some habits are hard to break

I wake up to a blender going off in the kitchen. As I open my eyes I see that somehow I made it to the couch last night, although I don’t remember. I slowly sit up and then the headache hits. My incredibly sensitive roommate has opened every curtain in our living room making sure to let in every inch of sunlight possible. The brightness is making me feel just wonderful at this point in time. As I slowly get up off the couch I look at my arms and legs looking for any bruises and cuts I might have obtaining the night before, thankfully I see none. I see my shoes across the room next to the door, and wonder if I even had them on when I stumbled into the apartment last night.

I then grab my phone and go to my recent calls. It was just as I had dreaded. A whopping 12 outgoing calls to my ex. I frantically look at my text messages and see that I had drunkenly typed out 4 misspelled texts along with the calls. Many people complain about how they hate when they drunk dial people. Well, for me, it’s my absolute worst habit that I just cannot possibly seem to break.

I send the usual follow up text the next morning, “Hey! So sorry about last night. I must have sat on my phone and it must have called you like 13 times haha my bad!” Obviously they never believe me, but somehow it just makes me feel better that maybe there’s a chance they do.

“How ya feeling?” my roommate says as she walks towards the door, smoothie in hand. “Just so you know, you really made an idiot out of yourself last night.”

Suddenly, it hits me how embarrassed I should be. For the past couple years every morning after I wake up to see what damage I did on my phone, I laugh it off and think of how that guy probably just thinks I’m funny. But no. They probably think I’m annoying and really desperate. Somehow, my obnoxiously chipper roommate just made it apparent to me how detrimental my drunk dialing can actually be. From here on out I make myself a promise. That promise is from no on delete every ex from my phone before ever going out drinking again.

entry 10

I climb into my Jeep racking my brain with what could have possibly happened. I just left them three hours ago from dinner. What could have gone so wrong in only three hours? I start to think the worst, murder, theft, both, and I realize I must calm myself down. I turn on my ipod to some Jason Maraz and turn my speakers up all the way. I relax and I listening to his soothing voice surrounding my car. He always calms me down. It’s dark out and the road to our secret spot are winding, adding to my anxiety. I cautiously but nervously make my way around sharp turns and up steep inclines. Finally I reach the lookout points over Mirror Lake. Back in high school this is where we would all meet almost every afternoon. We’d go through everything that had happened that day, gossip about how we hated all the fake, superficial girls in high school, and dream about one day when we would all be enrolled in college, hopefully all within the state of New York. As I get out of your car, all I can think about it had you miss those days. I had hated high school, and wished for every minute to go by faster until the long awaited graduation when I could finally leave. Now, after two years outside of the bubble that’s high school, two years in the reality of college, I miss the comforting normalcy and predictability of high school.

Then suddenly I see my two best friends huddled on the picnic table on the edge of the lookout. Dana is covered in a blanket and appears to be soaking wet, with Megan covered in dirt and bleeding from her arm. I run over, bracing myself for the worst.

“What’s happened? Are you guys okay?” I burst out.

“Jamie, we did a really bad thing,” Dana says through tears. I can see now that both of them had been crying from their puffy red eyes.

“What? What is it?”

“We thought it would be a funny joke. Just fucking with people from high school, you know all those stupid fake bitches that made our lives miserable; just playing a little prank on them.” Megan, was trying to hold back her tears at this point. It was then I realized that I had only seen her cry once before, and I’ve known this girl since we were both I dippers. It was the day she got her rejection letter from Syracuse. Dana and I had gotten acceptance letters just a week before her. None of us saw it coming seeing as she got straight As in high school and had about 30 different extracurricular activities stacked up on her application. She was the prime example of a killer college application, so no one expected it when they didn’t want her. She didn’t expected the most of all of us.

“Just tell me what happened. I sure it’s not as bad as you think. Just tell me everything,” I try to comfort my two best friends, but have a feeling this is not going to end well.

my favorite thing

A furry ball of brown hair with a stitched on smile and dark marble eyes
A mixture of dryer sheets and my shampoo
Silent until it tumbles off the bed and the plastic nose clinks on the ground
Never tasted it, but it tastes probably hairy
Coarse, worn fur that has been matted down from overuse

He’s always smiling back at me with the same comforting face
He’s been through a lot from trips through the washing machine and dryer to being used as my pillow
When I was little, I thought him falling was him breaking, that little nose shattering, the fall from the bed being deadly
I’ve always been extra careful to not let him become my puppy’s chew toy, to him, everything tastes good
So many hugs given and tears wiped up, all shown in the stains and each and every tuft of fur