What My Hangovers Teach Me About Myself
This past weekend, my boyfriend took me to the opening night of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (still typing this makes me make that stereotypical eeeeeeek face).
I had registered for the presale months ago, gotten the super secret invite code hidden in Sanskrit writing on a chocolate bar that was dropped via helicopter through a skylight in my house, and logged in on the designated day.
Actually, that’s a lie.
Obviously the Sanskrit part, but also I had had back to back meetings the day that tickets went on sale, so I gave the super secret code to my friend who logged in on my behalf. She proceeded to watch a tiny torturous “loading” bar inch onward for three hours (bless her), only to learn sooner or later that tickets were gone and Ticketmaster was being burned at the stake for its egregious misdeeds.
Unfortunately, my friends and I were not one of the chosen ones to get tickets to the Eras Tour. We mourned and moved on.
Then, two weeks ago, I decided to peak online if anyone might be reselling tickets and if they might be less than my car payment or at least not cause me to go into debt. I was shocked to see that they were not only affordable, they were also somehow plentiful.
There were many tickets left the next day when I checked as well, and the day after that, as I watched and weighed the pros and cons of how weird it would be to go to a concert alone (all of my friends are out of state since I moved across the country last summer).
I began talking my boyfriend’s ear off about this, asking but not asking him to weigh in on this conundrum. Should I just buy the ticket? I should just buy the ticket, right? I can’t miss this show when there are still tickets available!
He seemed annoyed and I assumed this was simply because I was being extremely annoying.
Finally, he caved and said, “Why can’t you just be surprised sometimes!?”
My jaw dropped. I smacked him on the shoulder and told him to shut up, as one does. He did not shut up and he told me he had gotten the tickets for me and we were going together and I followed up this news with an even more emphatic “SHUT UP!” paired with a second shoulder smack and then smacked my own hands to my face like a young Macaulay Culkin.
We were going to TSwizzle and I couldn’t believe it.
Video: Clip of “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour on 3.17.2023.
We danced (I danced), we sang (I sang), we cried (I cried).
It was beautiful.
When we got home, my Apple watch said that I had walked over 14,000 steps. I was very proud of this fact because I had been wearing heels, which everyone knows is automatically extra credit. But my boyfriend challenged this statistic with the reality that he had gotten only 12,000 steps and had gone to the gym that morning (I had not), had gone to work (I had not), and we walked the same steps the rest of the night.
My high step count was actually due to me fist pumping for three straight hours.
I am normally a morning person, but I don’t think I need to tell you that when I woke up the next day, I decided to go right back to bed. It does not take much to make me feel hungover, and never has. I have the party stamina of a goldfish.
I knew how my hangover would progress and I knew exactly how I would respond to its progression, because we had been here many times - me and the effects of last night’s beer. When I got to the end of the day, I realized many things about myself that I think are worth noting. So, here it goes:
Stage 1: When I wake up hungover, I usually enter a stage of Denial mixed with Adrenaline. In this stage, I pretend I am not in fact hungover at all and can proceed about my day as planned. Grocery store with florescent lighting and tons of children? You bet! I do eat something because even though I am in denial, I am not a complete lunatic.
Stage 1 is actually preceeded by Stage 0.5, in which I refuse to drink enough water the night before because “it’s too late now,” and I resign myself to whatever happens because I am tired and have made it to my bed and taken off my make up and isn’t that enough?
Stage 2: I do not take an Advil right away when I wake up because my hangover is “not that bad” and I shouldn’t take medications willy nilly. I know I will need to take one anyway in 2 - 3 hours, but that is not the point. We are in Denial and now also grappling with Worthiness issues. It’s not that bad, I don’t need medicine. In Stage 2 I am really just a liar disguised as a health conscious pragmatist.
Stage 3: After I decided to go and go for a few hours, I realize that I do, in fact, need that Advil (because I always did) and I do need to nix the plans I had for the rest of the day and take a nap.
I conquered Costco with my boyfriend because he had taken me to the best concert of my life and when we returned home, I unpacked the groceries and slept for three hours. When I woke up, I had a very good think about why I do the things I do when I know I could do things differently.
I do not tend to give myself what I need because I have resigned myself to pain - a “learned helplessness” of sorts. This is Stage 0.5 when I refuse to drink the water because I am obviously doomed anyway. It rings a bell, no - a large gong, from childhood during which I decided not to try because what was the point, I couldn’t escape my situation anyway.
Stage 1 and 2 remind me that I don’t allow myself rest and I tend to power through, even though the stakes aren’t that high and I really could take a break or an Advil if I just decided to let myself. This speaks to the post I wrote last week about struggling to sit still and constantly feeling like I need to be productive, even when my ears are still ringing and my throat is dry from all the fan-girling at age 30.
Stage 3 is when I finally concede and just do what I needed in the first place because now my body is screaming for what it needs. If you’ve ever heard the saying, “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness,” um, this is that. I didn’t take care of myself even though I knew I needed it until my body was like, “That’s it! Enough! Close the blinds and stop moving for crying out loud!”
I am happy to say that I recovered without much pomp and circumstance and a lot of sleep and water with that tangerine powder they make for athletes and alcoholics, apparently.
I watched a comedy special on the couch that night with my boyfriend and decided I am one big work in progress and that’s okay with me, because I got to see Taylor Swift.
In case you would like me to spoon feed the morale of this story to you, here I come with the airplane! Say Ahh!!
What if you skipped to Stage 3? Everytime?
What if you recognized that you needed something and instead of sending yourself on a treasure hunt after which you notice you have been standing on the “X” the whole time, you instead just gave yourself what you needed in the first place?
Novel, I know.
I say this with sarcasm because I am also talking to myself. Here’s the thing, you may read this and think “Yes, the alcoholic has a great point. I will do that,” but still struggle to implement what I’m suggesting. And guess what, that is normal.
Turns out, sometimes we really do have to learn a lesson over and over and over in order for it to stick. We really do need to follow the dotted line on our map that tells us to do all these erroneous steps like prove you need the Advil until we learn that that is poppycock. Then the next time, we do the same nonsense and arrive at the same place and we then give ourselves what we need, but maybe we did so just a teensy bit sooner than last time or with a bit less shit and shame.
If you need to do the dance and scoff at your process over and over like me, do it. Do it and know that it’s okay to learn slowly and frustratingly as long as you still learn.
And if you are a fast learner don’t tell me because I will be jealous.
Yours learning the hard way,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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