The Drunk Introvert

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

If there’s anything I am, it’s that I’m not a party girl. I am mostly an introvert hiding behind a book or my iPod screen, reading, a stargazer, a sunlit-sky drinker, a moment embracer watching dust float against the sunlight, a trying hard wind catcher. I need a day alone in my room to recharge for the coming days of facing people, a silent time to myself to and from a destination. I keep a handful of friends from each season of my life and try to connect with them every so often.

I’ve let myself grow out of my comfort zone as the years pass by. I try to meet new people and pushed myself to do a job that requires me to talk to new ones every time. So far, I’ve grown to love what I do; it’s a new adventure with every person that I meet — that’s what keeps me going.

But something happened the last night I was at the club with my teen-hood friends. It amazes me and cannot believe it still.

I loved it — the party animal in me.

It only took four shots of the bitter, throat-burning tequila to whisk me away to neverland. I didn’t even know how to drink it so my friends showed it to me — salt, shot, bite the lime. It was pretty hilarious. They were kind of pissed already when I got there so I drank my shots one after the other. The effect was pretty quick — the rest was a hazy memory.

We were five girls and a guy for a chaperone. I remember my body separating from my brain, my thoughts so loud inside my head. I remember thinking that I still hate the guys preying for girls to take home like chinese food for the night, still thought of my bag, worried about the girls like I’m mom, and still remembered how to pee.

Best of all, I still remember my favorite moments of the night. There were a lot of head bangs and a lot of hair flips from my end. I can’t remember the songs but I gibbered a lot of unknown lyrics (the ones that I’ve written on my mind). There was chaos, all inexplicably wild, warm, fun, and freeing. I felt like a new person leapt out of me, the one who has been hiding in all my 23 years of existence, right there, facing me. There were a lot of hysterics and all of us were speaking in straight, slang English that I just think was so awesome. There were a lot of drunk, smug faces that I laugh at inside my head, thinking, “Look how we THINK we look so cool. Ha!”

Then there was this moment. The one of our many group bear hugs, where I felt intimately connected — me screaming in my head, eyes shut, losing myself to the electric beats of the worldly music. Hugging my friends meant embracing my childhood, a time machine to where all things were simpler and everything was a laugh away. Arms to waists, arms to shoulders, I’d gone back in time and returned to earth, ending the ear-splitting scream that only I could hear. There, in that moment, I felt infinite.

We ended the night finding the unknown direction to McDonald’s for our acidic stomach’s sanity. We were okay after awhile and got home nearly at 5AM. The supermoon was up, bulging so enormously, gawking at us like it wants to eat us, all in its strange, yellow glory. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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