Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

ecause otherwise you have to go into hiding whenever you can’t keep up the act.
I didn’t think of myself as someone who didn’t own her own feelings. I had a few years when
feelings were about the only things I did own, along with three Hefty bags of clothes, deodorant, and
the sound track to Xanadu. I was all feeling, baby. Pour that Grenache down my throat and the
emotion oozed out like vanilla soft-serve. But there’s a difference between blurting out every feeling
you’ve ever had and simply acknowledging the relevant ones. I had two speeds, which often varied
with my blood-alcohol level: fine with whatever, and never, ever satisfied. Where was the balance
between these?
Although I was incredibly good at having feelings—inflaming them with drink and torch songs—I
was incredibly lousy at doing anything about them. I kept flashing back to an argument I used to have
with my ex. Every time I vented about work, he rushed to handcraft a solution, which was an irritating
habit. All you want to do is fix me, I spat at him once. But I never thought to ask—Why do I have such
a high tolerance for being broken?
OK, so: solutions. In late May, I gave notice at my job. My boss was quite generous about this. He
asked if I wanted to work part-time from Texas, an offer I eventually took him up on, but on the day I
gave notice, I only felt relief. Freedom. All those days of swallowing the urge to leave, and I finally
got the satisfaction of coughing it up.
That afternoon, I left our drab office and walked into the weird no-man’s-land of the Garment
District. I texted Anna. “Holy shit. I just quit my job!” I was standing in front of a strange window
display made entirely of old-timey hats. I walked back and forth, jacked on adrenaline as I awaited
her response. I paced a long time. No response ever came.
Didn’t she understand I was taking a victory lap right now and she was being very chintzy with her
garlands? I knew her job was draining. She helped run a legal aid office in West Texas, and anyone in
the business of saving the world can tell you it requires a rather long to-do list. But this had never
been a problem before. Why had everything changed, the moment I needed everything to go back?
I went to a meeting, and instead of performing rehearsed lines, I spoke in a flood. “It’s like my
best friend abandoned me,” I said. “I understand that she’s a new mother”—and when I said these
words, an older woman in the front row let out a guffaw, which left me very confused. It’s humbling
not to understand your own punch line.
Anna called that weekend. “I feel terrible I didn’t text you back,” she said. She had a work crisis
and responding slipped her mind. And the longer the hang time, the more she raised the bar for herself
on the response, which is how three days passed.
I understood. But I also understood our friendship had become another obligation to her, instead of
a reprieve. And because I was holed up on my sad little island, it did not occur to me that she might
be on a sad little island, too. Or that the entire world was full of people on sad little islands: people
struggling with their children, people struggling just to have children, people desperate to get
married, people desperate to get divorced. Like me, Anna was forging a new identity. “You don’t
want to hear about boring mother stuff,” she told me. And actually, I did, but maybe she meant she
didn’t want to talk about it.
I began packing up my things and shipping them back to Texas in installments. I painted the walls
of my apartment back to their original white. I binged on Marc Maron interviews, five or six in a row,
which were like instructional tapes on how to talk to people. Maron had been sober for years. He
was open about himself, and in return, his guests would open up about themselves. The discussions