| So I had an exam yesterday, went pretty well, though I don't like to pressume anything. And what with staying up late every night for the past 4 days studying, I decided that I was going to have an early night in. Get to bed around 11:30 get up early tommorrow to get some more studying done, maybe a bit of day game and go training in the evening.
Didn't go to plan.
About 10:15 I get a call from a girl I know called Jen; it's panicky, quick breathing, she's at a party and "desperatly wants to talk to me". Turns out she is a 30 minute bus ride away at some little house party.
I have zero money at the moment and I run it instead, and get her to hand her phone over to another girl, who is remarkably calm in comparrison to Jen, and I have her direct me to the house when I arrive nearby.
The door opens, and I walk through to the lounge to see Jenn's friends sitting in a circle in the lounge watching TV and eating pop corn.
Jenn is face down on the floor on the outside of the circle.
You're probably wondering what an 18 year old girl is doing at a quiet little house party on the floor....
Well Jen apart from dealing with her chronic depression, paranoia and acute panic attacks is also a recovering alcoholic.
A recovering alcohlic who has decided that tonight is a good night to hit the bottle again.
I pull her off into the hallway, and we talk, she whines about not fitting in at boarding school, cries that no one understands her alcohlism, and moans about the pressures her parents put on her, then she asks how I got here, then she asks why I look different, then she says she is scared of the future, then she asks if she can kiss me then she she whines about not fitting in at boarding school, cries that no one understands her alcohlism, and moans about the pressures her parents put on her, then she asks how I got here, then she asks why I look different, then she says she is scared of the future, then she asks if she can kiss me then she whines about not fitting in at boarding school, cries that no one understands her alcohlism, and moans about the pressures her parents put on her, then she asks how I got here, then she asks why I look different, then she says she is scared of the future, then she asks if she can kiss me....
(If you're not getting the pattern here, I'll make it clear, she is too drunk to remember what she said to me 5 minutes ago and this conversation may as well be with a tape recorder)
I move back to the lounge to get some assistance and me and one of her friends carries Jen upstairs while she pleads for me not to leave, repeatedly exclaiming that I will "be gone"
Her friend tells her "It's cool, he's crashing here with us, he's not going anywhere"
But no matter what we tell her, she sobs and demands for it. She nearly falls down the stairs twice as we carry her up, and her belt buckle isn't on properly so her trousers keep on falling round her ankles and we have to lift them up to cover her up again.
After getting her into the room, she requests that I stay with her to talk for 5 minutes.
This is a lifetime sentance, becuase as soon as I get up to leave, she has forgotten that we have talked and immiediatly requests for me again.
Over the course of 2 hours in that room, and alternating shifts between myself and her friend we try and keep Jenn in bed and get her to go to sleep so she can sober up.
Amidst the broken record playing all her problems and insecurities on a loop, we manage to calm her down by playing some of her favourite music. I stay with her to try and get her to sleep for the last 10 minutes, and during what ended up as 45 minutes rather than 10, she threw every trick in the book to get me to touch her, and to have me let her kiss me. Each time I would turn her down and tell her "not while your drunk"; she would either scream "I'm not drunk, you don't understand" or her eye's would glaze over with hurt and she would declare that she loves me and thinks me to be the greatest guy she's met and asks if it's ok to kiss "in a non intimate way".
Eventually with enough persuading and arguing and denying, I get her friend back up and we guilt trip her into sleeping. At 5:24 Am.
And you know what the punch line is? You'll love this...
In the morning, when I'm on the kitchen patio having a cigarette, she asks how I got here with a confused smile on her face. Barely aware yet of the emotional hell she went through last night.
For all the crying and screaming and emotional (admittedly one sided) heart to heart talks last night, for all the confessions, all the humiliating and degrading positions and all the hurt she endured in those couple of hours, all that pain.
She just won't remember it when she comes round, she'll feel bad, she'll feel guilty but she won't really know why, she won't put one and one together. And the sad fact is she'll repeat it all again in a day or so when she finds some more booze.
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We all like to believe that we are the damaged goods, that we have insecurities, emotional problems, that we are the ones with issues.
Now I don't know what situation you are in right now; but take it from me, it could be much worse.
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