I think I've only been truly in love twice in my life. I'm not entirely sure how to quantify what real love is, and I sometimes doubt if I know what love even is, but only twice have I felt that I unconditionally loved someone, and was sure we'd be married. 

The first was Jeff, my boyfriend from around 2009-2013, on-and-off. Our ears were filled with the many voices of our friends and family telling us we were soulmates and that we were going to grow up, get married, and have lots of kids. We believed them. Although we broke up and got back together multiple times, which is never a good sign, what ultimately brought us down was a lack of similar interests as we reached young adulthood and honestly, a little bit of classism on my end. This was back when I still believed that if anyone worked hard enough, they would make the American Dream a reality, and if they didn't, it was probably because they were too lazy. I thought Jeff had no ambition and would never "make it". Now I know better, and kind of hate teenage-me, but I'll give myself a pass for being young and dumb.

The second time was Justin (interestingly, I have a tendency to date J-named Cancers), who I've written about on here probably just as often as Jeff. Spanning three years from 2014-2017, we spent a good part of our relationship in two different countries, and the hopeless romantic in me loved to wallow and brood about how far apart we were while listening to sad love songs. This is where I got my karma; Justin was a white, 25-year-old medical student who came from money, and he constantly belittled my then-retail career and insinuated that he would never marry someone who lacked ambition the way I did. I was pretty depressed for the last year of our relationship, feeling as though I wasn't worthy of dating someone who was so smart and accomplished, but also he was just kind of an asshole in general. 

These two men take up a good amount of space in my head, and although I haven't spoken to Jeff in years, Justin and I speak pretty regularly and reminisce on our relationship through smudged, rose-colored glasses. 

I surprised myself when upon learning Jeff was in a relationship, and apparently madly in love, I felt sad that somehow we would never have another chance. I honestly don't know where that came from, and I had never even thought about reconnecting with him, so those visceral and knee-jerk feelings that erupted from me genuinely took me by surprise. I think what it boils down to is that me and Jeff have more in common fundamentally than anyone I've ever dated before: raised in Latino households, yet drawn to American counterculture, making us both the black sheep of our families. His new girlfriend seemed to be the same.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Jeff had taken down almost all his photos, most notably the many photo-dumps of his girlfriend accompanied by long and winding proclamations of love and adoration from his Instagram page, and I was intrigued. Unfortunately, it seems as though he has no other forms of social media, so I scrolled through Facebook, where I still had his mom as a friend, looking for clues. I don't know why I did this, I don't even live in New York anymore and I doubt that we could ever work again, but the lizard-brain in me wanted him to be an option. 

That led me to tonight, in between rounds of virtual-pool with my sister and quickly losing my focus, I tried to go as deep as I possibly could to find any information about his relationship status. I came up empty-handed, and my sister tried to give me good excuses to send him a message and strike up a conversation, something I don't think I'll ever have the guts to do. I do actually still have some of his baby photos, so if I'm ever in New York I'll have a good reason to visit his mom and hope he's around (they still live across the street from my mom's house). However, I think it's a little unfair to drag people from my past into my fits of nostalgia and what-if delusions, because I'd be a little annoyed if it happened to me (and it has). I guess for now I'll try to get to know him through sparse and shallow social media posts and imagine what he's like now, 7 years since I knew him last.

The Artist Who Is Not An Artist

I've always felt that although I am artistically inclined, I can't think the way artists think. Things that innate artists are able to "see" and "feel" never made any sense to me whatsoever without understanding some underlying theory behind it.

For example, when I did custom framing, I could never help people who were unsure of what colors went well with their art, or who straight-up told me, "I came here so you guys could design the colors for me, you're the professionals." Although I loved the job and loved working with art, I couldn't think abstractly and instead went into my mental catalog of complementary colors and used that to justify whatever color decision I was making on behalf of the customer. Instead, I became very good at production, and became one of the store's valuable production specialists who could join a frame properly, cut glass to its exact specifications, and find the best way to stretch a canvas.

In the hair industry, whenever someone sat in my chair and said "I want to do something that would go well with my face shape and/or skin color", I drew a blank. I had a very hard time trying to come up with some inspired idea of what length or color this person's hair should be to maximize their beauty, and I seemed to be one of the only ones there who had this issue. As much as people explained it to me (round faces need length, long faces need volume!), I still had a hard time drawing a blueprint in my mind of how I would go about making someone's face look better.

I went to cosmetology school because I was fascinated by the idea that holding a section of hair at a certain angle would create a specific shape, and that adding a stronger developer to color would make hair react more strongly. I wanted to learn the theory behind all of this, and wanted to be able to replicate it and be able to look at a head of hair at the end and see my 'blueprint' work out. However, I soon learned that all of this theory and technical knowledge only gets you as far as taking a state board exam and getting a license. Once in the salon, that all kind of goes out the window in terms of education.

We have weekly classes that alternate between cutting and color, and they are taught by stylists who currently work at the salon. I'm currently the senior assistant, so I work very closely with the salon owner, who is a comically abstract thinker and almost seems like a caricature of art teachers in comedies who can "feel" the world and know what it needs. This crosses over into her hairstyling, which involves almost no theory, and instead manifests as "feeling the hair and knowing where to cut it". She doesn't section the hair, she doesn't use hair clips, she barely even uses a comb. It's fascinating to watch, and almost impossible to learn from. For me, as her right-hand-person at this point, it results in a lot of frustrating days and long periods of her trying to explain something to me in her own way, to no avail. So, I've stopped asking questions.

In response to my frustrations regarding lack of technical and theoretical education, many stylists tell me you have to be able to think visually as well as theoretically. Although I do believe this might be true for hair coloring, I disagree in terms of hair cutting. In fact, I've spent hours watching hair cutting videos on YouTube and Instagram because as they are explaining each step, I'm understanding how precise everything they are doing is. It all has a purpose and a plan. In the end, although the client sees a great haircut, the stylist is seeing all of the purposeful cuts they made at each point and how they culminate in an error-proof cut.

The difference, of course, is that in a salon setting your goal as a hairstylist is to eventually get your haircuts down to less than an hour in order to maximize your pay and the amount of clients you can see. You're also bound to your scheduling, so if you feel that you didn't make sure the cut was perfect, it doesn't matter, because your next client is here and they've already been waiting for ten minutes.

Anyway, I've been seriously reconsidering my career path lately and have been looking at some options outside of the hair industry that might fit my learning style a lot better. I sort of had this epiphany today that the reason everything I've been pursuing in my life is art-adjacent stems from the fact that I went to a theater arts school from the ages of twelve to eighteen. I don't think it has anything to do with being a person who is inclined to make art in some way.

I think that explains a lot about why I can play guitar pretty well and sing, but I can't write any of my own music. If I was locked in a room and the only way out was to write a song complete with lyrics and an original chord progression, I'd probably die.

I don't know what you'd call it when someone can copy something really well but can't make anything of their own, but I've had that feeling many times in my life regarding art. I guess writing is a form of art but there's also a universal structure to writing in the form of grammar, spelling, formatting, etc. so it doesn't really feel like I'm doing anything original. I'm basically just writing down my thoughts and throwing it into the void.

I've been watching some coding videos online and considering going to a coding bootcamp, and I think I'd be really good at it based on what I know about myself and my abilities. I've written some code and watched it come to life and it's actually very enjoyable. So I guess we'll see if three years from now I write a new blog post about how coding is too structured and boring and I don't have any freedom.

Good thing I still live at home and don't pay rent!

Drinking rum in the bathroom

I see myself in impulsive girls

Girls who won’t ever advance

Won’t ever marry or settle down

I’m living in a trance 

Of my own design

To distract myself 

From an anxious mind 

In Limbo

What do you do when you're worried that something isn't forever but it's good for right now?

Me and Danny have been together for over a year now and although I've had many close calls with calling the whole thing off, the good still outweighs the bad. I just feel like it can't last.

For starters, things are totally different now than they were when we first met. As in, our personalities are totally different. This is maybe my bias talking, but I think my change comes in response to his change; I don't think we both changed at the same time. Now, he might disagree on that but from my perspective, that's what happened.

In the beginning, we were, for lack of a less pathetic word, obsessed with each other. I know it's not realistic to expect that to last a year in, but it's what came with the obsession that led to me being drunk and crying to my best friend that I found "The One" one night. It's what came with the obsession that led to him buying me lunch out of the blue while I was at work, and bringing me small gifts every week. It's what came with the obsession that led to us having long phone calls every single night before we went to bed.

Okay, so all of that comes with the honeymoon phase, fair enough. But what about pet names, affection, desire, passion? Does that all go away after a year, too? I would've expected that to last, at least; fuck all the gifts and the lunches.

Along with the lack of emotional and physical intimacy comes the fact that Danny can sometimes be down-right mean. To me, to his friends, to my friends, to customer service reps, to cashiers, etc. I have a theory that involves him being raised by a woman who had to do whatever she could to get to the top of the ladder, including being a "total bitch". He's mentioned before that he saw his mom act this way and she always got what she wanted. Now, back in the 80's or whatever when you were the only woman in a male-dominated industry, I totally get it. She surmounted countless challenges and sexism and paved her own road, her own way. That's cool. Whatever.

However, when the product of that, being a white male with a booming voice who's had an extremely privileged life, uses those tactics to get an extra discount at the coffee shop or to get a clothing retailer to extend their return policy, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It represents everything I hate, and everything I yell about on the internet with other socialism-sympathizing poor people of color from bad neighborhoods. My friends don't understand how I can deal with it, neither do I.

I've had countless conversations about his behavior with him before, but in his mind, that's just the way shit gets done. His response is that I'm "too nice", and too willing to acquiesce to others to prevent confrontation. Okay, so let's say we're complete opposites when it comes to politeness and confrontations. I'm actually extremely comfortable with being too nice, and I'd always choose being nice as opposed to being mean. I like who I am as a person, and I sleep at night genuinely feeling like I live my life every day based on being as kind as generous as I can be. I would never give that up just to get...what, in arguments with cashiers over ten cents, or causing a scene at a clothing store because I brought my item in a few days after their return period ended? No, thanks. I'm good.

This isn't to say that I hate Danny or that I want to break up with him. There are good things, too. He makes me laugh more than anyone else, he will literally cook me all three meals of the day without me even asking him to, he always plans fun things to do that I would've never found on my own. He also really knows me, like he can anticipate my every move and emotion, which is kind of scary because I don't want anyone having that power. He just somehow possesses the key to who I am, which no one else before him had. Although, I know he has issues with who I am, too.

He doesn't like how polite I am, which we've covered. He think's I'm not ambitious or driven enough. He thinks I'm lazy because on my days off I'd rather stay at home. That's all fair, we have totally different values and define "success" differently, I guess. That's one of the issues I see being a reason for a break-up in the future. That, along with the fact that I moved out of his house just as fast as I moved in because of his need to keep things the way he likes without anyone else interfering. This is a trivial complaint, but we also have totally different styles of home-decor, which neither of us is willing to budge on, so that's another reason I don't think we'd ever be able to co-habitate on a long-term basis.

This is getting long, so I'd better wrap it up.

I'm just in this relationship-limbo, where I don't see how we can compromise on our differences in the long term but I'm having fun in the moment. Of course, thinking about all of this makes it less fun, but there's really no concrete reason to break up right now. At least, nothing that's making me miserable. I have to be careful though because I fell into the same trap in my last two serious relationships where I stayed because "nothing" had happened, but I ultimately wasn't happy. The only difference here is that Danny isn't a toxic boyfriend and doesn't manipulate me and gives me my space. We do our own thing most of the time, and that's cool. It may be that I'm finally in an actual healthy relationship, but what if it isn't with the right person for me, or not the right time, and I don't know how to navigate that without having a giant red flag waving in my face? That's a real possibility. Danny is a great boyfriend, and makes an effort to be a great boyfriend, but what if he's just not right for me?

It's times like these when I wish I hadn't stopped seeing my therapist.

The Unbearability of Overthinking

I've been thinking so much lately about going back to school even though I have no idea what I would even want to study. Every day I get up and go to work and wonder, is this what my life is going to be like forever? I keep wanting to change my mind about what I do because I'm worried about making the wrong choice. 

Every single day, every single decision I make, every single thing I say, I wonder if it'll cause some kind of irreparable change to the rest of my life. I worry every night about making the wrong choice for myself. 

It's 2 AM right now and I'm sitting in bed even though I have to be up early for work thinking about what my future looks like. How could someone even know what the future will look like? It's impossible. I'm so worried about making the wrong choice, taking the wrong path, because I think life will be unbearable if I get any more unhappy than I am now. I think the root of my anxiety is my constant state of existential dread. It is all too often in the day that I have to take a moment to think about what I'm doing with my life and wonder if I'm doing it wrong. 

I don't think I will ever be happy with any decision I make because I'll always wonder if it's the wrong one. That worries me even more, because it's like my life is becoming some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I think I'm doomed to be unhappy. Will my medication ever make me change my mind about that? 

Every time I meet with my psychiatrist, she asks (as a way to determine where I'm at mentally and if I'm improving), "If there was a button in front of you right now, and if you pressed it you would've never existed, would you press it?" And I don't think the answer to that will ever change because I don't see how anyone would turn down never existing in the first place. And I can't tell if that's just my messed up brain talking or if I've come to that conclusion of my own sane mind. 

Who wouldn't choose to have never existed in the first place? You don't ever get to experience heartbreak, pain, hunger, neglect, or anything unpleasant at all. True, you also never experience any good but how can you miss something you never had? You would literally have never existed. You wouldn't even have the consciousness to even ask "what if"? So why does it matter?

Anyway, this constant worry I have about making the wrong choice for my life is driving me crazy. I can't just make a decision and settle down and be happy with it. I always question myself. It's torture. I keep waiting for a lightbulb to go off in my head and a sudden realization of what I'm supposed to do with my life. But what are any of us supposed to do with our lives? We are all just tiny specks floating in space. Nothing we do really matters in the grand scheme of the universe. 

So maybe I should just do whatever I want and just think that life is short and it won't matter in a million years. We are on this planet for such a short amount of time that I hate having to feel like I have to have some enlightened meaningful existence to be human. 

But at the same time, I know I have the potential to do some amazing things with my life. I just don't know what those things are. I feel like at 23 most people know more or less what their passions are in life. All I know is I just want to love and be loved forever. Forget a career, I just want someone to float with me through this ridiculous thing we call "living".

I just feel like my brain is full of holes or something that I can never patch up. I know it's not normal to be this way and to think about these things every single day. I'm really worried for myself in the future because I'm scared that these feelings will only grow stronger as I age, and that I'll feel as though I'm wasting even more of my life. 

I'm just scared all the time.

Self-Awareness and Self-Deprecation

I've started a semi-new job, once that I am particularly good at. This doesn't surprise me. Not because it's a relatively easy-to-acquire retail job, but because if I really enjoy doing something, I always succeed.

My manager and I have developed a unique employee/employer relationship. After half a year of working for her, we have become best friends. I just got home after a night out drinking with her and I've realized I am unsure about my feelings when receiving work-related compliments from her outside of a professional setting. This is a testament to why you shouldn't mix business with pleasure, as the saying goes.

I've always considered myself to be someone who is very self-aware of myself and other's perception of me. However, to admit to being self-aware automatically negates the proclamation. There is just something about telling other people what you think of yourself that makes your claim less reliable, even if they agree. I remember in the 11th grade telling my English teacher that I found myself to be "self-righteous" (obviously not in a good way) and watching him double over with laughter, unsure why. I quickly became embarrassed and have always remembered that moment vividly, a reminder that no one takes what you think of yourself seriously.

Today was a particularly good day for me, because I overheard my manager and my senior discussing how impressed someone was of me. The person in question is another one of my seniors, Andrew, who fits the caricature of the anti-social genius. He is the best at what he does, and doesn't seem to bother making nice with any of the other coworkers at my job, because, we assume, he is too smart and too busy to bother with what new meme we find especially hilarious. From my first day at work, I knew this was the person to impress. I found myself listening and watching carefully what he responds to, hoping to find something meaningful to add to his conversations. He is the designated teacher at our job, and I made sure to always ask him questions; not because he is an important facet of our success, but because he knows everything and there is a lot to learn from him.

Anyway, his specialty is coming up with ways to fix things that no one else would think of. He is very technical and hands-on. Today I fixed something which prevented a considerable delay in our work, and my senior said, "Andrew would be impressed." I was only half listening, and only heard a fragment of my manager's sentence, which was, "I told him from the beginning, spend some time with her, and he didn't believe me." I looked up and said, "what did you say?" and she said, "I told Andrew to spend time with you, because he'd like you. Now you're his favorite."

I just laughed and kept on working, because I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but it meant a lot that someone who I have such high regard for would be impressed with me. At that moment I understood why my schedule had been changing recently (Andrew makes the schedule, and he had been scheduling me for early, production-heavy shifts, as opposed to the low-level, late night sales-based shifts) and why he had been pulling me aside to teach me new techniques that 6-month-old employees usually had no use for.

Another valuable employee in our company, Bre, is another "genius" at her job, but she is extremely social, and has no problem exclaiming how highly she thinks of particularly good workers. She has made several comments lately about how I'm turning into her "mini-me", "clone", etc. I'm always the first to volunteer for extra shifts, and she said I reminded her of herself in this way. Today she also paid me a compliment that I didn't know how to respond to. She mentioned looking at the schedule and being upset that another employee was going to be working with her in the morning, and then she saw my name and said "thank god, now I won't have to worry". Again, I just laughed and kept working, but buried this compliment deep in my mind, so I wouldn't forget.

And now we get to just an hour ago, another compliment I received from someone I value. My manager/best friend's boyfriend, Matt, who is a like a big brother to me. I've never had someone to look up to and depend on to defend me and look out for me besides my partner, and it is so nice to know I have another male figure in my corner who looks out for me. My manager told me that Matt told her I was his favorite out of her friends, despite only knowing him 3 months or so. This is a guy who told me, after one of his friends was pressuring me to make out with him one drunken night, that if this guy ever bothered me again, to tell him and he'd "punch him in the fucking face". It meant a lot to me as someone who is severely lacking in people to defend me and protect me, since my mother never did this and I never felt secure in this sense.

I think a lot of these compliments are a consequence of being someone who is self-aware. I can pinpoint all kinds of relationships, romantic and otherwise, that didn't work out for me because the other person wasn't self-aware, and it is something me and my partner Justin always talk about. I'm with someone who is as self-aware as I am, and all my friends are, too. Our problems with other people (confrontations, bad impressions, complaints about behavior) are all because of those people not being able to detect how they come off to others, and so they say stupid things that ruin our opinion of them and make it so that we can never hang out with them as casual friends. My manager tells me I'm especially good at dealing with customers who are unhappy, especially good at fixing problems, and an especially good friend. She is so comfortable with me that she tells me who she wants to fire, who she is unhappy with, and even trusts me with secrets about those higher up in the chain. It makes me feel very good about myself that despite my failures in academia, I am considered one of the smartest people a lot of my friends know. The key here is that I don't talk about it. It really doesn't matter what you think of yourself, all that matters is how others see you, and a lot of the time that's what will feed your self-esteem tank. People are way more likely to give you compliments if you yourself don't talk about those things you believe you are great at.

An example of this is another girl I work with, who is the complete opposite of me in this vein of self-awareness. She has extremely pungent body odor that she and her friends are apparently incapable of noticing, she has an extremely obnoxious "customer service" voice, and she does not understand social cues well. She has a nice singing voice, and that is very difficult for me to admit because of how much she talks about it. We all work in a relatively small room, within a few feet of each other. Many times she will start singing loud enough for all of us to hear and we all know she does this as a way to fish for compliments. One particular day, after maybe a half hour of her singing non-stop, she says to no one in particular, "haha, I remember when ____ heard me sing" to which no one responded because of the obvious bait. Then she says, "he was like, "wow, you have a really nice voice!" Again no one said anything, and I could feel how uncomfortable we all were to agree with her, and I was cringing almost visibly. It is so difficult, even when someone is talented, to pay them a compliment that they had already paid to themselves tenfold. It's like they don't deserve it, because they have already received the esteem boost through their own conceitedness, and it feels undeserved. We are all quick to compliment others when they are not aware of their talents. Why is that? It's hard for me to come up with an answer, because I am complicit in it to. I am self-deprecating sometimes, so that...what, people think I'm a better person for not admitting how good I am at something? Humility is the crux of self-awareness. You cannot believe yourself to the best at anything without making others feel like you think yourself to be superior to them. This is why stories like Cinderella's are so popular, can you imagine how less pure we would think her to be if she spent most of the story saying, "I am clearly the best looking out of my sisters, and I am also the the kindest, most charitable, and humble. Why don't I get treated better?" We would hate her, and say to her, "Maybe if you stopped talking about yourself all the time you would find someone to be interested in you."

I guess it becomes disingenuous when someone is aware of what they are doing right, and then expect someone to compliment them. It seems like they are more concerned with the recognition than just being good at something and performing it with no expectation of a reward. We subconsciously dislike people who seem to think very highly of themselves, and something as simple as a sentence spoken out loud validating themselves is enough to leave us with a bad taste in our mouths. Maybe it's why we love stories of people who did the right thing and didn't realize anyone was watching, or dogs who see something wrong with their owners and doing something to help them, although there has been no previous conditioning to do so. Maybe that's why I write on a public blogging platform and don't give anyone my URL. Maybe that's why we have given meaning to a finch landing on Bernie Sander's podium as he was talking; after all, wild animals seemed to know how pure-hearted and selfless Cinderella was, and therefore flocked to her.

To me, there is no choice but to not compliment yourself in matters of talent, especially at work, where you are supposed to be doing the best you are able to do to being with. Why would I tell my senior, "wow, I'm really good at ___" when that's what my job entails anyway? Why would I tell my friend, "wow, I am a great listener", when to be a good friend, that's what you are supposed to do? It doesn't matter that many others fail at many facets of social life; you can't praise yourself for being the best version of a friend/employee/romantic partner you can be. To be mediocre and be self-deprecating, at least others can see that you are aware of your short-comings and are willing to help yourself. The opposite, however, is not attractive. Of course, there are many people who are self-deprecating on purpose, because they know their insults to themselves are not accurate and they seek validation from others, but that is always very, very easy to see through. I don't think we give other people enough credit for knowing when we are being genuine and when we are not. It sounds like I am leading a deeply-religious life, not ever complimenting myself except for the rare occasion when someone tells me I am very good at something and I can say, "thank you, this has always been something I have tried to work on, and I have done my best." However, I just do not want to put myself in a place where I make others dislike me and feel as though I think highly of myself because I am innately better. I am just lucky to be self-aware enough to know what parts of self-acknowledging behavior others are uncomfortable with. One of my biggest fears is having many people share the same negative opinion of me. I have seen and felt the discomfort of working around those who give themselves unwarranted praise, and it is probably one of the worst traits to have in the social-interaction-based reality that is our existence.

I Think I'm Becoming "That Girl"

Last night I had a horrible night out drinking, which is unfortunately becoming the norm for me.

There have been four times now that I've gone out with friends and made a complete fool of myself and blacked out.

One was in NJ with two of my classmates, where I ended up throwing up and laying down on a dirty bathroom floor and then falling asleep at an IHOP.

Two was in the Bronx at a bar and grill with my best friend and three other people that I never met up until that point, and I started aggressively making out with one of the girls we were with the entire night. The next morning I had no idea how I got home.

Three was on my birthday in April: Me and my three close friends started pregaming at my house before we went out, and this began at around 3pm. By 6pm I was blacked out, and the rest of the story is just what my friends told me. We went to the same bar and grill from above and as soon as we got there I threw up in the bathroom and laid down on the floor. After an hour or so of some kind strangers helping me get up, I went back to our booth and started sobbing for no reason. They had to take me home in a cab and since it was only 10pm they went back.

This one happened last night, and it might be the worst one because I went out with my coworkers to see my manager's band play. It was in Williamsburg which is pretty far from where I live and I should've thought about this before I started drinking.

I was perfectly fine after 3 drinks although I could tell I was really drunk. I was still functioning and we were getting ready to leave when my coworkers have the idea to get high before we left.

Before I go on with this story here's something very important about me that you should know:
I am ALWAYS anxious, and for this reason I never smoke weed because it makes me a hundred times worse than I already am. I have never had a good experience getting high, so I stay away from it whenever possible. In this situation however, I was so drunk that I was running on a "don't mind if i do" mentality. Who knows what I would've done if it was offered to me.

So we sat down on the sidewalk a few blocks away from the train station and they did their thing, and I took some pulls of two joints they had and at this point I began losing track of time and reality. There was one moment of consciousness when I had a clear though, which was, "uh oh...this isn't good..." and got the idea to fall asleep on my friend's leg. All I remember after that is them waking me up and as soon as I stood up everything felt like it was moving at 100mph. My vision was literally moving like I was on a motorcycle. I started to freak out and got really nauseous and ended up vomiting in the street and being completely incapable of moving. My friends tried to get me up but my body was just not responding to me. I have literally never felt the way I did last night, and at one point I wanted to tell them to call an ambulance because I thought I was going to die. It was fucking terrifying.

All I remember is everyone trying to talk to me and get a response out of me and me just...nothing. Not moving, not speaking, I couldn't even see. And these are COWORKERS, not close friends or people I'm never going to see again. I'm just so happy my manager had left by that point, because if I was her I would never be able to look at me the same way.

I woke up this morning in one of my coworker's bed, and I asked her if everyone was upset with me or if they were annoyed but it seems like everyone was just worried. Unless she's lying and doesn't want to hurt my feelings, in which case I don't think I'd want to know or I'd literally quit my job out of embarrassment.

I just can't believe how often this has happened to me relative to all my other friends. I have never seen any of my other friends get so drunk they threw up and blacked out.

I think my problem has its roots in anxiety, and how I can be perfectly fine one second and then the moment I have some sort of internal reflection where I realize, "Oh, I'm drunk...I'm talking funny and maybe people are laughing at me because they can tell I'm drunk...", I freak out and can't recover for the rest of the night. It's so embarrassing to wake up and not know what you did or said the night before because you were so fucked up. I'm really gonna have to watch my alcohol intake and make sure I'm not taking in more than my mind can handle.