My 21st birthday was royally horrible by all standards. I nearly flunked a final for my computer science class, and my best friend and college sweetheart was whisked off to the emergency room again. In an effort to make it a teeny bit better, I went with another friend to Buffalo Wild Wings and had some fluffy lemonade mixer thing. I was not impressed.
A year later, the person who would later destroy everything took me uptown and introduced me to the amaretto sour. They later bought me so many drinks at their restaurant in NYC that I had to stop twice on the way back to their apartment, once at the McDonalds in Chinatown and the other time at Atlantic Avenue. So I never drank unless invited to.
While in Washington D.C. with choir friends, we got so drunk on tequila sunrises and wine that the hotel staff called us twice. A silver fox of a gay man once bought me a drink because, in his words, I was "just having so much fun." During November I sip Disaronno straight from the bottle while writing, just enough to make me focus on smashing as many words as possible.
The night Garo left, I went out with the goths, drank too much, and nearly got lost on my way home. I found myself screaming in the 1 station in his neighborhood, coming home to all of his stuff gone. A lifetime later, when I heard that she went out with him a week after she left me, I tipped back some shock top drink and lost myself in lasers and twisty knobs.
Clearly alcohol, at least for me, has always been a place to hide. Works out well when I've always believed the world hated me.
"You're like a fine wine," he said to me last night. "You just get better with age."
And I glared at him and I said, "I feel more like a cheese," but he had me hear him out. When you're in college, fraternities show up with cases of Natty Light and while it tastes nasty, nobody cares because you're getting drunk. In NYC, people do shots at the club or really to celebrate just about anything. Then on Sunday morning they get mimosas at brunch and pour out their stories to their friends. As the socialites get older, they place an emphasis on the best fine wines, spending more money than I could ever sneeze at just to have a bottle.
"You're like one of those wines," he said. "Granted, right now you're probably a bottle you could grab at Gristedes or the bodega for about ten bucks. But you're a wine. You're not Natty Light, and you're not a shot of Fireball. You're at that place where you're refined and cultured. Now you just need to age well."
It caused me to think about it, so I took the analogy further, as I usually do. People are like wine. The variety of wine is determined by the type of grape and the location in which is it cultivated. Therefore, a red wine should not try to "become" a white wine, and vice versa. (I do not mean this in reference to the sex one is physically born with, for the record. I do mean it in reference to the race and sexuality and gender, in addition to other things.) A wine should try to own all that makes it what kind of wine it is, and while it should be aware of other wines and their ways of doing things, it should not try to be what it's not.
In addition to that, peoples wine preferences can vary. Some like reds, some like whites, some don't like wine at all. But that does not change the fact that a well aged fine wine is STILL a well aged fine wine. Other peoples' opinions do not change what it is.
Peoples' tolerances for wine can change as they themselves age, as my friend mentioned. Little kids with no tolerance for alcohol love grape juice, or milk. Teenagers turned off to alcohol power Mountain Dew's crazy marketing campaigns. Some people may never like the wine, and that's fine, too. Some people may try to get away with sipping straight from the bottle or stealing it without paying for it. Never give a bottle of wine to these people, no matter how much you might want them to buy it. They'll take it and run.
But this is also important to remember: you are the wine, not the bottle. Someone can buy a bottle of wine and smash it, either across a boat for a christening or over someone's head to protect themselves. Someone can be careless with a bottle of wine that requires a good deal of care. But it doesn't eliminate the source of the wine. New bottles of wine can always be produced. You are the only one who can set fire to your vineyard.
While I'm sure other people can see themselves as different types of alcohol, I particularly like the idea of wine for everybody. After all, it makes us all the same plant. And no matter what kind of wine you are, from a $10 bottle at the bodega to a thousand dollar fine wine bottle, somebody somewhere will be interested in you. Someone is meant to be a part of your life, to consume what you are able to produce (be that art or writing or hard work in an office building or your volunteer time at the PTA).
Find your people. Sell your bottles to them. If your taste changes and they no longer like you, that's okay, too. Find new people who will enjoy your taste. Let yourself grow and mature into the fine wine you were meant to be, as we all are. And if someone else gets there first, and if you take longer -- then you'll be even more mature and fine when you get to the finish line.
You are beautiful. Own it.
A year later, the person who would later destroy everything took me uptown and introduced me to the amaretto sour. They later bought me so many drinks at their restaurant in NYC that I had to stop twice on the way back to their apartment, once at the McDonalds in Chinatown and the other time at Atlantic Avenue. So I never drank unless invited to.
While in Washington D.C. with choir friends, we got so drunk on tequila sunrises and wine that the hotel staff called us twice. A silver fox of a gay man once bought me a drink because, in his words, I was "just having so much fun." During November I sip Disaronno straight from the bottle while writing, just enough to make me focus on smashing as many words as possible.
The night Garo left, I went out with the goths, drank too much, and nearly got lost on my way home. I found myself screaming in the 1 station in his neighborhood, coming home to all of his stuff gone. A lifetime later, when I heard that she went out with him a week after she left me, I tipped back some shock top drink and lost myself in lasers and twisty knobs.
Clearly alcohol, at least for me, has always been a place to hide. Works out well when I've always believed the world hated me.
"You're like a fine wine," he said to me last night. "You just get better with age."
And I glared at him and I said, "I feel more like a cheese," but he had me hear him out. When you're in college, fraternities show up with cases of Natty Light and while it tastes nasty, nobody cares because you're getting drunk. In NYC, people do shots at the club or really to celebrate just about anything. Then on Sunday morning they get mimosas at brunch and pour out their stories to their friends. As the socialites get older, they place an emphasis on the best fine wines, spending more money than I could ever sneeze at just to have a bottle.
"You're like one of those wines," he said. "Granted, right now you're probably a bottle you could grab at Gristedes or the bodega for about ten bucks. But you're a wine. You're not Natty Light, and you're not a shot of Fireball. You're at that place where you're refined and cultured. Now you just need to age well."
It caused me to think about it, so I took the analogy further, as I usually do. People are like wine. The variety of wine is determined by the type of grape and the location in which is it cultivated. Therefore, a red wine should not try to "become" a white wine, and vice versa. (I do not mean this in reference to the sex one is physically born with, for the record. I do mean it in reference to the race and sexuality and gender, in addition to other things.) A wine should try to own all that makes it what kind of wine it is, and while it should be aware of other wines and their ways of doing things, it should not try to be what it's not.
In addition to that, peoples wine preferences can vary. Some like reds, some like whites, some don't like wine at all. But that does not change the fact that a well aged fine wine is STILL a well aged fine wine. Other peoples' opinions do not change what it is.
Peoples' tolerances for wine can change as they themselves age, as my friend mentioned. Little kids with no tolerance for alcohol love grape juice, or milk. Teenagers turned off to alcohol power Mountain Dew's crazy marketing campaigns. Some people may never like the wine, and that's fine, too. Some people may try to get away with sipping straight from the bottle or stealing it without paying for it. Never give a bottle of wine to these people, no matter how much you might want them to buy it. They'll take it and run.
But this is also important to remember: you are the wine, not the bottle. Someone can buy a bottle of wine and smash it, either across a boat for a christening or over someone's head to protect themselves. Someone can be careless with a bottle of wine that requires a good deal of care. But it doesn't eliminate the source of the wine. New bottles of wine can always be produced. You are the only one who can set fire to your vineyard.
While I'm sure other people can see themselves as different types of alcohol, I particularly like the idea of wine for everybody. After all, it makes us all the same plant. And no matter what kind of wine you are, from a $10 bottle at the bodega to a thousand dollar fine wine bottle, somebody somewhere will be interested in you. Someone is meant to be a part of your life, to consume what you are able to produce (be that art or writing or hard work in an office building or your volunteer time at the PTA).
Find your people. Sell your bottles to them. If your taste changes and they no longer like you, that's okay, too. Find new people who will enjoy your taste. Let yourself grow and mature into the fine wine you were meant to be, as we all are. And if someone else gets there first, and if you take longer -- then you'll be even more mature and fine when you get to the finish line.
You are beautiful. Own it.