Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola
I’m in Paris on a magazine assignment, which is exactly as great as it sounds. I eat dinner at a restaurant so fancy I have to keep resisting the urge to drop my fork just to see how fast someone will pick it up. I’m drinking cognac—the booze of kings and rap stars—and I love how the snifter sinks between the crooks of my fingers, amber liquid sloshing up the sides as I move it in a figure eight. Like swirling the ocean in the palm of my hand.
I’m in Paris on a magazine assignment, which is exactly as great as it sounds. I eat dinner at a
restaurant so fancy I have to keep resisting the urge to drop my fork just to see how fast someone will
pick it up. I’m drinking cognac—the booze of kings and rap stars—and I love how the snifter sinks
between the crooks of my fingers, amber liquid sloshing up the sides as I move it in a figure eight.
Like swirling the ocean in the palm of my hand.
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that unfolded were riveting, evidence that two people, anywhere, can find common ground. I liked<br />
reminding myself what an honest conversation sounded like.<br />
That’s what I wanted. An honest conversation. Not one where my mouth turned in<strong>to</strong> a geyser of<br />
random confessions—my bra fits funny, and I once boned that bartender—but a conversation in which<br />
those superficial details faded away and we dared <strong>to</strong> tell <strong>the</strong> truth about our own suffering. This was<br />
<strong>the</strong> closeness I had always been drinking <strong>to</strong>ward. I drank for o<strong>the</strong>r reasons, so many o<strong>the</strong>r reasons, but<br />
closeness was <strong>the</strong> richest reward. The part where we locked in on each o<strong>the</strong>r, and one person sifted<br />
out <strong>the</strong> contradictions of who <strong>the</strong>y were and how <strong>the</strong>y got <strong>the</strong>re, and <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r person just… listened.<br />
I’m not sure when I s<strong>to</strong>pped listening. Somehow it became my duty <strong>to</strong> entertain <strong>the</strong> masses. To be<br />
always on. I s<strong>to</strong>pped being someone who talked with <strong>the</strong>ir friends and I started talking at <strong>the</strong>m.<br />
Amusing anecdotes, rants deployed on cue. I wasn’t <strong>the</strong> only one. We were all out <strong>the</strong>re on our social<br />
media stages with clever quips and jazz hands. This was not a cultural moment that rewarded quiet<br />
contemplation. A colleague once described our media job like this: “News happened. Are you pro or<br />
con?” Not “News happened—and should we discuss it?” But pick a side. She who judges first wins<br />
<strong>the</strong> Google searches.<br />
Heavy drinkers are also dreadful listeners, because <strong>the</strong>y are consumed with <strong>the</strong>ir next fix. They<br />
nod, and smile, but an inquisition is unfolding inside. How much booze is left? Would anyone care if<br />
I got ano<strong>the</strong>r round? What time does <strong>the</strong> liquor s<strong>to</strong>re close?<br />
I was trying <strong>to</strong> stay quiet for a while. Watching, reading, observing. I forgot what an introvert I<br />
could be. I had drowned that shy little girl in so many 12-packs that whenever she emerged, nervous<br />
and twitching, I was nearly choked with shame. But long before I became an attention hog who yelled<br />
about orgasms, I was a child terrified <strong>the</strong> teacher would call on me, and I needed <strong>to</strong> accept both<br />
extremes in myself so I might find some middle ground. “I think we are well-advised <strong>to</strong> keep on<br />
nodding terms with <strong>the</strong> people we used <strong>to</strong> be,” Joan Didion wrote. “O<strong>the</strong>rwise <strong>the</strong>y turn up<br />
unannounced.”<br />
A week before I moved back <strong>to</strong> Texas, Stephanie and I had dinner. I hadn’t seen her much. She’d<br />
spent most of <strong>the</strong> year in Los Angeles, where her husband was filming a television show and where<br />
she was auditioning for roles she didn’t get, and didn’t tell me about, because it was easier that way.<br />
She asked me how I’d been, and I said scared. I asked how she’d been, and she said lonely.<br />
After dinner, we walked through <strong>the</strong> quaint West Village streets where I came each weekend <strong>to</strong><br />
shake loose my solitude. She’d had a few hard years, and I hadn’t even noticed it. How is it possible<br />
<strong>to</strong> be good friends with a person and miss so much? But Stephanie had such early career success that,<br />
in my mind, it could only continue. Yes, being an actress over 35 was rough, and yes, rejection<br />
sucked, but she was Stephanie. My forever dream girl. Everything always worked out for her.<br />
If you scratch <strong>the</strong> surface on anyone’s life, you find ache and pain. I don’t care who <strong>the</strong>y are. They<br />
can be <strong>the</strong> Queen of England. (Especially if <strong>the</strong>y are <strong>the</strong> Queen of England.) I’d been so busy envying<br />
Stephanie, trying <strong>to</strong> compete with her glow, that I s<strong>to</strong>pped seeing her. I didn’t notice <strong>the</strong> times she<br />
reached out for me. “I need you back,” she once <strong>to</strong>ld me after <strong>to</strong>o many saketinis, and I thought: Wait.<br />
Where <strong>the</strong> hell did I go?<br />
More than a year had passed since that night. After dinner, I brought her <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> bench looking out<br />
across <strong>the</strong> water <strong>to</strong> New Jersey, and she sat beside me, and we didn’t say much.<br />
“I could not have made it in this city without you,” I said. She waved my words away before <strong>the</strong><br />
tears had any chance. Stephanie doesn’t like <strong>the</strong>se speeches. “S<strong>to</strong>p it. We’ll be just as close,” she