The Sheila Variations

"Go Ask Sheila"

Illegal activities will be described in the following post (from many many years ago - relax!). Don't read on if you have a problem with that.

The day started with a letter from my ex-boyfriend.

We had been broken up for over a year. But it had been one hell of a breakup, leaving us both chastened, battered and vaguely mentally ill.

I had moved to Chicago, where I proceeded immediately to raise all kinds of hell. Callously breaking hearts, crap like that. I still had bouts of heartache, he had been my first boyfriend, my first relationship, and it had been intense. He stayed in San Francisco, where he was working in a law firm, and almost immediately began dating the woman who now is his wife.

Our paths could not have diverged more. He was significantly older than I was (or, the age difference wouldn't be great at all NOW, but then - it was huge. I was 24 years old, he was in his 30s. Huge difference. HUGE.) And what happened in the aftermath of the breakup showed, in the way that it never could when I was with him, how much growing up I had to do, how much hell I had to raise.

I had never been a date-r, or promiscuous, or anything like that - and I wasn't when I moved to Chicago. But let's not soft-pedal this. I went insane. I stayed out all night. I made out with guys I never saw again. I gyrated at dance clubs, sandwiched in between two lunatic Lebanese cousins who were vying for my attention. I stayed up all night with M., fighting, fucking, playing pool, eating breakfast at 4 a.m., laughing hysterically, wrestling so roughly that we knocked over furniture - enraging his poor roommate who had an early audition the next day, having conversations like this one or like #2 in this list, and then it ended with me frantically cleaning his disgusting kitchen when he wasn't looking (because he got mad when I would tidy up his apocalyptic messiness). I remained sternly un-attached. For the time being. This situation was only months away ... but before then, I was VEHEMENTLY single. I terrified the men I was with. Except for M. He got a kick out of me, and just let me be a pacing tiger, never tried to pin me down (except when we were wrestling, of course). There was one infamous day when I had three dates in one day. And on the last date (with M., of course - I always ended my days with him) we ran into one of the guys I had gone on a date with earlier in the day. We were all like, "Hey! How are you! Wow ... okay ... so this is awkward!"

All of this hormone-insanity was interrupted by bouts of lying in bed, howling, because I missed my old boyfriend. But never once did I think: Maybe we should have stayed together. I don't think my old boyfriend (to this day) could say the same thing. In many ways, things were worse for him. We stayed in touch, and this was pre-email - so it was snail-mail and phone conversations, long agonized (and sometimes awesome) phone conversations. We missed each other so much. It was great to know how much I was missed. Meanwhile, though, I never once wished myself back into that relationship, into that stifling monogamy, into the world where I was supposed to care about buying Brie, and picking out futon covers. Oh, hell no. And as a matter of fact, I have never entered that world again. I am still a monogamous girl, sad to say, I'd probably be much happier if I was an unapologetic whore, and if I have a relationship again, I will no doubt mean business - but I'll never accept a relationship where I have to fake interest in things that bore me to tears. There are many different ways to be in a relationship. If HE stresses about futon covers, then that's fine, as long as he keeps me out of it, and doesn't treat me like there's something WRONG with me because I don't lose sleep over when to un-freeze the pesto in the fridge.

Okay. I'll stop. I'm being mean.

He needed something else at that time in his life. He was ready to settle down. Trying to get me to settle down at 24 was a square-peg-in-round-hole situation. Misery for both of us. Unfortunately, I did not have enough of a sense of self to say, "I'm too young for that - I just got out of college - I don't feel ready to pick out silverware." Instead, I internalized his displeasure with me, and let myself be overwhelmed by how wrong I was. To be totally truthful, I still grapple with the demons that that relationship left me with. I am always in the wrong. Something is wrong with me, and that is why it never works out for me. I am so convinced in my own wrong-ness now that I don't even give the guy a chance to explain himself, or apologize. Poof, I am gone. In a puff of smoke. It was that bad, back then.

And that whole "wrong-ness" thing actually does have to do with the story I am going to tell today. I guess you could say I have a complex. And whatever, I'm old, so it seems like it's just my PERSONALITY now, as opposed to a quirk I can work on. Every time I do anything - I do it wrong FIRST. This is true of big things: relationships, sex, etc. - and also little things. For example, when I go to make my bed with fresh sheets, I ALWAYS put them on upside down first - with the tag up. And I'm ADD like that, the tag cannot be on the wrong side. And I guess I could check first before I spread the sheets out (hahahaha, you think?) - but it's habitual. When I start to do something, I just START - heedlessly - and then have to correct my mistakes as I go. This has been disastrous, in terms of my personal life - but it seems to be just the way I roll. I could fill a book with examples. The first time I drove on the highway, the first time I do ANYTHING - disaster strikes. And so yeah, I have a complex. I always feel like the universe is slapping my hand, saying, "no no no, not YOU. YOU don't get to do this. Other people, but not you. What were you thinking?" I can look back on some of my mishaps now and laugh, but many of them still are not funny to me.

The time I did ecstasy though is one of those funny memories. Leave it to me to do ecstasy and have a reaction unlike anybody else's. Why am I surprised.

I was living with Mitchell in Chicago. We had made a bunch of new friends, awesome people who are still our friends today. We did karaoke, we went to music clubs, we stayed out all night. We loved these people. And they had "x" parties, where everyone gathered at someone's apartment, and did ecstasy. We had heard the stories, the hilarity, how great it was, how fun ... and this was not like, you know, Go Ask Alice. We weren't hanging around with loser weirdos with armpit hair. We were curious. So we, along with Jackie, decided to join them at one of their "x" parties. Why not? We gave the dealer (you know, our good friend) the money for a couple tabs of ecstasy for the following week.

Now a word about drugs. I have never been a "why not?" person about drugs. I've never done all the major drugs - I guess I was always afraid of losing control. Also, there is the Go Ask Alice factor. I read that book when I was 11 and it scared the shit out of me. One hit of pot, and the next thing you know I'd be being gang-banged by a bunch of filthy hippies. And NOT FEELING BAD ABOUT IT!! No, thanks. I like to drink, but even then I have to be careful (right, David?) If I stick to beer and wine, I'm fine. But once I start drinking whiskey, I'll be weeping and talking about events from 15 years ago before you can say "Loony Tunes". And forget about tequila. My only bar fight occurred when I did shots of tequila. So, I learned my lesson. That's another thing with me: I learn my lesson. Once is enough. If I have a bad experience with one "genre" of alcohol (say, peppermint schnappes - I still can't think about it without feeling my stomach heave up in protest) - then I stay away for good. I smoked pot in college, everyone did - but I never really liked it. Again, with the neverending theme, it didn't seem to do for me what it did for others. It didn't mellow me out. It made me feel like I was a hollow shallow nonentity whom everybody secretly hated. I would shout out something into a crowded room, and it would land like a BOMB, and I would end up hating myself for the rest of the party. The paranoia was awful. I know it mellowed other people out. I know people who love it. It just didn't work that way for me. It made me insane. Jittery and self-conscious. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing that I never tried cocaine, because I feel like that is MY drug. It calls to me. We would make an awesome match. It is the answer to all of my problems. So. Obviously, that road not taken is best not taken. Heroin never appealed. Too scary. Needles? No. And I never did any of the hallucinogenics either - although most of my friends in college had done them - mushrooms, LSD, all that, and had great times. But I am convinced (to this day) that I would be one of those morons who would, while on mushrooms, leap through a plate glass window 80 stories up, because "the sky looked so pretty" ... or try to kill my best friend, because I suddenly saw Beelzebub gleaming out of her eyes. Whatever. I don't think it's my constitution that is delicate. I'm actually very strong. But mentally? I feel a bit more unstable in that realm. I already feel like the damn walls talk to me on occasion. What would it be like to have that feeling intensified? Too scary. Once college ended, I never smoked pot anymore - and just stuck to alcohol. But I felt safe with these people, and Mitchell and Jackie would be there ... so everything would be okay. It would be an adventure!

One other thing that I think might have been a factor in my reaction to ecstasy was that I was kind of flirting with anorexia at that point. I was a size 2. And don't let anyone tell you that being that thin is not addictive. It is. (At least for someone like me. I had never been "thin" before, but I was thin then.) It's funny, it's like the time when someone asked Cher, "So how is it being 50?" And she replied, "40 is better." I was not healthy. I was running 5 to 10 miles a day, and living on a diet of sunflower seeds and Snapple. Literally. I remember Ann Marie saying to me once, "Are you going to become an anorexic? Because I really don't think I can deal with that." We still laugh about that. Could you please get that eating disorder under control because I, personally, cannot deal with it. Eventually, I got back to normal - but there was about a year there when I was the pushing-food-around-plate girl, and yes, I watched the fat dissolve off of me. It was awesome. I loved my eating disorder! So I'm thinking maybe the ecstasy - hitting my empty stomach and 115 pound frame - was altogether too much for me.

But then there was that letter from my ex-boyfriend. It arrived on the morning of the day of the party. He solemnly informed me that he was moving in with his new girlfriend. And that our conversations would have to stop, and I probably would have to stop sending stuff to him, books, and stuff like that. He was moving on. He was not callous, it was the right thing to do - to give me a heads up - and it killed him. Because he never thought we should have broken up - he thought we could have fought it out, and come out on the other side. But he had done what he needed to do, found someone else ... and wanted to let me know that everything was going to change.

I guess I had known it was coming. I knew he was dating her. And I think a part of me even thought: He's going to marry that girl. I just knew that that was where he was at in his life. He wasn't going to date a ton of girls, he was READY. Let's GO. If I had received that letter 5 or 6 months before, I would have been apoplectic. Even though I didn't want to get back together with him - the breakup itself was wrenching and I swear that there were times when I had to teach myself to breathe again. We had been that much a part of each other's lives. Sleeping alone? Walking down the street alone? Being able to plan my own weekend? Unheard of. But by the time this letter arrived, I had moved on significantly. I was cavorting with M., having adventures many of which are not printable. I was in shows. I had new friends. My life had a structure - I hadn't slipped off the rails without him. I had actually flourished! So the letter came, and I remember reading it in our kitchen, Mitchell standing nearby, and I had a moment when I put the letter down, saying to Mitchell, "Wow. It's really over." And strange: I felt nothing. Not one tiny thing. No sadness came up, none of the familiar grief ... I was calm and cool and quiet. And I actually felt grateful that he had written me such a letter, and also amazed that I had come so far. When I was in the maelstrom of the breakup, it had seemed like it would never end. I would always be the sad-eyed tragic girl. Always. But of course, time moved on ... and I healed. I got better. I really did. And that moment with the letter was a true marking-point. Look at me. Reading such a letter and being okay! (I am laughing now, remembering what ended up happening when I did that ecstacy ... but still: in the moment I was fine!) Amazing.

Jackie, Mitchell and I set out for the party. It was a hot summer night. Chicago swelter. We waited for the crosstown bus. I remember what I was wearing (why on earth do these details remain?) I was wearing cutoff jean shorts, and a white halter-top - that was basically like a big man's shirt in its construction. Kind of a cute Daisy-Duke look. I had no idea what I was walking into. I had no idea what was ahead of me. I was actually excited about the upcoming adventure, and I felt kind of shimmery and light. And I remember so clearly saying to my 2 dear friends, "You know what? I am FINE about that letter from T.! I am FINE!" I was not angry or defensive. I was more in awe. In awe at my own healing capabilities. "I cannot believe how FINE I feel about that letter! Isn't that amazing??"

Oh, Sheila.

Just wait.

We got to the party. Now one thing about people doing ecstasy - if you have ever had the experience of just hanging out with people who are high on that particular drug - you know how friendly it is. It's not sexual, per se. It's just forgiving and friendly and compassionate. You love everyone. You don't want to fuck everyone - you just see the goodness in everyone and you love them. So, frankly, if you want to have some psychotic break, you might as well do it at an ecstasy party. If you have a mental crackup at a party where everyone's on coke, you might have a helluva tough time getting anyone to SLOW DOWN ENOUGH to take care of you. Ecstasy is a very nurturing drug. Yes, it also puts holes in your memory, increases depression, and can bring on cardiovascular failure - but that is a SMALL price to pay for being more compassionate!

What I am trying to say is: walking into a party of people you don't know is always anxiety-producing (at least it is for me). But if they're all doing ecstasy, then you have NO need to worry. Because they will welcome you and love you. And it's not a "love bomb" type thing, where everyone's "out of it", and floating around in some hippie ether (ready to become the Manson family at any moment). You don't become "sloppy" on ecstasy. You're still social. So Jackie, Mitchell and I walk in - and Jellyfish is playing (I still have that CD - and every time I hear it I think of the one night I did x) and our friends greet us rapturously, so excited that we are there. It's a typical Chicago apartment, with a wooden back porch. Most people have congregated out there. There's booze in the kitchen, but not too many people are drinking. They were listening to music, dancing, and watching I Love Lucy, reciting the lines in unison. Nothing scary here. Never saw a scene like THIS in Go Ask Alice, did you?? No, I didn't think so. Not a hippie gang-bang in sight.

Mitchell, Jackie and I - laughing at how immature and "bad" we are being - down our pills in the kitchen. We each get one apiece. And then we wait. To see what will happen. We mingle. We talk. Nothing really happens at first. I have a beer. Maybe I feel buzzed, but nothing out of the ordinary. I probably feel buzzed because one beer does not mix well with 10 sunflower seeds and 2 Snapples, which is all I have consumed for the last 24 hours. Eventually we end up out on the back porch. It's a cool summer night. The music is soft, people are chatting, it's a lovely party. I sit on the steps with my friends, and we talk. Not about anything in particular, just having fun. And I suddenly start to feel very weird. There's a sense of vertigo, first of all - so bad that I have to hang on to the railings of the porch steps. And once I hang onto them, the porch literally begins to fly around in a circle, and I am holding on for dear life. I close my eyes, trying to breathe through it - but the porch is whirling too fast, I can't keep up. Obviously, the fact that I am clutching a stationary porch railing, huddled down against the hurtling wind - calls attention to itself - because, uhm, the porch isn't actually moving. So Jackie says, "Sheila?" And that is when I lean over the side, and vomit up my 10 sunflower seeds. There's nothing to vomit, so the scene is not pretty. I immediately get very very sick. If I had had any food in my damn anorexic stomach, the whole thing might have passed quicker. A lot of people vomit at first when they do x (or mushrooms) - and then it passes. But I had nothing to come up. I was sick as a dog.

Now I don't know anyone who LOVES to vomit. But I have an almost pathological embarrassment about it, and is one of the main reasons why drinking to that excess is such a rare occurrence in my life. It's probably happened - 10 times? Maybe 15? And the majority of the vomiting occurred with my first experiments with alcohol, in the first 2 or 3 years. Like I said: I learn quickly. I don't drink to get drunk, anyway - I like a buzz, oh you bet I do, but being drunk is terrible (for me). I hate hate hate losing control, especially in public. It's like I go right back into high school, where I'm made fun of by the bitches in the cafeteria, and when I trip - they laugh hysterically. That's what it feels like when I get drunk enough to vomit. I don't feel like I will be forgiven. It's that whole "wrongness" thing coming over me. Everyone has vomited before. It is not a singular experience. But when I'm in it, and I'm in pubic - it feels like I have invented the entire thing, and everyone looks askance at me, like, "God. Is she like this all the time?"

So even though I was with my dear dear friends, I was HORRIFIED.

They, high on ecstasy, were full of love and non-judgment for me and my vomiting. They huddled over me, rubbing my back, getting me water. And I didn't vomit just once. I got sick as a dog. It was a freakin' scene. And dammit, why did that porch keep flying around like that? Couldn't it stay still? Give a girl a break!

I started crying at some point. And my friends helped me up the steps and took me into the bathroom. Mitchell, naturally, joined. So yes. I was "that girl". "That girl" that you see at parties: too drunk, and weeping in public. It was so funny, I was agonizing about it to my friend afterwards - because she was a relatively new friend, I was so afraid that she would be turned off by it - and she said, "Oh my God, how many times have I been 'that girl'!! Last night it was just your turn, that's all!" We stayed in the bathroom for probably an hour. I was OUT. OF. CONTROL. The vomiting had stopped, but the crying had started, and once it started - I could not stop.

People, I cried for 4 hours. STRAIGHT.

So much for being 'FINE' about that letter, huh?

I was hysterical. I remember my new friend sitting on the closed toilet seat, and Mitchell and Jackie perched on the edge of the tub, as I paced around in my Daisy Dukes, sobbing about T., and how much I loved him, and how sad I was, and how my life was over, and how I would never love again, and how angry I was at him, and how tragic it was that I would have my great love at such a young age (little did I know ... sheesh ... careful what you wish for, Sheila) ... It was a monologue of truly Sophoclean proportions. I went through two rolls of toilet paper, mopping the tears off my face. Occasionally other people would join us in the bathroom, to be supportive, to listen, to say what was needed (again, if everyone had been doing coke at this party, and not ecstacy, it would have been a different story). I was "that girl". The "high-maintenance" girl I normally hate and judge! That was me! And usually I can keep myself under SOME semblance of control ... but that night? Not possible. It was a tsunami. I loved how everyone bustled around, being mother hens - slipping out of the rubber room that the bathroom had become to get me water, or a cloth to cool my hot face off, or whatever I needed.

It was only 9 pm. I had HOURS to go before I would come down off the damn drug. Someone made me eat a piece of pizza. I nibbled at it, my stomach revolting. Pizza? Disgusting. I will immediately become obese if I eat this. But they made me.

Now let me talk about the nature of my tears, because it was so interesting, and I haven't really cried like that before or since. At first, yes, I was sobbing - but eventually, the tears became like any other bodily function: sweat, a sneeze ... they happened whether I did anything about it or not, they could not be stopped. Once the first hour of hysterics passed, I was better - and actually could carry on conversations about things other than my lost love moving in with his girlfriend ... I could talk about I Love Lucy, music, life - but the tears kept falling. They fell and fell and fell. I was like Alice in Wonderland, filling up the hallway with a pool of tears. They were unconnected to me, somehow. I didn't feel the convulsive heaving sadness that comes along with grief - not after a while, anyway. I felt 100% normal inside again, but the tears would not stop. It was a natural phenomenon. And thankfully, since everyone was high on x, no one thought it was weird or judged. I would announce to the group, "Pay no attention to the tears. I cannot stop them. Keep talking" and they would! I was OPENLY a lunatic. Normally I'm just a lunatic in private. But on the ecstasy night, I took all that crap public. Good times!

Eventually, though, the tears became overwhelming. It was like when you know a flu is coming on, and it's too late to take flu meds - and you can feel the virus taking over your system. Your throat gets rawer with every second, your nose drips down to your toes, you can't breathe ... it's like one second you were fine, and 10 minutes later you have to go lie down for two weeks. The tears got the better of me. I want to make clear, again, that I was not standing around sobbing like a hyena. I was holding up my end up the conversation, it's just that tears were streaming down my face. So, yeah. That's a legal definition of insanity if ever I've heard one.

I finally felt the need to remove myself from the action. Not that I felt that others were embarrassed by me - because they weren't - an entire cottage industry of Sheila-Nurturing had cropped up over the course of the party. It was just that I needed to go lie down.

I went into the front room, which was a living room, couches, a coffee table. No one was hanging out in there. There were windows on three sides, long curtains over the windows. I could have some privacy, but I also could hear the party going on down the hall. I wouldn't be completely isolated. I piled couch pillows up on the floor, lay on my back in the darkness, and let the tears flow. For an hour. My shirt was literally wet from the flowing tears. I had to wring out the collar, and drops actually fell onto the floor. Not kidding. I didn't sob loudly, I didn't howl, I just lay there, as drop by drop, the tears fell. No stopping that tidal wave. I had to surrender. I could not fight it. I had tried. I had tried to get them under control, but they did not obey. The tears WOULD come. I cried YEARS of tears in that living room. And while I may have consciously been "fine" about my ex-boyfriend moving in with his girlfriend, obviously on some level I was not. And I needed to cry. I needed to cry more than I EVER would have allowed myself to if I had been in my right mind. So for that reason, I am grateful to the x. Because I got it all out - in one night - rather than stretching it out over a 4 month period.

In a funny way - it was an awesome party for me. I did not experience sadness. Or grief. It was not that kind of heart-wrenching thing that happens where it feels like it takes years off of your life. It was a catharsis, in the truest sense of the word. I didn't lie in that dark living room, writhing with psychic pain. No. I lay quietly, never moving, staring up at the dark ceiling, hearing Jellyfish blasting from down the hall, and let the tears fall. It was Zen, man, totally Zen.

Occasionally large groups of loving (read: HIGH) people would come visit me. They sat around me, carrying on their ecstasy-fueled conversations from the kitchen - letting me feel included. Nobody ever talked to me like I should "pull myself out of it" - or "snap out of it". It was all a PART of the night. It was not a jarring note - like I had been afraid it was. That's what happens when you do drugs. Sometimes someone freaks out. So you take care of that person. It's all part of it. The conversation flowed above my head, soft, giving, everyone occurring to me as a loving entity, 100% benign ... I was not expected to participate. It was considered completely normal that they would all be sitting around chatting about Die Hard or something, as a girl lay on pillows in their midst, tears rolling down her face like a runaway freight train. Nothing weird about that. I felt buoyed up. Everything was comforting. Every voice came across to me as a down pillow, a fleece blanket, a velvet comforter. All responsibility was lifted off of me. I did not have to "pull myself together" and contribute. I could barely speak. All I had to do was lie on the floor, in their midst, and cry as I listened to them talk about movies.

It is completely bizarre. But such a beautiful memory for me. If only everyone who was wounded could find themselves surrounded by such a crowd.

Two hours passed. I had now been crying, non-stop, for 3 hours. And there was no sign of let-up. It was a flu of tears.

People came and went. They hung around, standing over me, then meandered back to the kitchen, drifting in and out. No pressure was on me. It was just accepted that there was a quietly weeping girl in the dark front room, and we could talk over her, sit next to her, pass drinks over her prone body ... and then we can move on ... no worries.

And then the guy whose party it was - he was the dealer - and also the boyfriend of my good new friend - came into the front room. Nobody else was there (well, except for me, of course). The FUNNIEST thing about this is that he has gone on, years later, to marry another REALLY good friend of mine - and he's totally successful, and I see him all the time now (well, not so much now - because he's on strike. He's a writer). But how weird and wonderful that our paths would cross again. We see each other at elevator banks, on sidewalks, on the subway ... we've never spoken about this moment at the party. Perhaps it's too weird, I don't know. All I know is: I have never EVER forgotten him for what happened next.

I didn't even know him all that well. He sat down cross-legged behind my head, and gently picked my head up and put it in his lap. I was completely passive. A limp rag of tears. My head settled into his lap. We didn't speak. No words passed between us. He was dating my good friend. This was not a sexual thing, he wasn't making a pass. He was taking care of me. So I lay there with my head in his lap, eyes closed, and as the tears fell - and they came slowly (but insistently) - one by one - he would brush them away. A tear fell. Gentle hand brushing it away. Another tear fell. Gentle brushing it away.

And this went on for an HOUR.

I lay there, my head in his lap, not sobbing (again, I need to make that clear) - but with a steady trickle of tears down my cheeks - and he sat there, hovering above me, ready to take care of each tear ... as it came. One more fell. His hand on my cheek, brushing it away. Another tear. Brushing it away.

We never spoke. He never asked me, "What's wrong?" or "Why are you crying?" He never asked me to explain myself. To verbalize what was happening. It was just accepted that I was on drugs, and sometimes when you're on drugs, shit like this goes down. And you need to take care of a person like that. His hands, soft like wings, on my cheek - brushing my tears away. For an hour.

I will never forget him for that.

And it's weird. I see him all the time now, and I love it. It's always slightly bizarre when I run into him, because our lives are so different now, and a decade (even more so) has passed since I saw him. And no, we never mention it. We talk about the strike, and about our lives, and our work, and stuff like that. But for me, that moment in the dark living room is always there between us.

THAT is in him. It's not in everyone, make no mistake. Not EVERYONE would be able to sit quietly like some Buddha, and wipe away the tears off the face of a girl you don't even know. For an hour.

I remember a crowd of anxious hovering loving people came in to see how I was doing. "Sheila ... how are you???"

I pulled my head up, and I must have looked like Momma from the Momma cartoon (go find an image of that cartoon, and check out her eyes to know what I'm talking about) - and I said, softly, "I am having such. a good time."

And everyone HOWLED with laughter.

But the best thing about it was: I meant it.

The tears were not (as I have said repeatedly) sadness. They were a release. Like an orgasm, which can sometimes bring tears, or something which may look or seem like agony ... it was really just a release. A letting go. I had never experienced anything so, well, ecstatic.

Finally, it was time to go. Jackie and Mitchell helped me, hovering around me as I walked, lovingly, protectively. They were high high high. Ecstasy makes you MORE loving, so they LOVED being all about Sheila. I hugged my new friend at the door, and everyone was laughing, and then - there's a jumpcut. And it's the next morning. I have no memory of getting home. Of going to sleep. Nothing. I was at the party - and then suddenly - it was the next morning. Thank God I had Jackie and Mitchell with me. Because we did, indeed, get home. Jackie slept over. And we all woke up the next morning, still high as shit. We had hours to go before we would come down. The tears had stopped. I slept like a diving bell at the bottom of the ocean. I was OUT. And woke up, fresh and sparkley and new, in the new day. The four-hour crying jag was something I had experienced, but in that moment it felt like it hadn't left a trace. I didn't wake up groggy, or bludgeoned.

In fact, I woke up RAVENOUS. Mitchell was still crashed, and Jackie and I were bumping around the apartment together, nuts with hunger. We decided to walk down to the diner down the street and get some breakfast. I was going to break my sunflower-seeds-only rule and have some freakin' eggs and bacon and homefries. My mouth watered. I had NEVER been so hungry. As we walked to the diner, I remember Jackie saying to me, "I feel so skinny right now." That's one of the side effects of ecstasy - you feel lithe and skinny, you flow through space, you have no weight. I said, "Me too." Jackie said, "I feel like a prancing gazelle." I felt like my jeans were clown-pants - clinging to my hipbones. I was SWIMMING in them. We were gazelles leaping across the savannah. Oh, who am I kidding. We were two very high girls, staggering along the morning sidewalk, who FELT like gazelles.

Jackie and I still laugh about the next moment. We sat down at the table, ravenous. In this, we were NOT gazelles, but lions or tigers. We ordered everything on the menu. Bring us eggs, bacon, homefries, bagels, lox, fruit cup, coffee, OJ, Frosted Flakes, bring it all! I am convinced that my mouth literally watered at the thought of food. Which was quite interesting for a closet-anorexic! And then - came the stacks of food to our table. Ohhh, we were so excited. Ohmygodgiveusthatfood NOW. And once the food was THERE, Jackie and I could not eat a thing. We literally nibbled on the corner of one piece of toast, choking on the crumbs, pushing our eggs around, eating miniscule tidbits, and then washing it down with coffee. We FELT hungry, but we could not eat. Realizing that we were behaving like complete cliches (like: Gee, do you think those girls at that table are high??) - we asked for the check, having eaten one corner of one piece of toast a piece. We slunk away, mortified gazelles.

It took us the rest of the day to get back to normal.

We started talking about my "bad" response to the drug. Why had everyone else been so happy and loving, while I had a crying jag of world-ending proportions? What had happened? Was it my anorexia? Was it the letter I had received? Was it something in me that is different (read: WRONG) than others? That's what I thought. I can be self-pitying, sure I can. I feel outside the human family. I don't "get" to have the experiences other people do. I have to be CAREFUL. Other people don't have to be so careful!! (Not saying this is a true observation, just saying that that's how it feels sometimes.) Jackie and Mitchell had both had a by-the-book Ecstasy experience: an overwhelming feeling of warmth and love towards everyone they saw. But me? I had cried for 4 hours in a dark room. Honest to GOD. Can't ANYthing be normal for me?

Mitchell said to me (and I love this man, in case you haven't guessed) - "I don't think 'ecstasy' the word actually means ' happy'. It's more than that - it's not just about being 'happy', 'ecstasy' has a deeper meaning than that. Your experience wasn't WRONG - it was just YOUR version of 'ecstasy'."

Well, naturally I then had to drag out my dictionary.

What is the actual definition of 'ecstasy'? And yes, I have the same dictionary now that I did then.

Here is the definition, according to the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. A state of exalted delight in which normal understanding is felt to be surpassed: allay thy ecstasy: In measure rein thy joy" (Shakespeare)
2. A state of any emotion so intense that rational thought and self-control are obliterated: an ecstasy of anger
3. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation (Mid-English extasie, from Old French, from Late Latin exstasis, ecstasis, from Greek ekstasis, from existanai, to displace, drive out of one's senses

Okay, okay. So I can work with that. The first definition is what I was expecting, and that is the most common definition of "ecstasy". Joy. But #2 and #3 are almost word-for-word what I experienced that night, #2 especially with its "any emotion so intense that rational thought and self-control are obliterated" (and it's interesting - because the book excerpt I posted today has the phrase "ecstasy of unhappiness" in it - a similar difficult thought).

So what I experienced that night was not "off" or "wrong". It was a form of ecstasy. Ecstasy does not necessarily mean "happy". It means "intensity". It means "obliteration". It means "loss of control". However it manifests will change, from person to person, depending on the circumstances. Not that joy is wrong either. But let's just say that I was the only one crying for 4 hours at that party. But the surrounding love and warmth, and the feather-brushing off of my tears from that kind stranger, helped me to feel that whatever I was going through was part of THEIR experience as well. I was not an anomaly. I was not wrong.

I never did ecstasy again. Small wonder.

And if anyone is ever curious about me, if anyone ever wonders what makes me tick, or wonders who I really am - all I need to do is say: I did ecstasy once, and afterwards I looked the word up in the dictionary in order to verify the etymological roots of my experience.

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