I Don't Drink

As Told in Pairs

:)

~Stephanie

From What I Broke Free

Eminem and Rihanna came out with "The Monster" on October 29, 2013, about two weeks before I completely lost my integrity for a time.

You're trying to save me? Stop holding your breath.

And you think I'm crazy? Well, that's not fair.

I'd always liked Eminem (anyone who loves words should like Eminem. He is brilliant.), and I'd recently come to admit that I liked Rihanna (as a masochist who struggles with a porn addiction, she'd always hit a little too close to home), but "The Monster" took an unprecedented hold on me.

You know how I used to write in Purple and Green? That's because I used to THINK in Purple and Green, except that it felt like they were thinking for me.

I felt like my mind was made up of three distinct characters:  "Stephanie," "Purple," and "Green." We were each our own person with our own voice. A lot of the time, I--"Stephanie"--wouldn't get very many lines inside my own head. I would sit there and watch/listen to Purple and Green argue and discuss and joke until I felt like I was going legitimately crazy.

They wouldn't let me get a word in, and eventually I figured it didn't matter. Listening to them helped me process my thoughts anyway. I stopped trying to shut them up and started trying to use their interactions to reason my way through life.

Because life was bad.

It didn't always feel bad; in fact, most of the time it felt awesome. It felt like staying up late (to text PC, who I was supposedly broken up with) and saying what I wanted (which included a lot of profanity) and eating what I wanted (whether too little to be healthy or too much to be healthy) and going where I wanted (including to friends' apartments in the middle of the night so I could sleep on the same bed [i.e. dirty mattress on the floor] as PC).

I knew my life wasn't right, but a lot of the time it felt really great. I felt like I was really, truly, finally starting to Grow Up. I guess I thought growing up meant doing whatever you wanted and feeling really jaded about life.

But deep down, I felt so, so empty. I felt lost. I could close my eyes and see my heart inside of my chest:  dark, swirling, smokey fog. Empty. Insubstantial. Uncertain.

I lied to my family a lot. I told creative truths and lies of omission to Cassidy. I lost a lot of respect from my little sister. PC helped me do it all. I felt like he was really helping me though. I felt like he was helping me to Grow Up:  to be my own person and make my own decisions and fight my own inner demons.

He especially seemed to help with the inner demons.

First, he helped me to identify them, which included realizing how "arbitrary" my conditions for dating him were. (I really was being irrational and unkind. I couldn't reasonably expect him to get his life on track before I dated him again. Dating is all about understanding and tackling life together, right? I shouldn't demand that he get a job or become a real Christian first. That could come later.)

Second, he helped me figure out how I could combat the demons. For example, since I felt so guilty about constantly going farther in our physical relationship, we should set boundaries and stick to them. (He was also really patient when I didn't say No loud enough or push his hands away enough times. He constantly offered to draw the boundary lines again, and even offered to stop in the middle and go get protection when it looked like I really wasn't going to be strong enough to resist.)

Third, he offered educated diagnoses for my mental episodes (episodes such as changing my mind a lot, hearing Purple and Green, feeling really depressed, etc.). He gently cautioned me that I might be schizophrenic or have serious repressed sexual issues from childhood. Using extensive internet research and carefully constructed logic, he suggested that I might be a sociopath, and that he could see signs of psychopathy in himself (what a perfect match!).

Eventually I stopped resisting him. He was probably right about everything, and even if he wasn't, I had already gone too far down this particular Growing Up path. PC was not only the best I was ever going to get, he was also what I deserved.

I started hearing "The Monster" on the radio around the time I stopped resisting. I mostly skipped it; I never seemed to be in the mood to learn a new song, and sometimes I still liked to pretend I hated Rihanna. However, it was catchy, and it reminded me of myself in a way that made me smile wryly.

"I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed, get along with the voices inside of my head..."

That line always made me think of Purple and Green.

"You're trying to save me? Stop holding your breath."

My heart would pinch as I thought about PC. He loved me so much. He was trying so hard to help me become my true self. He was trying to save me, but I knew I was beyond help. I was hopeless.

"And you think I'm crazy? Yeah, you think I'm crazy. Well, that's not fair."

That line gave me pause. The rest of the chorus resonated so perfectly with me. But the speaker wasn't crazy? I was crazy. Wasn't I? Didn't I make up unfair, arbitrary conditions for dating PC; and change my mind all the time about how far I wanted to go physically; and hear voices; and have trust issues? I was crazy.

But what if that wasn't fair? What if...what if I could get along with my inner demons and voices in my head by myself? What if I could actually handle them just fine? What if PC's trying to "save" me wasn't really salvation at all? What if his saying that I was "crazy" wasn't true? What if it was a selfish ploy to get what he wanted? What if he was just posing as my savior and convincing me that I was crazy?

Well. That wouldn't be fair.

What if I wasn't crazy? What if I just wanted something different? What if I just wasn't who he wanted me to be? What if I just wanted a different definition of Growing Up? What if he was just labeling me as crazy so that I would trust him over myself?

That's. Not. Fair.

"The Monster" didn't change my life; it didn't inspire me to break with PC once and for all; but it was sort of an unintentional mantra for the next several months. I would listen to it every time it came on the radio, and I would sing along. The last line of the chorus always came out with more conviction than I anticipated:

"WELL, THAT'S NOT FAIR."

How dare he convince me I was crazy just to get what he wanted? That's. Not. Fair.

And now, every time I hear that song, I am reminded that I am my own person. I am reminded that I have to be careful whom I trust. I am NOT crazy just because someone says I am

It's funny:  ever since I really, truly, finally broke it off with PC, Purple and Green have kind of left me alone.

~Stephanie

What Started As a Fragment, Has Ended in Roommate Sap

It's been a long time since I just talked here, since I didn't wait for a coherent idea or a fun question to wrestle with or a bunch of sappiness about Gem. I don't have any complete thoughts to share with you, just a lot of...well, fragments. At least I think they are fragments. You know how I get when I write: one thought will sometimes keep unfolding before my fingers until it's a real post. Right?

~ In three days, I will move into college for the last time. I know everyone always says this, but seriously, how was it three whole years ago that I moved in as a freshman? I was so...unhappy. I wasn't excited to be going to Campbell at all. I was mad at the perceived failure of not going to Wake Forest. I was jaded by my weird romantic relationship. I was lost in my spiritual life. It was awful. You could not pay me enough money to go back to freshman year.

{Of course, my roommate, Bekah, was actually awesome. We went to bed at the same time, watched the same TV shows, liked the room at the same temperature, listened to the same music, needed the same motivation to go to the gym. She was gorgeous and funny and did not care for drama. I'm convinced it was the most successful random roommate pairing of all time. But other than her, life as a freshman mostly sucked.}

But now? Now I am Happy.

My suite mates are the college girl friends everyone promised I would find. They're the people who will go with me to Walmart at 2 o'clock in the morning because I need frozen pizza. They're the people who will just sit down in the hallway with me and hang out there because I'm too stressed and depressed to make it to the living room. They're the people who I can take stupid BuzzFeed quizzes with for hours. They're the people whose opinions matter to me, whether about my earrings or my dinner decision or my boyfriend.

I hope I will be friends with them for the rest of my life; but if I'm not, if we drift apart and fall out of contact, I will never forget them. I will look back on "college" and hear us laughing and feel us walking across campus and remember us dancing and smile at our late night talks.

Gosh, I'm going to miss them. I'm going to miss congregating in one our rooms to pick out clothes for the next day. I'm going to miss "family dinners" where Harley makes chicken or spaghetti and the rest of us throw together some sides. I'm going to miss movie nights where we talk over most of the dialogue. I'm going to miss messing with each other and memorizing all the weird quirks and habits to make living together as easy as possible.

Harley doesn't let anyone touch her blankets.
Allison wears camis under everything, even T-shirts.
Mary is always cold.
Harley loves Captain America.
Allison loves Ed Sheeran.
Mary loves Baby Groot.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. Reminiscing, I guess. But it could also serve as a reminder to y'all and to my future self that things get better. Freshman year sucked. But I didn't run away; I stuck it out, and my life is beautiful now.

If I had left Campbell, every single thing about my life would be different. I wouldn't have my suite mates, I probably wouldn't be dating Gem, and I wouldn't have had such amazing professors and therefore an amazing education. I wouldn't have had the same internships or tutoring experience or copy editing position at the paper.

Everything is worth it. My one real regret in life, the one thing I've said I would change (not getting into Wake Forest) has ceased to be a regret. It is hard to say that given a do-over I wouldn't apply to Wake Forest. But it is a no-brainer to say that I am overjoyed to have gone to Campbell.

Senior year, I'm {getting} ready for you.

~Stephanie

 Freshman

 Sophomore

 Junior

 A few weeks ago XD

Some Kind of Validation

Some Kind of Validation

~Stephanie

P.S. The writing is going well. But let's not jinx things.

I Need Your Help

I'm going to start writing again. Real writing, as in "the stories that I've always wanted to write, but haven't because I'm lazy and terrified of failure."

I am going to try to write "The Mirror." The problem is, I've started it three separate times. One version has over a hundred thousand words. One version has just over six thousand. The version I started today has four hundred and seventeen.

It's all the same story, but the openings are all very, very different. Would you be willing to read the opening few paragraphs of each version and tell me which one you like the best?

I'm going to post them here in case your answer is Yes. It would really help me to get some momentum if you'd help me out. I'm just so familiar with this story that I can't seem to see it well anymore. Kind of like missing the forest for the trees.

Anyway, thanks in advance, maybe :) I'd appreciate the thoughts and prayers as I try to revive the near-dead writer in my heart.

Version 1 (circa 2008)

I should have known from the moment the idea came into my mind that I’d end up over my head in something I couldn’t control; that was usually the way things worked out, but never in a million years would I have dreamed anything could turn out so horrific.

It all happened because I asked Darren Blackburn to the dance. Or at least I think it did.

It’s not what you think. This is not your typical I-Wish-I’d-Never-Asked-That-Creep-That-Was-The-Worst-Night-Of-My-Life kind of thing. It really isn’t Darren’s fault. This horrific thing is something you’d never worry about when going on a “date.” I mean, who thinks as they look in the mirror one last time, “Gee, I really hope my date doesn’t have some terrible secret I should know about before I get swept up in something TOTALLY OVER MY HEAD THAT I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF.” Sorry. Like I said before, it really isn’t his fault—exactly.

Okay. Not making any sense, am I? Um…okay…I’ll start at the beginning, but I’m not exactly sure where the beginning is. Okay. Here. I’ll try, but I’m warning you: I’m no good at storytelling, and telling your own life’s story is even harder

Version 2 (circa 2012)

I had always been a reader.  I might say “dreamer” if it weren’t for the dewy-eyed connotation.  I just loved books, and everything they represented.  I loved persuasion, knowledge, and words.  I craved adventure, thrived on intrigue, and wanted to leave a glorious mark on the world.

At fourteen, I began to untangle myself from the wild flights of fantasy and decided that the best way to leave a mark was to become a lawyer.  Or a teacher.  One of those.  I gave up on finding Neverland or the genie’s lamp.

It never occurred to me to look for adventure in an old mirror, although I guess technically I never did; it was Darren.  Getting caught up in the whole Sorayoni thing didn’t fit my plan at all (not that it fit Darren’s either).

Looking back on that night junior year, I always wonder if I’d do anything differently.  Even now, I’m not sure.  All I know is that I was entirely too eager and had no idea what I was doing.  For a logical human being who reads so much, both those facts should have been red flags.  Darren even tried to warn me.  But I did what I did because I was who I was, and it’s as simple (or as complicated) as that.

This probably isn’t making that much sense.  I guess I’ll just do what one traditionally does in this position:

Start from the beginning.

Version 3 (today)

 Growing up is a funny thing. When you’re a kid, you assume that you’re old enough to…fill in the blank:  cross the street, pour the milk, critique parenting methods. Then for the next ten years, you make a habit of looking back and rolling your eyes at your younger self:  wow; how stupid, incapable, and naïve you were. Now, at this new age, you actually know everything. In high school, you hit the age where you’re grown up enough that it becomes acceptably cool to like some childish things again, like Disney movies and playgrounds and your old teddy bear.

Eventually, you grow to the point where you are only certain of how little you know. You are only certain of how uncertain life actually is. You look back at your younger self and covet that innocence, that freedom of the soul, that psychological invincibility. Wanting to be a grownup is the mark of a child; wanting to be a child is the mark of a grownup.

I don’t know at what age that natural switch typically happens. All I know is that for me, it happened unnaturally, atypically, and fantastically. And not “fantastically” as in “shockingly happy beyond comprehension.” Fantastical, as in adj.: conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque. With an emphasis on the last two synonyms. And the “as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination” part. Although, “odd and remarkable” more than hold their own in the story I’m about to tell you.

I’ve waited a long time to tell our story, Darren’s and mine. Not because it’s too painful or unbelievable (though it is both of those things), but because it’s too important to tell wrong. If I tell it right, you might help me. If I tell it wrong, They might kill me.

At the beginning of our story, I didn’t know any better. I was just a 15-year-old girl with a bookworm’s head and magic-lover’s heart. Somehow, I didn’t get that when I really took the real red pill in real life, real shit would go down. Somehow, my obscenely large mental collection of thriller movies and well-written novels had failed to convince me that if I threw myself down the rabbit hole, I would end up over my head in something I couldn’t control. I guess on some level, I did know and did want that. But never in a million years would I have dreamed anything could turn out so horrific.

~Stephanie

I've Been Reading

I've been able to start reading again.

"Read," is the advice always given to budding writers. Actual practice helps your writing improve too, but reading... It seems to train your mind to Hear and See the world with capital Hs and Ss.

When your car rushes through a rain puddle, the sound registers as "a lush hiss" instead of not registering at all. A dance recital audience reaction becomes "an appreciative rumble of laughter" instead of just "chuckling." You have conversations and naturally detect things like others' "clunky giddiness"or "apologetic authority."

To me, words give the world more substance. When I read a lot, I start to sense the depth in the molecules around me. It's not like the world is brighter; it's like I start to see new colors. Everything isn't more beautiful, but everything is more intentional, specific. I'm not sitting on my couch; I'm sitting on My Couch, where I had a kiss that tasted like ramen, where I first fell asleep on Gem, where I once cried a tear stain into the cushion.

When I immerse myself in words, everything feels more real. It's like tapping a secret source of energy.

I guess this makes sense, seeing as the entire world is Words. "In the beginning...the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep... And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

This entire world is literally words. There was nothing, and then God spoke, and from His words came the existence that I now try to describe with my own words, like "lush hiss" and "appreciative rumble." Is that redundant? To use words in an attempt to express/describe/create a reality that is already so perfectly linguistically expressed that it is actually tangible?

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."

Jesus is--maybe literally, maybe figuratively, maybe spiritually (which is probably some inexpressible middle ground there)--Words. God is Words. He made our world of words with His words. We are in this world, made in the image of God. We are spoken. We are words. The light is words; the water is words; the land is words; the day and night are words.

So yes, it makes sense that everything gets more beautiful and more real when I connect with words. Don't you understand the ocean better when you jump in?

Words are fun and powerful and persuasive and enduring and endearing and funny and piercing and beautiful and satisfying and frightening and dangerous. I like words, on principle, because I am a writer and a reader and I like to reason and persuade. But even deeper than that, I like words because I think they are cosmically important. When it all comes down to it, the world is just atoms and energy and space.

But when atoms and energy and space come down to it, they are all words.

~Stephanie

On the Whole, the Best 365 Days Ever

Left:  this year's spring formal (Mafia themed). Right:  last year's spring formal (Gatsby themed).

"Maybe I'm just trying to find things that were wrong about that night, because really, it throws a good cynic for a loop when an evening turns out perfectly." - 20-year-old Me, when Gem and I became "official"--March 23, 2014.

Today it has been a whole year, and I still feel like a cynic thrown for a loop. How has this past year been real?

I honestly don't know what it would have been like without Gem. Possible, certainly, but not much besides that. Junior year of college has been an utterly indescribable beast (and I'm still not convinced that I'll make it out alive); Gem has kept me saner and happier than I could have been otherwise.

I remember in June (head-over-heels in love, all blushing and lightheartedness and sparkles and warm fuzzies) thinking "Dang. This can't last. It's gonna suck when this feeling wears off." But guess what?

It hasn't worn off.

Sure, there's been arguing and frustration and embarrassment, but I sit here today and blush over how good he looked at this year's spring formal, and smile when I think about seeing him again, and sparkle when someone asks about him, and fill with warmth when I think about the little things.

Little things like how in a big city, when we're about to have to run across the street before the light changes, he always glances back and holds his hand out for me. How I told him one time that I think guy should open the girl's car door on special occasions, and now he remembers every time. Or how whenever I say I'm feeling lonely, the next thing I know, he's FaceTiming me. Or how he still asks me out on Dates even though "we're already dating," because he says he loves taking me places.

I love dating him. He's the one I would choose, 100% of the time :)

I don't let him read this blog, but I'm gonna say it here anyway: "Happy Anniversary, Gem!"

~Stephanie

P.S. I will try to post something not Gem-related soon.