admit your faults in relationships to yourself?I think I am. I dont always know what my faults are but if they’ve been pointed out and if I see them myself I’m the first one to admit I was at fault. So long as I actually was.

19. Is it important to be a good person?:It depends. I think for the most part yes. But what is a good person actually?

20. Are you a good person? I can be I think. But I also can be a shitty person. I think everyone’s capable of both.

21. How could you become a better personMaybe being less bitter hahahahaha

22. Would/have you ever pierced your genitalia?No. Probably not.

23. Have you ever been in love? If so with how many people?Once. I’ve experienced actually loving someone once in my life. Its powerful and it never goes away.

24. Do you believe in love at first sight? I mean.. yes. I believe in soulmates and such and sometimes when you meet a soul mate or someone supposed to be in your life for whatever reason, I believe love at first site can happen.

25. Which social science interests you most? Psychology, sociology or anthropology? Why? Its definitely a close tie between psychology and anthropology. I love learning how our brains work but I also absolutely love learning about culture so it’s hard to chose just one.

26. Have you ever orgasmed?No. No I havent actually. I try believe me.

27. Have you ever made someone else orgasm?Yes. Yes I have.

28. During sexual interaction what is most important too you?Feeling wanted and feeling safe.

29. Are you comfortable being sexual with lots of people?Not really. I’ve had sex twice with one person in my life and that person took advantage of my both times and then did a shitty thing too me. So sex is a hard subject for me.

30. I dont feel like answering this one sorry guys.

31. What’s your favorite song to sing alot?Uhhhh.. COUNTRY ROADDDSS TAKE ME HOMEE TO THE PLACE. I BELONGGG

32. What’s some “embaressing” music you listen too?Weeb ass music LOL

33. What are you most snobby/pretentious about?UHHH… I dont know really

34. How do you Express sad emotions? And happy emotions?I bottle up sad emotions usually and replace them with laughing and being bitter or angry lol. Sometimes I cry too tho. Happy emotions I just get excited usually I guess.

35. Do you Skype? Facetime?Yepp yep I do. Have been doing that since I was like 13/14

36. How do you feel about phone calls?Eh.. if it’s with someone I love I like them. Otherwise i hate phone calls they make me anxious.

37. How do you feel about texting? I’m most comfortable texting because i usually Express myself better then when I’m word vomiting all over.

38. What are your thoughts on LDRs?They’re hard. And hard work. And they dont always last and survive but when they do it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve been in a few myself..

39. The answer is no I havent. Not yet anyway

40. When and why was the last time you cried?Not long ago. I’ve been crying alot lately. The reason why recently has been the same. Life is overwhelming and I feel an incredible emptiness.. emptiness isn’t even the right word but it’s close. So sometimes I just break down and cry about it. Sometimes I cry because I just dont want to keep fighting for a life in this shitty world but.. I have people in my life who keep me going.

41. What’s something that you love that you never do anymore? Why dont you do it?Draw on paper and write.. I lost my spark I guess. I havent done either of those things besides writing letters to my bestfriend in awhile.

42. Are you afraid to die?No not really. Only afraid of the people I love hurting if I died.

43. If there were no limits, who and what would you be?Id be a mystical as fuck elf okay. Like hell yeah. Or a fairy maybe. Like pls

44. Are you more likely to be a sub or dom during sex?I’m more sub.

45. Describe your fashion senseI wear what I want and what I’m comfortable in. Dresses r life.

46. Do you have stage fright?Yes.

47. Did you ever put your hand up in class?Yes.

48. Are you more of an open or closed person?Uh.. both really.

49. What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? And the best?Losing my virginity was probably the worst. My bestfriend entering my life is probably the best.

50. Are you a theist? Uhh… well. I’m an agnostic theist if I’m being honest. Dont know what that is? Google is your friend.

51. What are your top three places you want to travel and why?Ireland(and the UK in general) because my roots lie there. Japan because I love Japanese culture and it’s beautiful there. Andd… France. So I have a reason to finish becoming fluent in French.

52. What’s something you thought would be really scary/bad, but when it actually happened it was fine?Rollercoasters. Was terrified now I’m obsessed.

53. When you sleep at a friends house, how often do you sleep in their bed?Uh.. I only have had one friend where I was actually comfortable enough to sleep in their bed, and it was in high school and it took multiple times of her saying I could for me to be like you know what.. okay why not. Platonically sleeping with someone isn’t bad. I was more afraid I’d roll over or something and push her out of her own bed then anything tbh

54. Can you sleep facing someone?I dont know. Never got the chance to experience that to know yet.

55. Do you ever get in slumps? If so how often/long do they happen?Absolutely. All the time. It depends really. They can last a day or a year or feel neverending.

56. Do you like being alone?Most of the time yes. But sometimes I crave being around people.

57. Are you social?I can be.

58. How do you feel about parties?Depends on the party. I like to party definitely but not all parties are fun.

59. Have you ever hosted a party? Howd it go?Yeah I have. It went well. Everyone had fun. Think we even had a line in the backyard for chacha slide lolol

60. What questions do you love to ask people?What’s your zodiac sign?

61. What questions do you live to be asked?I dont know.

62. Are you confrontational? Does it make you uncomfortable when others are?Not usually no. I hate confrontation. And it does make me uncomfortable yes. I have an issue where I’m almost always defensive and it’s because of living with narcissists and people who emotionally abused me my entire life and blamed me for things I didnt do. So I really struggle with the side effects of living that way tbh.

There yall gp. I did it. Bc ily guys

[samanthasroberts]

Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship

Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.

There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.

Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.

Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.

For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.

So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.

By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.

It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.

Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.

It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.

Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.

I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.

When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.

Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.

The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.

Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.

It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.

My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?

During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.

I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.

Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?

I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.

I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.

I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.

Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.

I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.

By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.

Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.

If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.

Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.

Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.

I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.

So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?

Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.

Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.

I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.

Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?

Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.

Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.

Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.

The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/

[adambstingus]

Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship

Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.

There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.

Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.

Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.

For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.

So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.

By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.

It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.

Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.

It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.

Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.

I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.

When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.

Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.

The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.

Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.

It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.

My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?

During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.

I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.

Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?

I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.

I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.

I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.

Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.

I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.

By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.

Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.

If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.

Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.

Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.

I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.

So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?

Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.

Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.

I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.

Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?

Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.

Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.

Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.

The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/167431371812

[allofbeercom]

Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship

Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.

There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.

Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.

Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.

For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.

So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.

By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.

It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.

Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.

It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.

Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.

I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.

When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.

Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.

The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.

Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.

It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.

My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?

During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.

I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.

Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?

I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.

I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.

I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.

Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.

I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.

By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.

Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.

If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.

Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.

Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.

I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.

So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?

Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.

Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.

I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.

Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?

Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.

Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.

Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.

The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/13/getting-sober-redefining-my-longest-relationship/

[viralhottopics]

Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship

Id call it time traveling. Most of the time I didnt know I was doing it until I was already in too deep. It didnt matter the day of the week or the time, or who I was with. I was just as capable of bending time alone, as I was with a handful of friends.

There was no such thing as one or two or three drinks. Just like a two headed giraffe didnt exist, neither did grabbing a couple of drinks. Its that simple. I really cant explain it any other way. My average was a drink every fifteen minutes. I never thought about that. I didnt brag about it or work towards it or talk about it, my rhythm just happened. The drink was in my hand and I drank it. I didnt think of slowing down or having an empty hand.

Id start somewhere- at an apartment or at dinner or a happy hour or on a date and Id arm myself with whatever I was in the mood for. There were the regular players: Jack Daniels and diet coke, chardonnay, Redbull and vodka, Blue Moon and those few years in my early 20s where I thought the only two drinks on the planet was a Sex On The Beach and Cosmo. Drink menus were for amateurs.

Never red wine though. It stained my teeth and lips, Id explain when asked, and respond with my quirky I only drink it alone and in the dark answer. Theyd always laugh.

For a long time the only shot I tossed back was Patron XO. Lemon drops and Kamikazes were too collegiate for me. I was smart enough to know that I always got sick after Whiskey. That was my kryptonite. It didnt stop me from drinking it again (and again), just in case getting sick was a one time thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt.

So that was me, always, from the first time I got drunk during a party at 16 years old to my four day New Years Eve bender at age 30. But lets not call it a bender, or else my parents will worry. It was celebrating a new year with friends. It was a vacation and a belated birthday. It was me letting present, in the moment Diana take the wheel for a few days.

By the time YOLO was on T-shirts I had carpe diem booze down to a science.

It was all so normal and always OK: competing with friends how many guys we can make out with in one night (one of my favorite games), bouncing around speakeasys in the East Village, sneaking into the high end member only clubs in the Meatpacking District, 4am pancakes at a diner then going home with the cutest guy there, leaving without paying your tab, putting your drinks on a strangers tab, hooking up with your friends crush, sleeping with a guy who has a girlfriend (what, he had an accent, ok?), telling work you have a doctors appointment when you need an extra hour of sleep, telling work youre sick when youre too hungover to get out of bed, napping in the bathroom stall at work when you realize you went to work still drunk.

Theres wasnt a problem with any of this. I could go to six bars in a night and only remember two of them (seetime traveling). Others had different, less poetic names for it- like graying out or even more ominous, going black out. But lets not talk about that. Those words are scary.

It all just made so much sense to me. I had a desperate thirst for life, for new experiences and stories that were only mine and drinking was my very own special key to open that door. I dont remember being trained but I knew this truth: that I needed to drink- to have fun, to meet a guy, to de-stress, to celebrate, after a bad day, after a good day, when its more than 50 degrees out, when its under 15 degrees, because its Monday.

Its dramatic sounding, I know, but when I was drinking, like really in the middle of a good run, I was untouchable. My thoughts evened out and worries were left at the coat check. I was charming and funny. I was weightless and sexy. Nothing could ground me.

I wasnt stupid. I knew what was happening. There wasnt a river in Egypt. The biggest part was the after, when Morning Diana gradually and reluctantly pixelated back into place ready to droop down into the exorcist-like hangover.

When I was in college my hangover cure was strawberries and chocolate milk. After I received my diploma I graduated to well-done bacon, coffee, Mimosas. Water never entered the equation.

Sometime in my mid-twenties while I was gripping on to my spinning couch, I googled hangover and depression and was so relieved when I read the phrase emotional hangover. I immediately felt better seeing the feeling I felt printed on my screen. It was a relief: I wasnt alone in this feeling and it had a name. Urban Dictionary knows about it so it must be OK. Ill finish my bacon and chocolate milkshake and be just ducky.

The recovery time was always different- sometimes I could slide out of bed and be partially human the next day and other times I needed a day alone to stew in a mental playback of the night before. During those days the biggest challenge was the trek from my bedroom to couch. No matter how I recouped I never thought it was bad. I thought my friends were doing it too.

Country songs and Van Wilder confirmed for me that getting drunk and hangovers were a part of life. I never raised my hand to question it. So, about the men. I bet you thought it was hard to find a man with all this time zig zagging and space jumping but it wasnt. Lets go back ten years again and Ill tell you about all the threesomes I had. It was me, the guy, and alcohol.

It was how I flirted, played, connected, and bonded with men, always. If the boyfriend had a bad day wed start downing drinks in the hopes that hed open up and talk to me. To flirt with the new cute coworker Id suggest we play beer after work. Hed find it charming and cute and wed drunkenly made out in the corner of the bar after swapping 1st pet names and office gossip. I had a fling with a British banker off and on for 3 years and when wed meet late night hed pour us shots of tequila first. It was our thing. Our inside joke with Don Julio.We didnt know each others last names but we shared an appreciation for top shelf tequila at 3am before having sex. Im a romantic, I know.

My favorite three words when I was with a guy were Want another round?

During each encounter, each date, I wouldnt feel satisfied until I heard those words. He could shout it or whisper it in my ear, either way I wanted those words. It meant: he liked me, hes having a good time, and he wanted to keep spending time with me. He didnt want the night to end. It meant intimacy, it meant hand holding and flirty eyes and of course, sex.

I could count the number of times I had sober sex on one hand. I didnt enjoy it. To avoid it, Id explain that I simply didnt like morning sex. Most of the time Id be too hungover to move from a fetal position so it wasnt pursued for long on his end anyway. Hooking up drunk was sexy and fun. We could let our inhibitions go and really connect. Fun was had by all. I wasnt worried about any of it.

Theres unfortunately worse parts. Im not going to tell them to you though. Mostly because my mother may read this. But also because I was once told that you dont need to go all the way to the bottom floor in order to get off the elevator. So lets baby step off the lift, shall we?

I was in one of my first sessions with my new therapist when she told me I repeated the word untouchable a lot and made me explain why I thought that was a good word. (See all of the above for my response). Valentines Day was two weeks away and I was mentally preparing to be single again during my least favorite holiday of the year.

I wasnt too worried though because Id participate in my friends annual BOVD- Black Out Valentines Day. The year before included colorful fish bowls and sushi till 2am. Problem solved. I was talking but realizing more and more how much she looked like Lily Tomlin when she put a piece paper down in front of me. It was a wordy contract with bullet points in the middle and a blank line next to my name at the bottom.

I was supposed to go a week without drinking. Thats a lie. I could drink. But only three glasses of beer or wine, two different nights. If I broke the contract I had to give $100 to her. Lily was crazy. How was this legal? I couldnt do this. Fact. I shouldnt have even been there. I wanted to deal with this but apparently not by actually dealing with it. I argued with her and left the session with the unsigned document squished to the bottom of my purse. That night I didnt sleep and express ordered Alan Carrs Easy Way to Control Alcohol. Problem solved. I went out drinking all week. And I drank like no one was watching.

Then I signed the contract. And then when week one ended, I signed the next contract. Was it easy? Fuck no. Did I have to write some checks to my therapist? Yes. Did I cry? Did I rant? Did my hands and mind twitch and turn during dinners with friends as I stared at my 1 drink for the night? Hell to the yes. Most nights all I could think about was my hand stammering under the table and how much I wanted and needed another drink.

I thought of the contract and Lilys annoying face staring down at me. I thought of how I felt when I was hungover. I thought of the fuzzy nights. I thought of the fuzzy years. I cried a lot. I stayed in and watched Netflix even more. I watched Vampire Diaries starting at season 1, many times. In therapy I compared my drunk self to being a vampire with no soul. There are many different points of view on vampire rule and regulations but most of them agree that the creatures of the night have no soul. Stick with me here. In Vampire Diaries the rule of thumb is that vampires can turn this soul switch off and on. When its on they feel everything, when its off they feel nothing and become untouchable. Follow me now? The easy way to live is to keep the switch off. I did that, over and over again. I was tired of it and wanted to be in the world of the living again. I didnt decide this overnight. It took months, a lot more episodes of Vampire Diaries and most of 2015. Something weird happened around the same time I switched to watching new episodes of Arrow that wouldve really pissed off my 23 year old Cosmo drinking self- I stopped enjoying drinking.

By November I was completely sober and joined a boxing ring. I could get up in the morning and exercise. I didnt need to sign a contract anymore. I sober dated. I sober celebrated friends birthdays. I sober had a fun Thursday night. I went to AA meetings sometimes and spent most of the meeting listening and nodding my head. I was funny and smart and friendly during the day and I was funny and smart and friendly at night. I added to my own life and stopped letting drinking take away from it. I started a social group. I started a book club. I started.

Sometime between the last crippling snow storm of last year and planning my 31st birthday, I stopped wanting to go to Edit Undo. I re-entered my own life. I went through those years and theyre a part of me for worse or worser. I went through it before knowing there was another side. I hit my rock bottoms (yes, there was more than one). Im still learning how to talk about it- what I want to say about it and to who. But the further I get from the person I was then, the more I like who Im turning into now. But letting go of her seemed like an impossible ask that the tiny tired voice deep inside me was begging for.

If I stopped drinking Id lose all of me, not just a part. I was terrified as if I was going to lose a limb or my hearing. My life would be filled withwhat? Id have no buoy or security blanket or man behind the curtain. Id be dry, unfilled, just curved edges and rims. The thought paralyzed me.

Now, Im at this other side. Im still learning what this other side is like and who I am in it. But I do know this- Im more now than I was before. Im more me and more strong and more present. I feel more and I listen to me more.

Days are now broken up between feeling this raw, strength of life and connection to people and namastes and really fantastic Im part of the universe and not from vibes to a total, giant uncertainty and instability, and anger and exhaustion. I never knew I could get tired of feelings. Weve moved in together, you see. We wake up together and go to bed together and they insist on forming an invisible fanny pack around my waist during the day. Hello intimacy, party of two. Theyre normally the big spoon. My thoughts continue from one moment to the next and connect without taking breaks. I had years and years of turning myself on and off and more off and now I just want to be on.

I wish I could say that when I wake up sober now, Im not depressed anymore or lonely, my friends became better friends, I became the perfect best friend, sister and daughter, and my love life came together Prince Charming Cinderella style. But becoming more sober didnt mean everything clicked into place, it just means I see the pieces more clearly and I dont hide from the messy parts.

So now whatdo I become resentful and guilty and depressed thinking about the years I spent avoiding intimacy and feelings and honesty and fuck, concrete memories? Do I think those years dont count? Do I blame my bad habits on the constant excess of New York City? Do I blame the alcoholic-like attributes that run in my blood line? Do I blame my friends? Or the work hard play hard Don Draper industry I work in? Do I blame shitty men boys?

Yes, to all of the above. I point the finger at all of them and then back at me, and then at them and back at me. Lily says hi.

Ive had men yell at me, not being able to grasp the idea of my moderated drinking habits, insisting that Im just pretending I dont drink because I wanted them to buy me drinks. I dont get it either. No means no guys. My friendships have changed, my god have my friendships changed. One friend who pre-games with a bottle of wine (a standard respectable approach I once followed), on multiple occasions, dumped her wine into my water when she realized I wasnt drunk like she was. Yeah, I dont spend time with her anymore.

I went sixty days without drinking before I decided to drink again. For me it was like breaking up with a boyfriend and then meeting up again two months later. Never a good idea. Youll never want to be just friends who catch every up every now and then. I drank Vueve Clicquot and it didnt make the night better but it didnt make it worse. I didnt gray out. I didnt break down. That night isnt fuzzy. I could wake up in the morning.

Theres been other times when I drank recently and couldnt move far from the couch. Those times are a quick, slap in the face of what not to do. But old feelings and doubts still come flooding back in. Will I always want another drink? Why cant I just stay sober? Why does everyone make it look so easy? Is my therapist actually Lily Tomlin?

Deep down I know the majority of my problems start and stop with alcohol. Drinking will always be a part of my life whether Im drinking or not. Itd be easier to figure out if I wasnt both the variable and constant in this little conundrum of mine.

Today, I stare all the feels in the face, and make sure they know the last sixteen years matter but the last thirteen months matter even more. Im not her anymore, Im a different, more me now.

Im not 100% sober and I dont know if I ever will be. One day, maybe sooner rather than later, I could decide to sign up for a sober lifestyle again. But right now, I cant imagine midnight on New Years Eve without a champagne toast. I can do without five toasts but one still feels OK to me. So yeahmy relationship with drinking? We file it under Its complicated.

The good news is, Ive learned how to unwind on a Friday night without the trifecta of a bottle of wine, pizza and Netflix. My secret is just pizza and Netflix.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2iTRz6N

from Getting Sober: Redefining My Longest Relationship