For example, I drink. I go out with a particular group of friends on varying weekends out of the semester and it's just get shit face. But, for what? What the hell am I proving by drinking underage and withering myself down to this vulnerable, noncommunicable being. This is where my biggest regrets lie: under the influence. I've ruined friendships, frightened my family members, proved myself to be the most desperate yet undesirable human being on earth....all because I don't want to face reality for a couple hours? Because I can't handle real feelings? This isn't even worth it, yet thousands of people my age do it, and all of their answers to the question "why" are the same: they don't really know. Every time I drink I wake up regretting it. I think about all of the people I must have harassed, what my grandma would say to me, and, most of all, how my brother would react.
My brother, Fran, is the most important person to me on this earth. However, I proved this can actually mean nothing. One weekend, he was visiting me and staying in my dorm. We hadn't really been doing anything besides streaming videos and, my friend - whom I was developing feelings for at the time - texted me, asking if I wanted to drink with him. I told Fran I'd only be gone for about an hour, and I was right, but what he didn't expect was that I'd be belligerent and in tears upon my return. I had both half a pint of R&R and a heavy heart in me when I got back. It turns out this friend was putting the moves on me when he had a girlfriend and I just got up and left, and I was incredibly uncertain that I had made the right choice. I didn't go straight back to my room. I saw that the study hall was unoccupied, so I stumbled in and turned off the lights to sob alone for a couple minutes. My best friend, Quesadilla, found me in there and we hashed it all out. One of the last things she said to me was, "Wait, didn't you say your brother was up here? Why'd you go drinking if he's here?". I couldn't even look at her. I had no good answer. And she had nothing cordial to say to me about it.
Quesadilla walked me to my room where I met Fran and tried not to seem as intoxicated as I was. He walked into the other room with Quesadilla and asked what was going on, and she told him everything. If he needed anything, he was to call her or come to her room. Quesadilla stayed for about 10 minutes to make sure Fran would be safe, and when everything looked clear, she left.
That night, I sat with my brother for three hours, crying. I wasn't crying about the superficial love issues I'd be facing in the days following, I was crying about how I let Fran down in the worst way possible. We grew up with an alcoholic parent, and upon seeing the devastating effects it can have on a household, I promised my brother that I'd never get like that and that he could always count on me, as he could never count on them in the same ways again. I blew it.
AND FOR WHAT?!
TO KEEP DRINKING JUST SO I CAN FORGET WHAT I'VE DONE TO HIM?!
This is the point I am making: you do things for experience, and that is great, but you should be doing things not for that sole purpose. Is getting hammered tonight going to reflect positively on your tomorrow? Do you even give a shit? I didn't. And despite everything that's happened, I didn't give a shit until today.
If I wake up and sincerely feel like a failure every morning after I drink, why do I do it at all? What sort of example am I setting for Fran? I don't want him to be like me! I'm the one that is supposed to fuck up and warn him about things, I'm not supposed to fuck up and just let him keep on watching me fuck up! That makes no sense.
So a promise I've made to myself tonight is to stop. Stop doing things that make me feel shitty about myself. Stop thinking about #1 and start thinking about everyone else I may be effecting, and think about how this will hurt/help my future. I only have 2 years left in college, why not do something positive instead of thinking about myself all the time?
I want to do this. I want to be there for my brother. I want him to be able to count on me again. I know he says he does, and we still have the closest relationship out of everyone I'm associated with, but I also know I had created a barrier the night that I blew my promise. I just hope he knows how sorry I am about it.
I am not saying that in life, there isn't room to make mistakes. If I didn't mess up at all, I wouldn't be this person taking account for her actions right now. Go ahead, drink, do drugs, go mess up - but then take responsibility for what you've done and make it right! That is what life is about. We live and we learn.
Maybe I should be making these things shorter. I don't really know. I just always have a lot on my mind and I'm just preparing to switch topics by writing this sentence. So there.
In rediscovering myself, I've come up with some pretty huge points to start considering:
There are a lot of people who poison the air I breathe and just are all-around bad influences. If I think badly of others while I'm not with them, why am I hanging out with them at all?
Why do I eat so much, yet, do so little? (I guess everyone must ask themselves this, but whatever) It's like filling up a gas tank on the off-chance you choose to drive around the world 300 times.
Why don't I talk to my best friend everyday like I used to? I always feel good afterwords and I always leave with new information or a funny joke to tell someone else. I am just really taking that for granted lately.
Why don't I tell my family members exciting news about my life...or even important updates? Maybe I'm afraid they won't share the same level of enthusiasm about it. For example, I just auditioned and made it into this A Capella group called Central Harmony. I was talking to my sister on the phone earlier today and it was getting dangerously close to rehearsal time. I said, "I have to go to rehearsal, love you, bye!" and she caught me before I hung up, "Wait, wait, wait!!! What?! What rehearsal?". I realized at that moment that I hadn't told anybody, not even my brother, that I had made it into this group. It may be something completely subconscious where I believe I'm the only person who finds my news interesting. I haven't given it too much thought, but it's something I should probably come back to.
AND
Why do people give so many shits about what other people say about them? Really, the way I look at it is that no one can say anything to me that I haven't already said to myself. (That sounds really awkwardly depressing, but, like, I get over myself really quickly and move on with my life, I don't linger on most of my issues for very long). Life is way too short to care about the bad things people say, when those people are probably people you don't care for very much yourself. Hate is too contagious this day in age.
So having said all of these things, some changes need to be made immediately in my life and I truly can't wait to get started.
Something that I have never done before:
WATCH "FORREST GUMP"
One last thought to entertain:
Contrary to common belief, George Washington's teeth were made out of whale bone - not wood. Of all animals, why would you use whale bone? And how? It's not like they're an easy animal to get ahold of, right? And when you do, should you call it poaching? (Like elephants, because they're huge.) That's got to be illegal now. I wonder if they had a nautical aroma or taste to them.
Night.
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