Once Upon A Drunken Night

Last Saturday, I felt like playing some pool. It has been 5 years since I last played, I reasoned. I need a break, a release from the jobs, the kid, the Hubs, the house. It has been months since I have had any real time or conversations with the Scare Bear.

Her only caveat was that I had to drink. Alcohol. 

Let me preface all of that with saying that I have not had a drop to drink since my wedding night 7 years ago when I had one shot to celebrate my birthday and marriage. Besides that it had been a full 15 years since I had really drank, mainly because I did not like the out of control feeling that I was left with and partly because the person that I took as my designated driver took my car to go hook up with some random guy that she had met and then left me at the bar on my 21st birthday by myself. And I fell asleep with my head on the bar. That's what friends do when you are 21. I forgave her and then threw up on her shoes. She totally deserved it. 

And I gave up drinking. 

Me at 21.

I started working at a bar taking care of the ridiculously drunk people that came into my Karaoke Lounge which was really not so much as a lounge as a walk in closet with a stage and a torn picture of George Straight. Once I saw exactly how crazy and stupid people could be when they were drunk and how easily fights could happen between to completely ordinary people that had just had a little bit too much, I knew that that life was not for me. 

I appointed myself the designated driver and may have even become the sober girl that acted like she was drunk (the only line that Ke$ha has ever sang that has ever made any sense to me). Only I was drunk from the comraderie, the lack of inhibitions of those that I was driving around, the silliness of it all - not from the Mountain Dew that I had been swigging all night long. 

I buried the fun-loving me in favor of the responsible, uptight, rigged me. 

But that was back then. 

Going out now is different. I have the Scare Bear, who I trust and who I believe trusts me. I know that she will not leave me to go hook-up with a random guy, I know that she will not let me drink enough to vomit on anything (especially not her shoes) and I know that she will make sure that I get home, even if I am not so certain that that is where I want to go. Having people that you have known and trusted for teens of years is important, I think. 

So we had some drinks, we laughed (OMG, how we laughed), we ran/stumbled our way across my front yard to hide behind a bush to scare a car that never came because what she thought were headlights were really just my neighbors porch lights, she ate way too much Taco Bell and I hijacked people's Facebook posts. 

And it was one of the best nights that I have ever had. 

I am finding a me that I have had buried somewhere for a long time. I didn't realize how much I missed her. 

By the way, I kind of suck at pool now. I should really play some more. Like tomorrow.