One of my friends told me that maybe I needed to drink a little before writing so I could loosen up and not worry about every single syllable I committed to the page.

I don’t think this is what he meant. But maybe it’s what I meant.

From what I understand, I keep dodging the bullet when it comes to alcohol poisoning. For reference, this past Friday, I probably downed a minimum of fourteen shots of bottom-shelf whiskey. In the previous week, all in one night, it was probably closer to seventeen. No ice, minimal chaser, and a mostly empty stomach both times without any sort of hydration until after the fact. My drinking buddy (who is an Irish manly-man) says that it’s insane that I can keep up with him, and he’s practically an alcoholic so it doesn’t make sense that a virtual tee-totaler can match him drink for drink. Maybe it’s the eighth of me that’s Irish that keeps me going like that, I don’t know. When it comes down to it, it’s not important.

I don’t remember much from when I was picked up, and I woke up on the couch disoriented and still drunk. Nick told me many stories about how crazy I was and that he’d never seen me like that, and the whole time I wished I could remember. My glasses are broken and my ankle hurts and there are many new dents in my phone. There is apparently an entire hour of my life that I’m not sure actually existed, and two more that I can barely make out. How can I lose a whole hour? Can I get it back somehow?

When I sleep after a night of drinking, I dream about traveling through time.

Sometimes it’s just so I can make sure I check my pockets before I wash my pants, and others I’m just watching myself do mundane things like read a book or wait for the bus. Once I watched myself cry in my sleep, and when I woke up I was confused as to why my face was already dry.

Most of the time, though, I hop in my time machine and zoom back to some point in my life and scream at myself to just say something, but dreams and time machines are both fickle things, and not once have I heard myself. And so life goes on.

I always wake up the next morning and check my phone to see how many people I’ve accidentally woken up: it’s as if I’ve got to play catch-up on all of the guilt and regret that I slacked off on the night before. Have I said something foolish? How many words did I mistype due to my thumbs moving faster than my mind? I obsess so much about these little things, and it’s a wonder that I can even find it in myself to enjoy anything this much, alcohol or no.

When I’m drunk, I feel weightless. Normally, all the things I want to say bog me down and I carry every word with me in my mouth, shards, fragments of thoughts and instead of just spitting them out I swallow them, unable to let them go. I pause for as long as a minute sometimes, considering each phrase that comes out before actually saying anything, out of worry that my intentions will be lost behind one misplaced word. I’m not talking about avoiding double entrendres and innuendos and the ilk, either, but just in plain conversation. Those who know me best are the ones that hear me speak before thinking, who I let in enough to see those ideas form and coalesce before they turn into proper missives, hearing me stutter and say things I shouldn’t and wish I’d want to take them back knowing full well it’s more honest than most of what I’d normally say anyway.

It’s hard not to think too much — I hyper-analyze everything I encounter, generally sucking most of the whimsy and fun out of it. However, if alcohol is what I need to suppress those parts of me, then maybe I’m not meant to suppress them. Maybe I’m meant to be like this.

I have to wonder, though, if somewhere behind me there’s an invisible time machine, and inside of it Future Me is yelling at me not to post this, pleading with me to change my mind.