If I was a character in a movie it would look different. This white girl of privlidge’s heartbreak crisis would just look different. I would cry with mascara on, and yet my skin would still glow and my eyes would have that wet look that bleeds sadness interwoven with hope. My hair would shine and glisten in soft lighting and then he would show up. In navy pants and a grey knit, he would stand in front of me and tell me he loves me. That everything up until now has been leading to you. If my life was a movie, that’s what it would look like.
But it doesn’t look like that. I sit on my couch in unbuttoned jeans with egg stains on a pale blue jumper I bought from Best and Less at least eight years ago and my wine glass is full again. Netflix has asked if I’m still watching at least seven times, I’ve blasted through three seasons of Shameless in under a week and I’m starting to identify with Frank’s narcissistic version of self love. This is what heartbreak looks like in the real world and I know that fairy tales aren’t true.
On most occasions I can sustain this type of self indulgence and self pity for about three days. This version has endured somewhat longer and it’s come time to force myself back to the living and back into the arms of the people who actually love me. I’ve taken small steps back to them this week, but last night I threw myself into the fray with those who will still love me and want me no matter my degrading state of self pity or heartbreak. I got drunk with my family.
My baby cousin is getting married. She is more like my baby sister than my baby cousin, but still it was one of us and it was that occasion where it’s not only OK to be shit faced, it’s expected. The hen’ night. When you are 35 and attending the hen’s night of a 23 year old you are expecting to be the old duck. You are expecting not to be the one with a cock drawn between her breasts but the one who passes around the quiche. Last night I ate the quiche.
I knew my time had passed when I sat on the esky in sparkly gold shoes and a pink brocaded cardigan and watched the girls on the other side of the room snapchat (I’m assuming) each other. Their make-up flawlessly placed on their face while mine was smeared across an hour before because I was so busy drinking wine I forgot I had to get dressed. I was clearly out of my depth and from a different vintage. I looked at my cousin beside me, different one, same vintage, in dread and despair, “suck on your penis straw bitch and drink-up.” I didn’t take it as a suggestion and I let Dan the topless waiter fill my glass as many times as he wanted.
There was a group photo with the hen. In fact there were two. The first of all the girlies and then my baby girl yells, ‘Now all the over 35s!’ I stand up for my photo with my hen, my Aunty, mum’s of her other friends and I know that I am now clearly, decidedly old. While my vodka induced good mood lets the cruel heartbreak of that realisation roll off until today, the signs don’t get any better.
Waiting in line at Cocktails with my sister-in-law two hours later we chat distractedly that we are both easily ten years older than the average of people lining up with IDs. The security guard looks at me and smiles and takes my ID anyway. He doesn’t even glance at it. He stays looking straight at me, winks and says ‘Have a good night, love.’ Moving to the second line and the rest of the line is so clearly preoccupied with themselves, no one has noticed our cardigans. Winning.
More standing and waiting and we can see the cash coming out of wallets. Covercharge! Covercharge?! I don’t pay covercharge. It’s morally reprehensible to charge me money to drink alcohol I am going to have to pay for. It is in the middle of this silent internal rant that the hot woman who works on the front desk approaches us in the line. She utters words I can’t hear over the loud music and I look at my sister for clarification. ‘She says it’s $5 basics and we can go in for free.” At first, I’m ecstatic. We’re going in for free and I haven’t paid $5 for a drink since I was 25. I’m on top of the world. Dancing my way into the club it hits me. Hard. We’re too fucking old to be seen lining up to get in. It’s not a matter of we went their money, it’s a matter of ‘quick, get those fat, old, ugly ones inside in the dark before the young people see them.’
At 11.00pm it’s clear that the flat caps and onesies dancing around the room are in charge and this cardigan wearing nanna is going home to bed. Via Hungry Jacks. I get home and spend some quality drunk time with my mum, my sister and one of the young ones who bailed early and it’s one of my most favourite moments of the week. I may be old and cardigan wearing but under no circumstances am I not loved. As long as I remember to remove the egg stains from my jumper I’m pretty sure they’ll still love me.
This morning I woke up and I knew that it’s not so bad as my couch coma makes it seem. Just this weekend I got my hands on a stripper penis, (gross but it reminded me they exist) I bought sparkly shoes, I own a pink cardigan and I have an all accepting all loving family. Not bad for a weekend.
life in big frilly knickers 