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Was that ever normal?

i was the most beautiful little fool, especially in college. a four year excuse to have no fucking idea what I wanted to do, and apparently I had to travel half the world to “figure it out”

I come form a privileged white childhood. My dad a pilot, my mom stayed home to make life better. Vacations were the norm, and summers abroad made me feel unique amongst my peers.

It made me sheltered, sensitive, naive and a beautiful little fool.

My senior semester in college, I decided to do a summer abroad in Melbourne. Not that I needed to- I had already traveled half the world in adolescence and spent my first college semester in Prague. But I didn’t know what else to do. So I went. But tonight, I’m thinking not about the places- but about Chloe.

Chloe was a French girl, and like me, she came from a privileged family. She studied just as much as she needed too, but was at the time in life where she seemed to have just discovered that she’s beautiful, and being beautiful was way more fun than being smart. I barley saw Chloe unless we were going out through the downtown suburbs at night, looking for trouble, but I just adored her. She always wore bright red lipstick, had a glimmer in her eye when she talked to men, and had a nasty tobacco habit that looked strangely good on her. She spoke in broken English but her French accent made it sound appealing.

There was one night, we were in one of the outer suburbs in Melbourne. I think it was early on a weekend night, or maybe a Thursday. We were waiting for another friend to come meet us. Chloe had a mantra of buying the cheapest bottle of red wine she could find at the nearby trolley stop, and downing the bottle before entering a bar. She would do this often, and sometimes, she’d get so drunk, the bouncer would recognize her from the day before and we’d have to try another bar.

This particular night, we waited at the tram station for another friend, (or maybe we were just busy downing our bottles) and we spent so much time laughing. I remember feeling insecure about drinking street side. Dirty. Foolish. Guilty. But we just laughed. We got drunk so many times before, and blamed our dads for our drinking. “That’s why girls drink, you know! Daddy issues!” We’d agree. And then we laughed some more. I’d laugh so hard I’d put my head on her lap. We’d see cops drive by and we’d hide our bottles in our coats. No one ever bothered us. I don’t know why I drank like that, and I wasn’t quite sure why she drank like that. It never seemed to matter. But I think deep down, it did matter, and I always hope the friends I drank with on those city streets are doing well. Sometimes I even remember club conversations with strangers, and hope they’re doing well. The people I barely knew, but whose energy I felt so deeply. Is that humanity? Or insanity?

But tonight, it’s 2020, I’m 25, I never drink but I had a craving for red wine. It was the cheapest bottle on the shelf, it’s an Australian wine, and it makes me think of Chloe. And how we were fools. How the time flies. And how I wouldn’t have spent my foolish youth any other way.