it’s just life, really

The only things I think about seriously enough to believe that I must regret them are not the things for which I am constantly made to feel as if I should atone. I regret the way I’ve made the people who love me the most feel - not the stupid shit I’ve done to myself. I’ve done a lot of things that seem to be considered mistakes, and I’m old enough now to realize that doesn’t make me seem either awesome or tough. But, you know, I’d probably be exactly where I am right now, no matter what grand proclimations I made to myself as a petulant teenager.

I regret that as a foolish and capricious teenager, I did not respect my parents enough to understand that high school performance, though not tied to college success, would help me earn scholarships that would have prevented my parents from shouldering the burden of my education, and would have helped me enter college with the confidence to not need to screw up so many times. I don’t regret screwing up, or being audacious in the ways that I expressed my freedom and my too-cool-for-school party girl self, but I do regret the lack of intellectual and academic confidence that drove me there, and convinced me that I had little else for which I would be noticed, other than my ability to drink really fast and hang out in fraternity houses. I regret that while I made my own mistakes, I pushed out people who would persistently continue to play an active role in my life with little regard for their feelings, but honestly, I don’t really regret making those mistakes.

Of the things that I’ve done that are most often mentioned in sentances with the word “regret,” I can’t say that I really regret them either. I don’t really regret my Amy Winehouse phase - not the ridiculous things I wore or pierced or ingested. I don’t really regret experimenting with my adolescent life to a point that helped me make informed decisions about the behaviors I wanted to make a part of my future. I’ve always been a person who seemed completely unable to learn from the mistakes of those around me, and to be honest, I’ve always wondered if the people who were able to do that were any fun to hang out with anyway. I’m not opposed to these people; I just don’t understand them.

on holiday gatherings

This year I have been looking for advice about ways to avoid weight gain over the holidays, which is generally something that doesn’t interest me. But this year, because of my experiment to determine if I’m even slightly datable, I’ve decided to put forth an [almost negligible] effort. So far this has meant going to an abs class at the Y, where I do sit-ups for twenty minutes and generally feel like I’m about to birth a brick through my lower stomach, and limiting myself to one dessert in social settings. We’re in this to win it, folks.

The articles I’m reading have been suggesting that, among other things that are probably a little more likely to happen, I choose diet soda over alcohol at holiday gatherings. I don’t think these people really understand the kinds of holiday gatherings I have to attend, but that’s beside the point. Generally, I’ve gotten around the issue of empty alcohol calories by drinking my dinner, which has proved to be an effective strategy by making me an incredibly popular party guest. Lately, I’ve also been switching from beer to red wine, which is like the diet version of beer, amirite? I refuse to give up on my most recent health conscious move in favor of drinking something that is basically just a carrier for something else, and I am sure that a quick comparison will more than justify my reasoning.

Here’s what I know about wine: Wine is made from grapes, so we all know it’s a fruit, and we’re required to eat some fruit every day, so if you’re drinking wine, you’re pretty much getting that out of the way! Apparently, red wine also might contain antioxidants. Guess what this wine is doing for you? It’s making you healthier, extending your lifespan, and making your family a lot more fun to hang out with! It makes you look classy and SO OVER IT while telling your great-aunts that no, you aren’t seeing anyone, and nope, there are pretty much zero prospects. You’re single because you’re classy, not because you refuse to care about other people’s boring hobbies and interests. Your wine is also probably being served in one of those Real Housewives glasses, so you can just keep filling it up to the top and it’s really only going to count as one glass. Look at you, drinking in moderation! That flush is so becoming!

Here’s what I know about diet soda: It does not contain any fruit, but it does contain artifical sugars. Here’s what I know about sugar: It’s bad for you. Here’s what I know about things that are artifical: They’re bad for you. (If A then B, YOU GUYS.) Here’s what I know about soda: There’s no alcohol in it. It’s not going to make the conversations with your Family Republican any less awkward. It’s not going to make the family friend with whom your meddling aunt is trying to set you up any cuter. Basically it’s doing nothing for you, other than rotting your teeth with its artifical ingridients.

Using simple logic, it is easy to deduce which beverage is the wisest choice, so I raise my oversized glass to you, holiday dieters. You might be skinny, but I am a real hoot at an open bar, which is basically the point of a “party” anyway.

on attending events with other people

I have slowly been coming to the conclusion that the drugs have worked, and I’m actually a heartless person with no use for feelings other than while eating them or while watching rom-coms on Netflix. And I get that, okay? But I don’t get why we all need to stop our lives and reroute our evenings because you’re going to have hang out with someone whose bed you used to drunkenly use during college.

Maybe it’s because I went to a college that was small enough that in order to properly avoid every person with whom I’d fallen in love at a frat party, I’d literally have to move off campus and submit my degree requirements through the mail. Or maybe it’s because I’m especially predisposed to become upset when people use every excuse to make an event ALL ABOUT THEM, if only because it will inevitably take the focus off all the adorable one-liners I planned to drop at said event.

But, it’s just like, getting dumped is kind of the universal equalizer of first-world shitty experiences, and the surprising part is, it sucks EVERY TIME. So why do we always have to treat some people like, in order to safely attend this party, we need to wrap them in a week’s worth of newspapers and send them off like our good china? And then we treat other people (possibly people who are me), like, I don’t know, we’re just going to toss them out the window or something to see if they’ll get there eventually?

It seems to me that ex-boyfriends are just little enjoyment-sucking landmines that life inserts into otherwise pleasant parts of your life to remind you of some things you didn’t do well. It always sucks to be reminded that you are, in fact, a fallible person, but unless you are actually the Virgin Mary, I don’t understand why this is surprising in any way.

I also don’t understand why you need to spend any more time than usual acting like tonight would be an awful night to become manically overserved and sloppily fall on your face in front of your ex-bf’s new gf, or pretend that it isn’t just a little psycho to plan your outfit over a month in advance and not eat the day before, especially if you only dated this dude for a matter of college months. College months are different than normal months, because you were mostly drunk and incapable of rational feelings. Seriously, I can’t even remember some of the dudes I supposedly ”dated” in college. We could be attending events together, without incident, all the time!

Isn’t the goal of every social event, whether or not anyone who’s seen you naked will be in attendance, to wear a kick-ass outfit and appear to be a mildly well-adjusted person who pukes in toilets instead of on other people? Maybe my standards are piss-poor, but I’d like to think I can have a good night without being treated like a full-time cast member on the Lizzie McGuire show.

Because eventually, middle school is over, and we are all able to enjoy the privileges of adulthood that prepare us for breaking up with assholes. Unfortunately, no one was taking my advice, which was the best. I just wanted to be all, ”GF, please. Stop listening to Taylor Swift. Have you ever heard of Alanis Morrissette?” I mean seriously, here’s a bottle of wine and Beyonce’s entire catalog of music videos that I have saved on my computer for special occasions. Because if I could choose to show up at a party as the incarnation of either Taylor “Tears on My Guitar” Swift or Beyonce “Ring the Alarm/ I don’t even need a last name,” I would choose Beyonce, hands down, because Beyonce wins every break-up.