We Talked about the Drunken Adoption of Kittens

But that’s the kind of magic that would keep me hooked

What stopped us from drinking was the rock middles that didn’t bring martini glasses crashing to the floor. Not the waking up in gutters or jail cells, but the return of light to our dull eyes. And the discovery that a person can read after all. Colin and Rachel quit drinking, and it didn’t tear them apart. That was what kept me from quitting—the fear that it would change my relationships. It’s crazy, though, to be so afraid of change when change is the only guarantee.

I’m afraid of falling in love again, but I’m going to do it anyway. That’s one of my ways. I’ve been off it for almost two years. Here I go back into the maternal line, to see what they were up to and why I am this way. Grandma Corky didn’t have an everlasting Siamese cat named Susie, as I once thought. She adopted new ones as the others perished and named the successors after the previous Susies. In sixth grade, I wrote her biography and highlighted that she was married five times and twice to the same man. I wrote some line about how it was frowned upon to divorce so much back then, and the teacher made a comment in the margins that perhaps Grandma was ahead of her time.

Here is a question that I will use my entire life to answer: is it inevitable that one person will pine more than the other? Do I want it to be me or them? Do I want to be consumed by it again, bury myself in thoughts of what someone else dreams of, or do I want to be the object behind the curtain that he can’t quite grasp? Both options bring their own unique joy and pain. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there is something in the middle that I’ve been missing.

I wonder if maybe it’s all structured incorrectly because I can’t get past the conviction that I don’t want to share my bedroom, or my bathroom, or the air that surrounds me when I sleep, but still, I sleep on just one side of the bed instead of taking up the middle. It’s the side closest to the door, which is wrong. The man is supposed to sleep by the door so he can jump out of bed with his bat when the intruder comes in. But here I’ve gotten in the habit of leaving the protected space empty, and not even a cat will take that spot. They curl up in the V between my legs and pin me down with my duvet. Maybe this love is enough.

I mean…it is until I ovulate and walk myself into the co-ed sauna so I can be surrounded by hot air and slick muscles, and everyone breathing so deliberately, but it’s not enough. Oh, this is so intimate and vulnerable, but maybe the weirder I am here, the more normal I can appear to be out there.

Someone please remove the mirrors, so I can stop cutting my hair. Have you ever tried to give yourself a wolf-cut? I keep catching my reflection and wanting to make adjustments. There appear to be sideburns where there are supposed to be wispy tendrils, and my daughter tries to tell me to just stop cutting it, but I think I can get it right if I just carve out a little more. Things will not end well if I don’t put down the razor.

Colin and Rachel are two lovely humans who are sober, married, raising a small child and podcasting about it. They also have a beautiful cat and make me feel like I make youthful sock choices at the gym. Listen to the conversation with Colin and Rachel that inspired this piece:

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