Living La Vida Loca

 There is one part of the Florida reflection that I have never written, that I forgot to include, and that is how I stayed at my aunts house for a while (she is my uncles girlfriend but I call her my aunt. I hope she is okay with that). It wasn’t even a while, it was more like a bit, or a “minute” (isn’t that what the kids are saying now days?). Anyways, I am alive to tell the tale, so might as well…jump! (A little Van Halen for my dear old dad (as I light up a cancer stick. I think this blog might be bad for my health…))

In 2021 I was on my way to Virginia from Florida via 95 (i wanted to take a country road but I had to settle for the highway to hell) after quitting my job and leaving my boyfriend. I was gonna live with my brother in our hometown, cause he was freshly divorced, and my life sucked anyways, so I figured we’d smoke weed and drink and party (the best plan ever. Because I am a Floridian). That never happened because during the trip (blasting Foreplay by Boston) i failed to find my wallet, so I couldn’t get gas, and once it got so dangerously low I pulled into a vacant gas station in northern Florida and called my uncle. It was about midnight, and he came with my aunt, and she drove my car and me back to Daytona (god bless her). I really just wanted the gas money, but they decided I was in no shape for this kind of trip (and man was I on a trip. I think I was driving buzzed). My brother said on the phone “it doesn’t sound like you’re coming.” 

The next thing I knew I was waking up in my aunts daughter’s bedroom. It didn’t feel right not to have my boyfriend beside me in bed, and the feeling would only get more pronounced as the days went by. This is a nice bed, I thought, and it was. I went downstairs for a coffee, in my dirty clothes that probably smelled like sweat and disappointment (not many of my pants fit me lately so I was wearing elastic pajama pants). She owned a nice keurig. This is cool. “How do you feel?” she asked me. Isn’t it obvious? “If you wanna take a shower the bathroom is upstairs.” That sounded like a good idea. I probably wanted more coffee and wondered how many of her k cups I was allowed to use. The bathroom was nice (of course because my uncle remodeled it). There was a bluetooth speaker in the ceiling, so I connected my phone and found the most satisfying self-pitying love song for my broken heart. This was better than playing off the phone or the little wooden faux phonograph speaker my ex had gotten me for Christmas (which I still have and I do like. It’s very unique). In a hot torrent I lathered my hair up with all the very nice shampoo and conditioner (like Pantene or treseme (everything there was nice and cool. Because that’s who my aunt is, she is nice and she is cool)) and bawled my eyes out. And sang: “‘well I get so lonely! When I am without you! But in my mind, deep in my mind, I can’t forget about you!!!’”

So my new thing was taking showers, long, hot crying showers. But my first and foremost priority was obtaining alcohol. And my aunt was sober. Newly sober (she got sober in 2020 during Covid, and she still jokes that all the bars shut down because they lost her business). And I was newly not sober because a week ago I began starting my mornings with whiskey and club soda. And a little pot. And I had the pot  because a couple days ago I rolled a joint at my uncles house (while listening to Pink’s Just Like a Pill (I never roll joints and I am not good at it. I didn’t have my bowl, so this was a joint of desperation)). So my aunt gave me a bowl that she didn’t use and I got high out back by the pool (pool: cool). But I still needed a drink, so I went to a gas station and bought a case of white claws and planned to drink them in secret. And take another shower (with booze: much better). 

My aunt said I needed to clean out my car, i cant be driving around with all that shit in there. But the main reason was to find my wallet. So her daughter helped me clean it up. And it was a wreck, because I had ransacked it at a gas station looking for my wallet. There was a broken lamp with a broken bulb, so little shards of glass everywhere, and stupid shit like paper clips and tacks. One of my cedar boxes was broken. I was missing a whole plastic tub of important things that I left on the side of the road (I still don’t know why I did that. I think my birth certificate was in there). I brought everything inside and it was a huge pile and I didn’t want to burden her house with all my things. I found out I had one of my boyfriend’s tshirts and one of our pillowcases. That made me sad (plus, I shouldn’t say this, but I found a bottle of lubricant and that really upset me. Our lube!). I would end up moving my shit a lot over the next couple months. I found my wallet inside a green vintage suitcase. That’s what happens when you pack in a hurry.

My uncle thought it would make me feel better if I went shopping and got some new clothes, so I went to Ross with my aunts daughter and one hundred dollars (I’m sorry she had to put up with my craziness. She was really cool, she was just out of high school and she  promised me she wouldn’t tell anybody that I was drinking). I got some cool things that I wouldn’t normally wear, like a devil red push up bra. A water bottle with baby yoda on it (yeah can’t figure that one out, I don’t particularly like Star Wars (but baby yoda is so cute!) and I can’t explain a lot of the things I did). Some outfits too, and as soon as I got home I put them on and changed in and out of them constantly (girl gotta look good). My aunt noticed, and she said something like “I don’t think you realize how strangely you’re behaving. Normal people dont change in and out of clothes” (i am on medicine for those issues now. Thank god). I didn’t see the problem. They were okay with the smoking the pot, but didn’t quite know about my secret drinking (I found a flask in her freezer and helped myself to it. I didn’t dare get into the wine bottles because I knew she’d notice (I don’t know why she keeps alcohol in her house, I am sober now and I could never do that (even though I can go to bars no problem), but more power to her)). 

Some other things happened and I don’t know what order they happened in: I went to my weed dealer up in Ormond and stopped by my old apartment and mistakenly gave my ex almost all of my new product (my uncle was pissed about that. Seeing the ex was a big no no); I did some more drunk thrift store shopping; I went to Olive Garden with my nana and sister and got a big margarita, to prove I didn’t have a problem with alcohol (everyone let me do what I wanted so I could feel better, which was nice but not good); chatted up my uncle in Spanish, which surprised and impressed him (note: if I am speaking fluent spanish I am probably drunk); took a brief trip to the psych ward at Halifax Hospital in a police escort. I’ll write about that below.

One day I was trying to have some rum and diet root beer (I know doesn’t sound good. It wasn’t). My uncle let me have a little stash of rum from his house, because like I said people were trying to please me. He made me the cocktail, but my aunt came home before I could finish it. I did have some respect for her sobriety, so that’s why I poured it out. So I went to sit by the pool to calm my nerves, because I was like Jesus I can’t even have a drink. Before i knew it I was stripping down to my bra and underwear (I might have been butt naked but I can’t remember) and jumping into the bottom of the pool. Maybe I was trying to end it, idk. The realty of my situation sank in and I couldn’t take it, so I surfaced and lifted my tiny body out of the pool onto the hot concrete where I yelled like a maniac and pulled my hair. I can’t take anymore! I want to die!!! And more screaming, like I could purge my body of regret with my voice. The whole neighborhood could hear me, and it really scared my aunt and uncle, so they called the police because they didn’t know what else to do. A nice officer asked me “ma’am, would you like to go see a doctor?” I shakily said yes. My aunt helped me put my clothes on. My uncle was almost in tears (and that was the start of me taking trips to the psych ward). 

They said they had to put me in hand cuffs, that was just protocol, and a female officer patted me down. The backseat of the patrol car was hard plastic and very uncomfortable (and my butt was bony). I didn’t know where I was going; i didn’t know where they took the crazies but I was about to find out. It was the back entrance of the hospital and you go into a holding area. They ask you questions, like what kind of substances are you doing, and draw blood (I. dont. like. needles). You have to wear a puffy blue uniform that feels like paper and nobody looks good in. You have to give a urine sample (in case you like about the drugs. And to check if you are pregnant (because that’s a reason for insanity)), and then wait in a room, maybe for hours. It felt like hours and all I did was cry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry (I was apologizing to my ex, but he couldn’t hear me. Nobody could). I decided to take off the pants because they looked ridiculous, like I was a crazy clown, and the big shirt covered my legs. I went to crouch in the hallway because I was really lonely in that room. A lady said “you cannot be out here like that, there are men out here.” No sympathy. They did bring me some dinner, a nice hot meal with a carton of milk. I gulped it down with wet eyes and a runny nose and I felt like a little kid. 

Then they took me and another girl to the actual psych ward in wheelchairs (I don’t know what that was about, I could walk. It made me feel like a baby (and also like, wow they take good care of you here, I could get used to this. More milk, please). It was late so everybody was asleep, so me and the girl shared a room, but I couldn’t sleep because I kept hearing yelling in the hall. I can’t feel my feet, I can’t feel my feet, I’m gonna have a seizure… And then the voice of a Jamaican nurse: “go back to bed! There’s nothing wrong with you!” It seemed like it continued all night. I thought, wow if this guy is gonna have a seizure then somebody better help him. They didn’t care.

 I don’t know when I met with the psychiatrist, but they cleared me to go in the morning (I think I told them I had a  doctor who prescribed me Prozac (and promised not to be jumping in pools naked anymore)). We ate breakfast in our blue jumpsuits while we watched the Bee Movie. I got back into my regular clothes as soon as I could. I called my uncle on the free pay phone in the common area. Seizure boy asked me to dial his mama, like ten times, because he said he was partially blind (I guess he didn’t know he had tattoos all over his face either). Every time I handed him the receiver (and this still makes me laugh) he said Mama? Mama? She either hung up or she didn’t want to answer. He had been giving me the wrong number. 

I could write more, but I won’t; this is longer than I meant it to be. Needless to say, I ended up moving back in with my dad in Ormond Beach, and continued living la vida loca. If you read this far, thank you.