I grew up hoping a man would come along, in a blazer with a shadow of a beard, and change my life. And one did. It just wasn’t at all how I’d imagined it. I had to feel and wade through the bad to resurface into the beauty and joy of my now. I don’t need anyone to swoop in and change my life. I just wouldn’t mind terribly finding someone who will wash my strawberries and love me full of snot, freckled, and red faced. He’ll make me smile through the tears. He’ll be my grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. He’ll be my home.

I spend hours rummaging through closets looking for pants that don’t make my ass look fat. Then, I’ll watch friends devour fried combo dishes doused with ketchup and sprinkled with salt as I tolerate cottage cheese or hard-boiled eggs. Okay, that hasn’t happened in years, but still. I do it all to look thin, just to find a man who’ll love me even if I’m fat.

I’ve been drinking wine for years. When I inhale, I don’t smell apricots or lialac, mushrooms or mineral. I smell wine. Each one has a personality, built of characteristics: fruity, bold, long finish, supple, nice legs. These aren’t come on lines.

Drunk dialing. I fcuking love it. You know why? It gives me license to follow every random flying emotion, abandoning any sense of reason. And it affords me the ability to be thoroughly pathologic. I can trail every other brain synapse that has always led me to destination wrong. I stop caring about “wrong” and do what I want.

When people say, “what I want” they mean, “what I feel,” not “what I think.” Cause we wouldn’t need liquid courage to follow “right.” We wouldn’t need it to keep up with “think.” Emotions are sloppy drunks that swallow. They don’t worry about disease or calories; they’re made of passion and avoid safe like edges of cliffs.